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Neyer linked to a WS preview by Philly Daily News writer Bill Conlin. Conlin compared the teams the "right way," by matching the players up by their position in the batting order.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (.296 OBP), Conlin thinks Jeter and Rollins are even.

And apparently Howard is better than A-Rod because he won a ring or something like that.

4 months ago The_best_infield_ever_tiny boom_roasted 59 comments 0 recs  | 

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It's funny

because he lays out the “tale of the tape”, so to speak, and then proceeds to pick a winner at random. Howard > Rodriguez but Rollins = Jeter? Both are clearly wrong, but the Rollins/Jeter one is by far the wronger of the two. Howard is a very good hitter who isn’t as good as Rodriguez, while Rollins is a mediocre hitter who isn’t even in the same multiverse as Jeter.

Jeter: 7.4 WAR in 2009
Rollins: 2.4 WAR in 2009

Rodriguez: 4.6 WAR in 2009 (despite missing all of April)
Howard: 4.9 WAR in 2009

by Eric Simon on Oct 28, 2009 6:19 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

One year of WAR is basically meaningless when comparing two players

If you take a 5-4-3 average of both Jeter’s and Rollins’ past three season, you get 5 WAR for Jeter and 4.6 WAR for Rollins. Given that Rollins is much younger than Jeter and is more likely to keep up this pace, it’s not outlandish to say he is as good or better than Jeter going forward.

Howard vs. Rodriguez is obviously indefensible.

by vivaelpujols on Oct 28, 2009 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

But is there an exception

when someone posts such an anemic OBP? Yes, he has been incredibly unlucky with a .251 BABIP, but Rollins has been awful this season.

by boom_roasted on Oct 28, 2009 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

But is there an exception when someone posts such an anemic OBP?

No, absolutely not. There is no evidence that a down year should be given any more weight that others, unless it’s the most recent, which it was, hence I gave it more weight.

by vivaelpujols on Oct 28, 2009 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

But could it be a sign that Rollins could be rapidly declining?

It wouldn’t be surprising for a player at a physically demanding position like shortstop to go through a rapid decline as he enters his 30s.

by boom_roasted on Oct 28, 2009 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

especially when he was really never that good anyway

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 29, 2009 8:40 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Math-wise

I’ve got 5.3 WAR for Jetes, 4.4 WAR for Rollins, so that’s almost a win difference. If Jeter has actually taken a step forward in his defense (he claims to have worked on moving to his left over the offseason) it would ease his decline.

It’s still fair to say that Jeter was a shitload better than Rollins this season. What that means for their relative probabilities of performance this postseason, well, it’s only (a maximum of) seven games, so as usual randomness will decide who history remembers to be the more clutch performer this time around.

by Eric Simon on Oct 28, 2009 10:39 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

please don't use the term "Jetes" again.

We've got ourselves a ball club, the Mets of New York town!

by kingcritical on Oct 30, 2009 9:57 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Cap'n America?

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 30, 2009 10:09 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I'm not really sure the age argument favors Rollins in this case

If Rollins at 30 is comparable at Jeter at 35, even by a 5-4-3 weighted projection, doesn’t that simply say that career Rollins peak is comparable to Jeter’s declining years, rather than that Rollins is a better player to have moving forward than Jeter?

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Oct 29, 2009 12:13 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Well, if you have two players who have performed at comparable levels

And one is 5 years younger, he is more likely to continue to hit at that level. Jeter’s peak was better than Rollins’, but that isn’t really important to who is better going forward.

by vivaelpujols on Oct 29, 2009 12:20 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

But then your argument relies on the premise that Jeter is declining at a greater rate

Which I suppose is a plausible on age alone, but particularly in terms of offense, this really doesn’t seem to be a valid assumption. Rollins had a very distinct peak in 2007 that was, at least offensively, like one of Jeter’s above average but not career pacing seasons. He’s gotten worse in each subsequent season. By contrast, Jeter is coming off his best offensive season since 2006, during which time he did decline a bit in 2007 and 2008, but of the three, the worst was 2008, the only truly “poor” offensive year Jeter had, and a year in which still had a higher wOBA than Rollins’ career mark.

So then the argument comes down to defense, and assuming that Jeter’s career defensive season this year was as much of an aberration as Rollins’ defensive dropoff was. Rollins posted a negative RngR this year for the first time since 2004. Jeter had a positive RngR for the first time since 2002. If those numbers flip back to the career trends pre-2009, then the two even out a bit in overall value, and maybe you can make a case for favoring Rollins. But if Rollins doesn’t regain defensive wizardry, or Jeter maintains whatever improvement he appeared to make this year, I do think Jeter still projects quite a bit better offensively, and enough so that its tough to make a case that Rollins is going to be the better player moving forward. Rollins’ production is almost all based on his athleticism. He hits for power, he runs well, and plays good defense. Jeter may not do any of those things quite as well (though he did play better defense this year), but he wins in most other departments, including ability to get on base via walk and pitch selection, which are much more sustainable skills for older players than those Rollins relies on. Rollins entirely relies on things like batspeed and footspeed for production, while Jeter has skills that allow him to buffer such losses. The marginal hit on Rollins’ production through natural athletic decline is greater.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Mark Himmelstein on Oct 29, 2009 1:33 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I wouldn't say that they are comparable players.

