My concerns regarding our new outfielders.
by EnglishMariner on Jan 28, 2009 2:38 AM PST
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PrintI think it's a positive sign that the new M's front office has decided to sign some quality fielders to roam Safeco. As a Fangraphs whore it seems that pretty much the whole offseason has been geared towards preaching the quantitative benefits that superior defenders bring to overall team win values. It is also true that defence seems to be underrated by some [but not all] organisations, which for an organisation that seems to be ditching payroll, is a smart advantage to go exploit.
However, I have real concerns as to how our mainstream fanbase will react to these players in the outfield. With the exception of Ichiro neither Chavez or Gutz is projected to hit for a league wOBA. My fears are that the casual fan will ignore the difficult to quantify defensive benefits of our new arrivals and instead focus on their disappointing [for LF/CF] production at the plate, particularly Chavez who will undoubtedly be compared against his immobile but good hitting predecessor in LF.
We all know how the average fan treated Mike Cameron, who I see as similar to our two new recruits. I foresee a lot of pressure turning on the new front office from the fanbase and the local media if we start badly - and a growing discontent that we aren't wheeling out Griffey's and his 600+ HR hitting wheelchair to patrol centre field. And if Griffey remains unsigned through the start of the season, well, can GMZ remain strong enough in the face of fan pressure to resist the calls to 'let Griffey retire an M'?
Fans are dumb, but they pay the bills. If we get off to a bad start and attendance drops, then the pressure will be hard to resist for bringing Griffey back. If GMZ can resist this then I think I will be even more impressed than anything he has done as a Mariner so far, and that's saying something.
Thoughts?
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Well
I think these are legitimate concerns. However, it is well known even with casual fans that we are in a rebuilding phase that is not likely to compete. In fact, I would say that the SABR crowd is far more optimistic on the M’s chances than the casual fans are. That means that they can only be pleasantly surprised by a good performance and will likely be indifferent to a poor performance, which will not affect GMZ’s status in the eyes of the casual fan.
Assuming we do perform poorly in 2009 – even below casual expectations – the likelihood of both Chavez and Gutierrez manning the outfield in 2010 is slim, what with numerous outfielders waiting in the wings.
At this point it is so easy for GMZ to meet casual fan expectations that I see only upside to what can occur this year. And if in some unforeseeable case the Mariners have a collapse that puts 2008 to shame, then it matters far less if he decides to cave in to the casual fan near the end of the year, especially if it helps make up some lost revenue.
...and now I'm here
It's like everything else
However, I have real concerns as to how our mainstream fanbase will react to these players in the outfield.
Win games, and the mainstream fans won’t care who’s in the outfield. The M’s are in all likelihood going to be a better team than they were last year, and winning is an amazing tonic.
Fans are dumb, but they pay the bills.
Fans AREN’T dumb. They want to see a team that wins. If the M’s can provide that, great; if not, they’ll do something else.
My fears are that the casual fan will ignore the difficult to quantify defensive benefits of our new arrivals
Of course they won’t. Precise defensive metrics are new even to the SABR-oriented community; there’s no way a casual fan will be able to recognize the defensive benefits of the M’s outfield. But again, who cares? If they win more than they did last year, and they show signs of repeating that in 2010, let the “casual fan” think what they want – they’ll still show up.
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
That first sentence of that last paragraph should read
“Of course they will.”
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
I disagree with this
there’s no way a casual fan will be able to recognize the defensive benefits of the M’s outfield
Many fans, even casual ones will be able to tell the difference between a good fielder and a bad one, and they all recognized the Mike Cameron was very, very good out there. It’s just explaining to them just how much defense actually matters that’s hard.
by seattlebruin on Jan 28, 2009 9:07 AM PST up reply actions
Yeah, that wasn't specific enough
Any fan can recognize it. Few can explain why it’s important.
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
Fans ARE dumb
They ostensibly want to see the team win (and their behaviour suggests this is a genuine desire), but they will criticise the very components of the team that make them likely to win.
That makes them either dumb or insane.
I’m going with dumb.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
So since you're a fan
which are you? Dumb or insane?
