Extra! Extra! (5.24)

Todays’ lesson: Speed

After watching the game last night I found it interesting that had Drew logged his 3rd triple of the year and Lofton logged his 5th. It seemed that we didn’t hit any triples after Valentin gutted out that triple during the 12-2 start we had last year. The reason for this was that our genius-of-a-GM (notice the sarcasm) last year did not put any emphasis on speed (and defense, but we’ll cover that on a later date). According to Depo’s quantitative calculators, speed and defense are not factors of producing runs and winning ballgames, respectively. That is the reason why he brought in players like Navarro, Choi, Phillips, and traded/released players like Cora and LoDuca. So, what factor does speed have?

Let’s look at the current team stats:

- We are currently 3rd in the NL in stolen bases.
- The Dodgers already have 16 triples, just five fewer than all of last season. We are currently 2 behind the MLB lead.
- We currently leads the NL in runs scored. Hmm, has speed played an important role in that?

Answer: of course it has!! Let’s look at the numbers alone. You can’t drive people in if they are not in scoring position unless you hit home runs, which is what Depo’s game plan was about. In Depo’s world, all you had to do was get people on base via walk or hit and just leave them there until a home run picked them up. No stealing bases, not hit-and-runs, no pitcher-batter match-ups, none of that baseball stuff. That was Depo’s beef with Tracy. Tracy actually wanted to manage while Depo wanted the players to be puppets in his system. That is the reason he was so high on Choi. Choi stunk at defense, was slow, and he had no baseball intangibles. But according to Depo all that mattered was he could get on base and hit the occasional home run. The sheer numbers, according to Depo, will win games.

WRONG! That’s why you are out of a job. That’s why we killed hundred of rallies last year. That’s why we would hit into 7 double-plays a game last year.

With speed, that runner can be moved into scoring position without requiring a hit. Lofton gets on, steals a base. Nomar gets a hit, Lofton scores. 1R on 2H (1H if Lofton walked). If Lofton has no speed he stays at first. Nomar gets a hit, Lofton doesn’t score. Instead he gets to 2nd or 3rd and possibly gets stranded there. 0R on 2H. Bottom line is that we are scoring runs because we are manufacturing them (Last night, 8 runs on 0HR. In Depo’s world we would have scored less than half the runs we did).

Furcal is at 2nd. He scores on a single. If Furcal has no speed he stays at 3rd on a single, possibly to be stranded there.

Lofton legs out a triple. A sac fly gets him home. If he was to only get a double a sac fly gets him to 3rd, possibly to be stranded there.

Lofton/Furcal are on the base pads. The pitcher’s attention is divided between the hitter and the runner because he doesn’t want the player to steal a base. Pitcher makes a mistake to the hitter and Kent/Drew/Nomar/Aybar make him pay. Pitching beats hitting; we all know that. When a hitter gets a hit 9 times out of 10 it’s because the pitcher made a mistake. The great hitters make pitchers pay for every mistake. Do you think the pitcher is more likely to make a mistake when he is worried about Speedy Gonzalez on the base pads? If Choi is on first I don’t think the pitcher is worried about him stealing 2B.

Another result of speed: staying out of the double play. With speed, the runner from first can reach 2nd in order to provide some kind of disruption to the play. Also, the hitter has a better chance of legging out the fielder’s choice. I don’t recall Choi or Phillips ever legging anything out.

So, there you have it. A lesson on the importance of speed in baseball. Understanding the importance of it can take you a long way, which is why Depo failed miserably. Depo didn’t believe in the intangibles of offense, which is to say that he didn’t believe in:

Speed
The sacrifice bunt
Grounding the ball to the right side of the infield to advance the runner from 2nd
Hitting the fly out to advance the runners on a tag
Making contact on a hit and run
Hitting to the opposite field
Breaking up the double play
The double steal
Baiting the pitcher into throwing to 1st

That’s why Hee Sop Choi will be the poster boy of the debacle that was the DePodesta experiment.

AK,

Depo didn’t use “Moneyball” (notice I never said Moneyball in my piece). He derived his own version of Moneyball and often strayed from some of the basic concepts, which made him a worse GM since he really had no method to his madness.

AK,

I’m no expert at Moneyball, but I am not ignorant to the subject either. I have done research on the subject, about as much as you can without reading the book from cover to cover.

