Blue Jays Discussion: Off-Season Madness the 13th: Report - Dickey extended, trade just pending physicals

[Cor]

That's not his knuckleball, that's his fastball.

He throws a fast knuckleball and a smaller one. I don't know if the fast one is that fast though

 

[TheOtherSide]

Scott Miller CBS Sports (on fan590)
Dickie throws an "angry knuckleball" at around 86 to 89mph

wait what???

well anyway. I would like to know what the odds would be set at for someone on the Jays throwing a no hitter this year??

Dickey threw a couple 1 hitters, Morrow has been I believe 1 out away, Johnson could, Buehrle has done it twice...Romero, I guess could...

 

[Eyedea]

JP's performance matches that of mid range catchers while having a low salary and potential for improvement.

Doesn't Fangraphs have Jesus Montero with a negative WAR?

Would John Jaso, Ryan Doumit, Russel Martin or Jarrod Saltalamacchia be upgrades?

Montero was terrible offensively, especially for an offensive "catcher", which I'm pretty sure he will now be used specifically as a 1B/DH.

And wow, yes, give me Jaso over Arencibia please. Dude has elite plate discipline.

He throws a fast knuckleball and a smaller one. I don't know if the fast one is that fast though

His fast knuckleball averages 76, his fastball (which he uses around 10-15% of the time) averages about 84 mph.

 

[GoHardSports]

He throws a fast knuckleball and a smaller one. I don't know if the fast one is that fast though

No, his knuckleball isnt 89mph. At the absolute max it can reach 83mph but sits in the 77-80 mph range. He does have 2 knucklers though. His other knuckler he lobs in at mid-60s, similar to a Tim Wakefield knuckleball.

 

[rojac]

What is a "major league source"?

Could be a beat writer for a major league team or someone who works for one.

I'm still not completely convinced we have the true details of the trade.

I just said that it would seem to confirm that both D'Arnaud and Syndergaard are in the deal, not that it confirmed any other part of it.

I would think a major league source would be someone who works for a major leauge team or the league itself -- I wouldn't use that term for a beat writer.

 

[Bjorn Le]

Montero was terrible offensively, especially for an offensive "catcher", which I'm pretty sure he will now be used specifically as a 1B/DH.

And wow, yes, give me Jaso over Arencibia please. Dude has elite plate discipline.

About the only thing. Seems like Jaso is a worse defensive catcher, his power numbers look good last year, but they're an outlier, raw stats don't support them either. He's never had more than 404 AB in a season and before moving to Seattle he was one of the worst catchers in the league in 2011. Would you rather have Arencibia's 30 homerun potential or Jaso's .350-.390 OBP but worse everything else?

I doubt Jaso can repeat his near .400 OBP, his power from last season (Only average anyway) is an outlier, his defensive stats are worse than JPA's, he's older, less likely to improve defensively/offensively. I don't know why you would want Jaso. On base percetange isn't everything. People here criticize JPA for being one dimensional, well Jaso is even more so.

 

[Sokil]

Fair enough, I get what you're saying. Maybe calling him a clutch hitter isn't right because there is not stat that clearly shows clutch hitting.

However, to say so far in his career, he comes through when he can drives run in, would be appropriate, I guess.

It's called a batting average with runners in scoring position. Baseball reference has en entire 'clutch stats' breakdown for different situational hitting, if you'd like.

 

[Canada4Gold]

I just said that it would seem to confirm that both D'Arnaud and Syndergaard are in the deal, not that it confirmed any other part of it.

I would think a major league source would be someone who works for a major leauge team or the league itself -- I wouldn't use that term for a beat writer.

could the Mets be leaking incorrect info though? I'm not sure what the point of that would be since the deal is basically done at this point.

 

[Clark4Ever]

 

[captn]

It does seem very strange that info has leaked for several days. AA usually keeps everything top secret until it's done.

 

[91Kadri91*]

About the only thing. Seems like Jaso is a worse defensive catcher, his power numbers look good last year, but they're an outlier, raw stats don't support them either. He's never had more than 404 AB in a season and before moving to Seattle he was one of the worst catchers in the league in 2011. Would you rather have Arencibia's 30 homerun potential or Jaso's .350-.390 OBP but worse everything else?

I doubt Jaso can repeat his near .400 OBP, his power from last season (Only average anyway) is an outlier, his defensive stats are worse than JPA's, he's older, less likely to improve defensively/offensively. I don't know why you would want Jaso. On base percetange isn't everything.

He's not worse defensively. Jaso has the nearly the exact same defensive rating as Arencibia, and he's played more games. They're basically a wash defensively at the moment.

Career wise, Jaso has been much better offensively, and was much, much, much better last year than Arencibia. Arencibia has a career 89 wRC+, while Jaso has a career 116 wRC+. They're really not that close offensively.

One thing I will give you is that Arencibia has a greater chance to improve to the point where he can hopefully be better than Jaso defensively. I wouldn't count on Arencibia posting a wRC+ of 116 in a season, never mind as a career average, though.

 

[91Kadri91*]

It's called a batting average with runners in scoring position. Baseball reference has en entire 'clutch stats' breakdown for different situational hitting, if you'd like.