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
I never include myself in any group whose existence I posit.
Not all fans are dumb. But taken generally, fans, as a group, are dumb.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
They're not dumb
Just ill-informed
I'd rather know a little about a lot than a lot about a little
Information is dangerous
when given to people who do not know how to correctly understand it. Bad analysis is just used to back up even worse hypothesis. Most complex scientific and political issues suffer from this greatly because people are often too lazy to take the time to research things or even worst think they understand it when they don’t even have a clue.
I feel like the saber community spends about 75% of its resources fighting bad analysis and only a small fraction to investigate new interesting areas.
by Edgar for Pres on Jan 29, 2009 11:24 PM PST up reply actions
The information is available. They've made no effort to learn it, even though they ostensibly care.
That’s dumb.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
These are all valid points, and you could argue that the fan reaction
to Gutz and Endy will be much worse than the general fans felt about Cameron…
We all know how the average fan treated Mike Cameron, who I see as similar to our two new recruits.
Cameron at least made an All-Star team, had a 4 homer game, and a 25 homer 110 RBI season. These were all things that Barry Bentobox (the Seattle Joe Sixpack) could point to as “good”. Gutierrez and Chavez are not power threats and won’t put up those kind of sexy counting stats.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
I don't remember how the fans treated Cameron because I left the Seattle area in August of 2000.
However, I do remember Cameron making that amazing catch out in centerfield the first or second game he played and it seemed the fans were quite relieved knowing he could put on just as good as show with the glove that Griffey did (we didn’t know he was going to be as good as he’d become at the time).
Fans didn’t like Cameron or am I reading this insinuation wrong? I was what we consider a “casual” fan back then and I noticed early on we had someone special to replace Griffey. I think winning as much as we did helped a lot, but even to the “casual” fan you could see the defensive abilities Cameron had early on. And as much as we hate to admit it, but “casual” fans do recognize defensive abilities. People recognize Yuni is not a great defender, even though authors like Jim Street keep piling on the praise. Like PDB has said, fans are not stupid.
(Sorry, abender, this is not all directed at you. Just wanted to ask about the Cameron insinuation.)
The popular take on Cameron
was that he struck out too much. He was definitely recognized for his defense, but usually in a very backhanded way, like “Mike Cameron struck out three times, but did make a great play in the 4th”, that sort of thing.
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
Okay, I get it now.
Like I said, though, I think winning hide a lot of those sentiments toward Cameron. However, it is a legitimate concern with Gutierrez and Chavez considering the team we have now.
Chavez really shouldn't be the starting LFer on a decent team, so if he gets criticism from the fans it won't bug me much.
I do worry about the way Gutierrez is perceived because he was the largest piece in a trade that saw the Mariners give up a fan favorite. As much as I wish it didn’t, the perceptions of the media and the casual fans do matter to a certain extent, and if Gutierrez hits .250 with 10 HR, most casual fans and more than a few members of the media are going to say “Sure, he can play defense, but if he can’t hit who cares? We gave up JJ for THIS?” And that can turn into a popular movement pretty quickly.
I don’t think it’s going to happen, but it’s certainly crossed my mind as a possibility.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 9:49 AM PST up reply actions
He was a starting OFer on the 2006 Mets!
(Of course he somehow managed to be a league average bat that year also)
by JI on Jan 28, 2009 9:53 AM PST up reply actions
I'm not gonna lie
At the time I thought he struck out way too much and didn’t realize how much his defense was worth. Plus he was set to get a moderately big salary and we had predicted ROY Jeremy Reed so I didn’t mind seeing Cameron get dumped. I have learned a lot.
by Edgar for Pres on Jan 29, 2009 11:27 PM PST up reply actions
I have a photo ....
I took opening day (so pre-catch) of a kid who had taken a Griffey t-shirt and with electrician’s tape crossed out Griffey & written (taped?) in “Cameron”….
Not to completely pile on here
but this statement bugs me:
Fans are dumb, but they pay the bills.
You’re a fan, and you’re not dumb. I’m a fan, and I’m not dumb. Blanket statements like this are what tend to keep the completely artificial “divide” between stats and scouts alive. Different people watch baseball differently, but none of them are wrong – there’s no “right” way to be a fan.