I got the same weighted WAR numbers as Eric: 5.3 Jeter, 4.4 Rollins.

Rollins WAR numbers since 2002 show a clear peak in 2007 and he has been declining since. Jeter has been all over the place. There is not much proof that he is in a “decline stage” of his career.

True, Rollins is much younger than Jeter, but he is still on the wrong side of 30. As Meddler mentioned above, they are different types of players. It wouldn’t be shocking for a player of Rollins/Reyes type that relies on athleticism to decline before and at a faster pace than a player of Jeter’s type.

I made a crude spreadsheet with the WAR data for some reason:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tGaKpnljRe3W9l4t3wyioiA&output=html

by boom_roasted on Oct 29, 2009 2:31 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

isn't this all irrelevant though?

I mean, the question is how they’re going to perform over the next two weeks, not how they’re going to perform over the next four years, so isn’t looking at weighted-average WAR in order to predict likely decline rate somewhat unnecessary?

by JoshNY on Oct 29, 2009 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

You can't really project how a player is going play over the next two weeks.

There are many peaks and valleys in a player’s performance over a season. Who knows if a player will have a good 7 games, a bad 7 games, or a rather normal 7 games?

The purpose of Conlin’s article (I think) is to point out which player is better over each position in the batting order. 3-year weighted WAR is one of the better way to do this.

by boom_roasted on Oct 29, 2009 4:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

but then what's the point of this conversation?

Pedro Feliz could easily have a better World Series than ARod

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Oct 29, 2009 4:34 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Victorino > Damon?

and pretty much solely b/c Victorino stole more bases? How does that makes sense – especially considering Damon was 12 for 12 for a team that doesn’t steal that frequently.

Ugh, this kind of “analysis” is just so, so bad. How do people get any kind of enjoyment from reading this?

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Oct 28, 2009 6:55 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

I am surprised that Conlin is still around.

Guy’s been hacktacular for as long as I can remember, not to mention his ridiculous HoF voting policy.

"He's definitely mixing it into his repertoire. That's French for 'repertoire' " - Keith Hernandez

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on Oct 28, 2009 11:28 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

wow

saw this in the comments:

“Great, great piece by the best baseball writer in America, in my lifetime anyway. Bravo! Especially enjoyed the synopsis on Jay Worth. “Breakthrough Bomber”, “Clutch”. I hear you."

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Oct 28, 2009 6:58 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

i can't tell if that's sarcastic.

it almost certainly is, but i could definitely see that being serious.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 29, 2009 8:42 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

haha Teixeira better than Utley

go ahead diss your one good player!

by Sam Page on Oct 28, 2009 7:20 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

I know right

The ONE that EASILY goes in the Phillies favor he gets wrong. This is the reason I can’t hate Utely, his own fanbase underrates him, many thinking he’s the third best on the team.

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Oct 29, 2009 1:04 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

people are morons.

"I dunno. I never smoked any Astroturf"
-Tug McGraw

by squid92 on Oct 29, 2009 8:43 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

hey if they Phils dont appreciate him we'd gladly take him off their hands

It shocks me how little phillies fans seem to care about this guy compared to some of their other less talented players.

by KeithsMoustache on Oct 29, 2009 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

maybe b/c he's actually good

they like gritty underdogs.

In a way though, I guess I get it. To a lot of fans, Mookie Wilson is the enduring symbol of the ’86 Mets, not way better players like Strawberry or Keith.

"[The Giants] beat us down. We were beat by a grown-man team, a team we want to be like one day. They came in here and took it to us. Out-manned us, out-gunned us. ... It wasn't even close." - Raheem Morris, 9/27/09

by cjmulrain on Oct 29, 2009 12:03 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Mookie is a symbol because of Game 6

I’d doubt you could find anyone who actually thinks he was a better player than Strawberry.

by yellomellojello on Oct 29, 2009 1:10 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

this is kind of the opposite situation

its not that they’ve picked a symbol, its that they ignore a player. Utley seems like an afterthought to a lot of Phils fans, whereas nobody thought that about Keith or Straw. Maybe its just my perception from the outside, but it seems like Phillies fans dont really appreciate what this guy brings to their team.

by KeithsMoustache on Oct 29, 2009 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Ryan Howard is more of a personality...

Howard is in commercials, he’s affable in interviews, he’s always smiling and seemingly having a good time, he does the little “I got all of that” pose after he knows he just crushed one and SportsCenter plays it over and over, etc etc etc.

Utley is kind of boring – You never see any flash whatsoever. He’s just a guy that goes out, plays hard, quietly produces, and stays away from the limelight.

And I think that’s where this perception comes into play where people think that Howard is the better player, or even think that the true Phillies fans would say the same thing.

But the reality is… If you ask ANY true Phillies fan if they had do a Sophie’s Choice thing (if they had to choose between losing Howard or losing Utley), Howard would go, period. And that’s not to take anything away from Howard at all – When you’ve put up at least 45 homers and 136 RBI in every full season of your career and have an MVP to your credit, you’re quite clearly one of the best in the game.

“Afterthought” is the wrong term, but I wouldn’t argue if someone were to say we sort of take him for granted.

by Bye, Dawk :( on Oct 29, 2009 4:15 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

This makes sense

The writers in Philly, as well as the radio/TV buffoons, think Howard is their best player and significantly better than Utley.

by Balagast on Oct 29, 2009 11:53 AM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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