2011 Saber Porn Of The Year
by James Kannengieser on Nov 15, 2011 2:00 PM EST
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PrintIt's mid-November, the time of year when the BBWAA hands out its end-of-season awards, and countless columns about the meaning of the word "valuable" are composed. It's also time for the second annual voting on the Moneyballs Award For Achievement In Sabermetric Porn. Last year's runaway winner was Cliff Lee, for his astounding 10.28 K/BB ratio. Lee followed that up with a 5.67 K/BB ratio and is not among the nominees this year. His reign as saber porn king has come to an end.
Here are this year's nominees. Cast your vote in the poll below. Whose performance was most saberly erotic?
- Bobby Abreu's MLB-best (for qualifying hitters) 19.6% O-swing%. The man has no power left but can still get on base.
- Jose Bautista.
- Chris Capuano's 13-strikeout, 0-walk, 2-hit shutout of the Braves on August 26th. Cap's performance earned an MLB season-best game score of 96. His FIP for the game was 0.14.
- R.A. Dickey's 2.33 BB/9. Tim Wakefield bested that mark only once in his long career, 2.31 BB/9 in 2010.
- Jacoby Ellsbury, for having the highest fWAR of any position player with positive numbers in all four fWAR components (batting, defense, baserunning, positional adjustment). Ellsbury also happened to have the highest fWAR in all of MLB.
- Roy Halladay's 6.29 K/BB ratio. Yawn, compared to 2010 Lee at least.
- Kenley Jansen's 16.10 K/9. He's Carlos Marmol with better control.
- Ian Kinsler's +11.5 EqBBR. This stat deemed him worth 11.5 runs more on the basepaths than an average baserunner. Kinsler had a saber-oh-face worthy 88% success rate stealing bases.
- Jonny Venters' 72.5% groundball rate. He allowed just 28 flyballs in 88 innings pitched.
- Matt Wieters' +15.2 runs catcher defense rating according to Beyond The Boxscore, far above Miguel Montero's second place mark of +7.8.
The winner receives a one year contract with the leading saber porn studio, Moneyballs Productions.
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I think because I'm on this website, I'm contractually obliged to vote for Dickey
and, quite frankly, I feel weird voting for Venters. But, good god, 72.8% GB rate? That’s amazing.
A knuckleballer with 2.33 walks per 9 IP is insane.
Now, kids, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep; in giant blender.
I went with Venters
According to BR’s way of calculating WAR, he led the Braves this season. That’s nuts that a reliever could lead the team in WAR. That’s how good he was.
Also, does anyone else get the idea that sabermetric stats have a hard time measuring knuckleballers? Just look at the difference in Dickey’s WAR between fangraphs and BR. I’m going to hazard a guess that it has something to do with BABIP being abnormally low with a knuckleballer. It’s easy to make contact, but hard to make good contact against the floater.
Mark Cuban for owner! Save us from the Wilpons!
Than there's the wacky reverse splits for Knuckleballers too.
Opposite handed has better BABIP but terrible slugging. Same handed has beyond terrible BABIP and good slugging.
Abreu's Plate Discipline
Is the Robin Byrd’s Show of SABRPorn.
"RBI’s does measure something – Wins."
-Bayonne Mets Fan on MMO
by Dandy Salderson on Nov 15, 2011 2:48 PM EST reply actions
DIckey
Inducing groundballs at a very high rate, being a major strikeout pitcher, being good defensively at your position, that’s all very nice. Taming a pitch that isn’t tamable? Having a 2.25 BB/9 rate over 383 innings these last two years? That’s eyebrow raisingly impressive.
"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!" Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.
AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 458 posts (08/24/11)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest
by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 15, 2011 3:13 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Thank god he likes hit here
Say what you will about Omar (and I won’t disagree) but he really struck gold here. If his career trajectory resembles that of Charlie Hough or Phil Niekro, he’ll be here for a long, long time.
Still Amazin'.
Jose Reyes is a MET in 2012.
by piazza62 on Nov 15, 2011 3:33 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
To be fair,
Dickey did throw his fastball ~20% of the time last year. Throwing the fastball 93% on 3-0, 69% 3-1 and 30% 3-2 (which is my personal favorite stat of Dickey’s)
Which means he threw the knuckleball ~80%
Factor in the random change-up or whatever.
"Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!" Gil Hodges IS a Hall of Famer.
AA Gamethread Embiggening Record Holder- 458 posts (08/24/11)
3rd Place- 2011 AAOP Contest
by Brooklyn Dodgers Mets Fan on Nov 15, 2011 5:24 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Right,
I’m just pointing out that Dickey would minimize his walks by going with his respectable fastball when behind in the count though to be honest I haven’t checked to see if Wakefield behaves similarly.
by Sokojoe on Nov 15, 2011 6:21 PM EST via iPhone app up reply actions
just looked it up
He does. I guess my point is more the fact that my vote was between gb% and k rate because I felt dickeys walk rate is a product of pitch selection over knuckleball control but could be wrong.
by Sokojoe on Nov 15, 2011 6:28 PM EST via iPhone app up reply actions
When it comes to Saber Porn
What else but Dickey?