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
Cheering for the Yankees is wrong.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
But there are right and wrong ways to evaluate players and teams.
That criticism of Cameron was absurd. It was dumb.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
Evaluating players is not an essential component of fandom for many people though
Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.
I agree with your larger point to a certain extent, but I disagree with you here.
Most fans I know have very strong opinions about players. My dad loves the Mariners and loves baseball but he’s definitely of the old-school mindset. He didn’t think Mike Cameron was very good, he doesn’t think Adrian Beltre is very good and he doesn’t understand why I hate Jarrod Washburn so much. He has opinions about players and he’s not shy to share them with you, but more often than not he’s totally, completely wrong and isn’t willing to listen to my stathead mumbo jumbo. Whether he comes to believe what he believes based on sound analytical principles is largely irrelevant; he evaluates players based on his own set of criteria, and those criteria are dumb. My father is not in any way a stupid man, but as a baseball fan he’s dumb and he’s in no way in the minority.
I’m fine with people enjoying baseball in whatever way they see fit, but as soon as you express an opinion about something it’s open to criticism. If the opinions you’re expressing aren’t based on sound reasoning and (this is the more important part) you’re not willing to listen to sound reasoning, you’re being dumb.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 9:36 AM PST up reply actions
To be fair to your dad
no one in their right mind is willing to spend the amount of time everyone here does learning advanced ways to evaluate baseball players.
Normal (sane) people, just watch the game and develop opinions based on what they just saw in front of them.
Right, but when you've got someone in your ear all the time
and he’s right more often than he’s not, maybe listening to what he has to say wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 10:29 AM PST up reply actions
My dad is an old-school guy too
and Mike Cameron was his favorite Mariner of all time
by seattlebruin on Jan 28, 2009 10:21 AM PST up reply actions
But let's be fair to everyone
First off, Cameron was stepping into a near-impossible situation, replacing Griffey. I think most people around here were willing to give him a chance.
Second, the sort of analysis that showed how valuable Cameron is was simply not available to the vast majority of fans: in 2003, if I recall correctly, pretty much your only online source for advanced baseball statistics was Baseball Prospectus, and their website was (and still is) costly and hard to navigate. Defense as a whole was probably more underrated by the saber community than the average fan, and while criticizing Cameron for his strikeouts was and is unfair, I’d say 99% of the fanbase underrated the guy while he was here, including most of us.
Look, Jeff just showed us a few days ago how we all underrated Jeff Cirillo…but remember too, at the time, we simply didn’t have the tools necessary to make a proper evaluation.
I'd rather know a little about a lot than a lot about a little
Well put.
I remember loving Mike Cameron in spite of his production, because despite the fact that his defense was otherworldly, at the time I thought that defense was of secondary (or even tertiary) importance. I came to think that way largely because of the analytical community; I don’t think anyone would disagree that for a number of years defense wasn’t considered to be all that important. I have my own reasons why I believe this might have been which are best left to another discussion, but the point is that not even the analytical community knew how ridiculously valuable Cameron was at the time because his most valuable skill wasn’t very easily quantified.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 9:42 AM PST up reply actions
Eh, I don't think defense was ever undervalued per se.
Some teams started pursuing bats, other teams got lucky with players that had some pop and still carried some defensive abilities. Then the herd started chasing bats, and what was left on the market had a drop off in defensive abilities. A kind of monkey see monkey do shift in team building philosophy. There’s a lot of holes in what I just said, but I think it gets to the heart of how baseball swings from one end of the spectrum to the other.
There was a time when it seems like defensive abilities were largely ignored by the analytical community.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 9:55 AM PST up reply actions
Defence has been undervalued for a long time
by Graham MacAree on Jan 28, 2009 12:26 PM PST up reply actions
Right. My comment would have been better served as a question.
As in “Why/how do you think that happened, (and here’s why I think it came about)”. I was thinking back on your (?) comments on bad process, and why baseball swings from defense to offense periodically.