You have to remember that Moneyball was designed out of necessity. I can’t pull the exact quote but I remember seeing that Lewis himself said that you cannot necessarily win simply with Moneyball. Common sense also helps. Moneyball makes you look at certain stats to gauge whether or not certain players are truly garbage or simply misused. Moneyball was designed to field a team of players that nobody wanted in order to win and meet payroll demands. LA is not Oakland. Last time I checked I have not seen a “Moneyball” team win anything. Oakland has done squadoosh in the playoffs and Toronto has been mediocre since the 90s. People make the mistake of thinking that Epstein won using Moneyball. Dude had a $128million payroll and was actually taking the “baseball” advice of the people around him. He didn’t win using only Moneyball. He was smart enough to find a combination of things that worked.

I am not saying Moneyball is the devil. I am not stupid enough to believe that someone is wrong simply because they have a different opinion than mine. I am very open minded and actually enjoy analyzing different ways of thinking. My argument is that no one has proven you can win with just using Moneyball concepts. Some of those concepts have been used for years, such as on-base percentage, but never have numbers been the sole basis of a team-building strategy such as it is in Moneyball. I actually agree with some of the concepts of Moneyball. Why spend $10 million a year for one player when you can get 2 for $1 million that produce the exact same thing. Where I do disagree with Moneyball is the intangibles that it disregards. Certain things you can’t measure. Case in point, Derrick Jeter. He’s nothing special when you look at numbers. But c’mon, as a baseball man you mean to tell me you wouldn’t want him on your team despite his salary? I’d take Mr. November any day of the weak, even over A-Rod!!

Depo was an idiot, PERIOD. To use him in the same sentence as Lewis or Moneyball is ludicrous. Beane disciple or not, he was in way over his head.

My biggest beef with the Moneyball issue is the whole “competitive” mentality. The I-can-still-compete-with-you-despite-you-having-a-$200 million-roster way of thinking. I don’t want to compete. I want to beat you! If that means getting a “baseball” player at $10 million over his “Moneyball’ price then so be it. I don’t care if you played me tough for 7 games; you still went home.

Why did Depo fail: PRIDE. He got so wrapped around the numbers and winning HIS way to prove everyone wrong that his common sense (assuming he had any) suffered from it. The Dodgers were his thesis and nobody was going to stop him from making Hee Sop Choi the example of his brilliance. Dude, you just ripped out you team’s heart and soul by trading LoDuca! For Hee Sop WHO!!!??? What, no “Depo” players around in free agency? I’ll just sit on my butt and let all of these free agents walk while I spend my time resigning Cruz and waiting for the real Depo players to stand up.

Can you tell I dislike the guy? I hope it’s not obvious.

AK, so what's up with my FREE copy of Moneyball that you are going to send me. Need an addy?? Haha!!

MrsThinkBlue,

Yeah, sorry for the long spiel. I never meant to write a thesis, Haha!!

Moneyball is a great read, and totally worth the time. I don't disagree that Depo was in over his head (not that he can't be a GM, but he wasn't ready for it). But Moneyball, and the tenants of it, I think are generally misunderstood (I'm not saying by you guys). People focus too much on the single things that Billy Beane looked at in the book- OBP, power, etc., and missed the larger picture. Beane went after OBP because it was undervalued on the market. He could extend his budget by finding those places where the market delivered bargains, and not overpaying for other statistical outputs that were overvalued from a financial standpoint.

The basic point of Moneyball isn't that you need guys who walk alot, it's to find those holes in the market, to fill a team as efficiently as possible, and not overpay for either reputation or potentially flashy stats that don't help win. Yeah, Beane seems to have his philosophies about stealing and sac bunts, but as a philosophy, "Moneyball" is fluid. As OBP became a high priced commodity, in large part due to the success of Beane, he moved away from that and found that defense (guys like Mark Kotsay) was undervalued. Now they're one of the better defensive teams in the AL (though they're still built around pitching).

The fun thing about Moneyball as a philosophy is that if you have money, it can be really flexible. You can keep the tenants of finding soft spots in the market and finding value, but not forced to give up on players with value that don't come at a discount or are priced fairly. Beane does things his way b/c he has no budget to work with Theo Epstein can find the players he wants, guy who fit into the places he considers valuable, but still hold on to guys like Ortiz who have value no matter what statistical benchmark you use.