I think it's fine.
by NetsMets4Life on Nov 15, 2011 3:23 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
I voted for Kinsler
Wonderful baserunnng is always a joy to watch. As an aside, I don’t think fWAR includes baserunning outside of SB/CS & I think they need to change that.
Dickey would be in 2nd place & jose Bautista 3rd. 2 years is enough time so it’s no longer a fluke to all the haters & naysayers.
What's that about?
FanGraphs added a new baserunning metric this year, calculated differently from the Baseball Prospectus metric
I believe it’s included in fWAR. Ellsbury’s was +1.2 runs this season.
by James Kannengieser on Nov 15, 2011 4:41 PM EST up reply actions
I think that only adds 0.12 WAR
__________________________________________________
"He who gets the best players usually wins" - Bobby Bowden
I wanted to acquire Jansen in my AAOP
so I voted for him. Dickey’s awesome but Jansen’s strikeout rate is pure insanity for a 23 year old who’s only been pitching since 2009.
Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!
You might know me as mistermet.
by Steve Schreiber on Nov 15, 2011 4:29 PM EST reply actions
I think you rigged the vote by putting Dickey in it
I had to vote for Venters. That ratio is nuts.
I think everyone who is voting for Capuano or Dickey is biased
I went with Kenley Jansen. Honestly I think him and Venters are easily the best choices.
Bobby Baseball - The future of Amazin' Avenue.
I said Venters and Jansen…
…but I could easily let you persuade me.
I voted for Dickey
and I am 100% biased
Time to update this: 2009 Did Not Happen. Neither did 2010. Or 2011. Sports suck.
I voted for Capuano
The Dickey stat is really baseball porn – not saber porn. The same is true for strikeouts and ground ball rate. Not all stats are about saber (although gb rate is close).
Saber is about telling you more about the game than traditional stats can and trying to make it meaningful. Saber porn is about using those stats to see something you like. I like that from at least one perspective, a mediocre pitcher on my team threw a better game this season than anyone else. The porn aspect is to say that Cap’s game was better than multiple no hitters.
Good point.
It amazes me that a no-no does not score as well as this one game, I understand why, but it doesn’t seem right.
__________________________________________________________________
Really good kid.A very good player.Not a superstar. #BlameWilponz. Never Forget
by ScottfromPeekskill on Nov 16, 2011 1:08 AM EST up reply actions
Dickey is tha man!
Bautista
105R 155h 43hr 103rbi 132BB 111k BA.302 OBP.447 Slg.608 ~Seriously impressive.
Ellsbury is a great lead-off guy and others had good seasons but Dickey could become a great #2 type pitcher if we get an ace.
__________________________________________________________________
Really good kid.A very good player.Not a superstar. #BlameWilponz. Never Forget
by ScottfromPeekskill on Nov 15, 2011 7:19 PM EST reply actions
To me the spirit of this contest is about
digging into the minutia of the game and unearthing something really out of the ordinary that helped, in some way, to make that player great.
I can legitimately vote for Dickey because that extraordinary control of what is easily the hardest pitch in the game to throw for strikes is totally unique.
Sergio Romo's FIP-
Come on.
I write a Giants blog. I also write for MLB Daily Dish and Beyond the Box Score
I might have to change my vote.
Chamption of the R.A. Dickey Face contest and "Cromulent Photoshopper Extraordinaire" of Amazin' Avenue!
You might know me as mistermet.
by Steve Schreiber on Nov 15, 2011 7:54 PM EST up reply actions
0.96? Damn.
I was expecting something crazy high, like 15.53 or so. And his BB/9 was just 0.94.
"And that's why anybody who invested with Lenny Dykstra should really call that number. Lawyers are standing by."
by BobbyV_Incognito on Nov 15, 2011 9:43 PM EST up reply actions
25 FIP-
Fourth-best mark in MLB history, min. 20 IP.
I write a Giants blog. I also write for MLB Daily Dish and Beyond the Box Score
by Julian Levine on Nov 16, 2011 1:42 AM EST up reply actions
If you shrink the sample size to min. 40 IP
Second best ever.
Same thing if you make it post-1900.
Rey-sign Rey-ass
Logic Your Sense Makes None.
by JoeBighead on Nov 16, 2011 6:17 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Exactly.
Dude was impressive. Of course, I am a little biased.
I write a Giants blog. I also write for MLB Daily Dish and Beyond the Box Score
by Julian Levine on Nov 16, 2011 6:42 PM EST up reply actions
looking at the bars
Dickey is the longest.
Time to update this: 2009 Did Not Happen. Neither did 2010. Or 2011. Sports suck.
Capuano's gem was insane
but Dickey edged him out due to his consistency over the entire season.
However, if I wasn’t a Met fan it would be Sergio Romo’s FIP (0.96), K/9 (13.13), BB/9 (0.94), HR/9 (0.38), 2:1 Strike:Ball ratio, and control of the game around him: No WP, No HBP, no balks, only 6 walks, only 3 SB, no errors, and an 83.3 LOB%.
Rey-sign Rey-ass
Logic Your Sense Makes None.
by JoeBighead on Nov 16, 2011 6:13 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Only five walks,
and one was intentional.
I write a Giants blog. I also write for MLB Daily Dish and Beyond the Box Score
by Julian Levine on Nov 17, 2011 1:56 AM EST up reply actions
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