Those of us old enough to remember were using Defensive Average
In the mid-90’s. The problem is that it was more flawed than what we have now and it said Griffey was below average in CF so no one around here wanted to give it the time of day.
Not all fans are motivated by the same things
Sure wins are the most important but I bet each fan kinda has his or her own point system.
+/-10 for a win
+/-2 HR
+/-1 double play
etc
We can all watch a game and at least enjoy watching a game even if we lose if there are sweet catches, home runs, and strikeouts. Players who do fun things are more liked by fans. How many times have you heard the joke of somebody’s wife liking the 3B’s butt? That’s got some value to the team.
Wins give the most enjoyment for a fan and if you can make it to the playoffs, that dwarfs everything else and fans will love you. For most teams its probably worth just trying to be the best they can in order to make it to the playoffs. If for example you are Baltimore though and stuck in the AL East I would try to develop the most fun team to watch. Only draft flamethrowers and sluggers, move the fences in 50 ft and maybe get a good defensive SS and CF because everybody loves webgems. Basically turn baseball into arena football’s bastard version of MLB to attract fans to a team that will never make the playoffs.
by Edgar for Pres on Jan 29, 2009 11:36 PM PST up reply actions
I think you have a valid idea that the attendance will drop,
but I believe the reason is due to last year’s performance instead of our new outfielders.
I thought there was an article at The Hardball Times that shows are correlation of attendance to the prior year’s record, but I couldn’t find it. For example, the Rays should expect higher attendance in 2009 than 2008 due to their success in 2008. The Mariners attendance will drop because they were terrible in 2008, not because of their new outfielders.
I also think there will be less pressure on Gutierrez than Cameron in the mind of the regular fan because Gutierrez isn’t replacing Griffey. Gutierrez is replacing Jeremy Reed or Wlad in the mind of the casual fan, so I would believe they aren’t placing unreasonable expectations on him.
"Beer is ... love ..." Ben Franklin
As blunt as Zduriencik seems to be, I'm projecting he'll manhandle the local media.
With the outlet of pre and post game interviews on the radio, and homers like Rizzs asking the questions and giving him time to answer in full, no problem. Some of the local media like Larry Stone keep harping on a lack of offense, which is annoying. With Zduriencik having a few bloated contracts hanging on, he still carries the option of throwing Bavasi under the bus, and claiming he’s handcuffed. He still has some bullets in his gun.
Nice post though, I’ve been worrying about some of the exact same issues. Zduriencik seems to be building the organization I’ve always dreamed of, so if HowChuck do something stupid to assuage public opinion… I don’t know. Not like I can do anything about that, but there’s always the Twins.
I think the thing that makes me comfortable with Zduriencik's ability to handle the media and connect with casual fans
is the fact that on the surface of things he’s an old-school baseball guy with years of scouting experience. On appearances alone he has a lot more in common with Ned Coletti than Paul DePodesta, and that might keep the “COMPUTERS ARE RUINING BASEBALL1” wolves off his trail for long enough that he can get his system implemented.
by Aaron Campeau on Jan 28, 2009 9:53 AM PST up reply actions
FYI, attendance is already projected to be terrible.
Anyone else notice how there have been no stories about how many season tickets have been sold?
At seat assignment day a friend of mine was able to move forward by three rows. Last year cost this franchise dearly as many fans are already off of the bandwagon.
Sounds like a great year to become a season ticket holder.
Don’t have to wait years to get that good seat.
I think it's pretty black and white at this point
If you’re in the “this is awesome” camp, you understand that Zduriencik’s moves so far have a lot of potential to improve the team dramatically in such a short time period. Not to mention realizing that this is one of the best offseasons in ages by virtue of not making stupid moves (bad trades and albatross contracts).
If you’re in the “this is lame” camp, all you see is Zduriencik picking up a bunch of no-name losers that don’t help the team offensively like Ken Griffey Jr. supposedly will. Or, you’re wondering why Zduriencik hasn’t picked up Ken Griffey Jr. since the team is going to suck anyway and it would give you a reason to buy season tickets or something.
So, I don’t have any concerns over the new outfielders. People will either think their cool or won’t know who they are anyway.
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