In the end, Moneyball is a philosophy about markets, not particular baseball stats. That's why I find it so interesting.

Sorry for the monologue. Like I said, I think it's one of the more interesting subjects in baseball right now, as far as team building.

BK

SM4E-

You know, I didn't think the LoDuca deal was bad when they made it. Certainly not one of the worst trades of all time. It was a steep price to pay, but at the time they weren't going anywhere without starting pitching. I thought Mota was a bigger loss in that deal than LoDuca, to be honest. Great as he was in the clubhouse, he wasn't a very good second half stick through his career, and they needed guys at the front end of the rotation. Of course, then Penny got hurt, so the deal clearly didn't work. Plus, if I remember correctly, the whole thing was part of a plan to make a run at Randy Johnson... which also didn't work.

But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a deal I approved of. They gave up a lot, but they really needed a starter. And he signed Kent and Drew (who I wouldn't have spent that kind of moneyon, but at least for the time being is a big part of the team). Plus Lowe as well, who now that he's past the personal issues that dogged him last year is pitching pretty well.

I agree in the end that Depo was in over his head, but I don't think he was as bad as many. He signed Lima then let him go (the right move), brought in Steve Finley (that worked), Saenz, and did win a division. Even Milton Bradley worked out for a little while.

His biggest problem was that he was incapable of communicating to the media and management, and was far to disconnected to Jim Tracy. Plus, he just came off as a numbers crunching, non-baseball geek who put philosphy and numbers ahead of "intangibles." He was also undercut by the unpopularity of the McCourts (who since throwing him under the bus and bringing in Colletti- a great hire that they made b/c nobody else would take the job- have become more popular).

I wouldn't have given Drew the kind of money he got b/c of his injury history. But if Drew, Kent, Lowe, and Penny, etc. contribute this year to a winning team, it'll be interesting to see if the perception of him changes.

Make no mistake- I think the team is way better off with Colletti than DePodesta, but I'm just not in the "hang Depo" camp.

BK

As much as I loved the Cora/Izzy combo on D, those were two automatic outs in our batting order. We couldn’t keep both. Cora couldn’t hit, and Izzy hasn’t proven he can hit either. He started hot last year but fizzled down to the .260s. I hate to admit it, but I would rather have Furcal than Izzy. Beltre was a one-hit wonder. You had to be worried about the fact that he put up those numbers up in a contract year. I actually applauded that move by Depo (not throwing mad cash at him). He was offered more than fair value yet he chose the big pay day. His lust for money is evident by the fact that he has Boras as his agent. He is getting his just deserved, just like Weaver, and I don’t have the least bit of pity for him.

I don’t like the Drew signing. You SHOULD expect big numbers from a guy you are paying $11 million a year, so anything he is doing now is simply justifying his huge contract. Depo could have thrown that money at a less-fragile superstar, but the bottom line is that he sat around all off-season waiting for HIS players. When they never showed up the free agent pool had shrunk and he was forced to sign Drew. We got stuck with a guy who breaks all of the time. No one has ever doubted Drew as a good player when healthy, but that’s the key: WHEN HEALTHY. That is a Dreiford–like risk we shouldn’t have to take with that much money at stake (hello learning from your mistakes). The Kent thing was easy; Kent wanted to be a Dodger, so that facilitated the signing. Otherwise, Depo doesn’t sign him.

Colletti went out and got the job done. He had holes and he filled them with players that were more than capable of doing so. Even if the Penny and Drew signings pan out, I still think we gave up too much for Penny (as far as that season was concerned) and paid too much for Drew (we could have gotten better had Depo moved his butt in time).

LoLo,

Excellent analysis of Depo's time as Dodger GM.

Lolo,
Getting into this late but absolutely could not agree more with your speed piece and principles of MoneyBall. My problem with the concept has always been that the human element of the game is taken out, (someone used Jeter as a perfect example)of knowing how to play the game the right way respecting the game, I think the oldtimers (scouts and coaches) who are left out of Moneyball, see something in these players that pure statistical analysis cannot measure. Call them intangibles or whatever. Thanks atbat31