Clutch hitting is a myth. Feel free to look through the thread to find Nemesis' post explaining how it's a myth, if you so please.

 

[Sokil]

Clutch hitting is a myth. Feel free to look through the thread to find Nemesis' post explaining how it's a myth, if you so please.

it's not a myth, someone either pulls it off often or they don't.

 

[Cool Beans Man]

wait what???

well anyway. I would like to know what the odds would be set at for someone on the Jays throwing a no hitter this year??

Dickey threw a couple 1 hitters, Morrow has been I believe 1 out away, Johnson could, Buehrle has done it twice...Romero, I guess could...

I've always thought Morrow will through a no-hitter in his career. His stuff is too nasty. If it's right on one day, and with a little luck (like the almost one last time) he will.

 

[91Kadri91*]

You haven't offered up anything to support this. The people who disagree with you have come back with scads of evidence and supporting information to attempt to validate their point. You should be able to do the same if what you say is true.



Nope. Hutch was hurt after Drabek, and he held out after he got hurt before deciding to get surgery. It'll be much later in the season if he's even considered to return, if at all in 2013.





The evidence bears out over the long term. Once you accumulate any significant sample size on a player in clutch situations, their hitting stats tend not to look a whole lot different. I firmly believe that the opposite of clutch, that there are people who collapse under pressure and will perform poorer when the screws are tightened, but all the evidence in the world that's been collected on MLB hitters indicates that clutchness only exists insofar as that your best hitters will tend to still be your best hitters when it matters. And that while there may be guys who have better RISP or other clutch stats, it's usually on a small sample size or random chance.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/374519-the-clutch-myth-and-why-we-buy-into-it

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2656

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1031582/index.htm

http://npinopunintended.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/the-myth-of-clutch/

http://blog.kir.com/archives/2007/04/the_myth_of_clu.asp

http://www.theeagleonline.com/sports/story/time-to-dispell-the-myth-of-clutch-october-players/

http://www.athleticsnation.com/2005/10/23/234743/73

and for a little more snarky take on the matter:

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2007/04/i-know-im-going-to-make-fun-of-someone.html

I could go on. The point is that clutchness exists because the narrative created around the game ascribes it to performances. It's real because we make it real. And we make it real because that narrative has always existed and we buy into it. If Derek Jeter gets a hit in the 1st inning with a guy on 3rd and the score 0-0, it's just Jeter getting another hit and we think little of it in terms of its overall impact. If that same hit were in the 8th inning, we attribute it to Jeter's clutchness rather than just the fact that he's a damn good hitter.

As more than one of those links above say "clutch hits exist. Clutch hitters do not."



irrelevant. As I said, if you filter the results by PA to try and normalize them, Arencibia only moves up 1 spot. and on the whole the order doesn't really change all that much.

Buster Posey was tops on both raw and normalized WAR lists. His WAR was 8.0 in 610 PAs (0.0131 WAR/PA). Now if you took Arencibia's WAR/PA and extrapolate it to Posey's 610 PAs, JP would've finished the year with a 2.0 WAR. Now if the rest of the catchers on the qualifying list didn't have their PA's change (Just JP), he would move up to around 14th-16th



EDIT: You fixed your post, so I can respond to it properly and say that you need to look to the host of sampled links I posted above to see that there's a whole lot more response than "it doesn't exist." There's evidence. Heaps of it.

FWIW I found 1 link that says it has evidence on clutch hitting being true, but the link offers up little meat from the actual study and I'm not really sold on all the methodology (the guy included sac flies and other things I wasn't keen on using). It's also not a baseball publication/site.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050506140903.htm

it's not a myth, someone either pulls it off often or they don't.

There's Nemesis' post. Read some of the articles provided and then get back to me and give a logical explanation as to how clutch is not a myth.

 

[p.l.f.]

hehe thats what he said (scott miller cbs)
i think he meant "76-79mph"
with a fastball mid high 80's

something about thole saying he throws high knuckler for strikes 5 out of tens times

 

[The Nemesis]

JP's performance matches that of mid range catchers while having a low salary and potential for improvement.

he may improve, yes. But that wasn't the argument. The argument was that he is presently and currently, an average-to-above-average catcher. The evidence says otherwise. And while he may still improve his defence somewhat, it's probably not likely to improve significantly from where it is now. He's also probably not going to suddenly massively cut down on his K rate or propensity to chase pitches (as a parallel, pre-breakout Jose Bautista already possessed the same discipline he has now. If anything, he's more prone to swing out side the zone now than he was. But even still it's far, far below JP's swing rates)

Doesn't Fangraphs have Jesus Montero with a negative WAR?

Yep. Although it was barely negative (-0.2, which is basically irrelevant) it was with good reason. Montero started a lot of games as a DH, which provides no defensive value into WAR, and then for the games that he was a catcher, he was awful defensively. He also didn't exactly have a great year offensively either (mediocre slash lines, 15 HRs not much production). That was the concern with Montero since he's been a prospect: that he didn't have it in himself to play a fielding position, which meant that his entire value rested on his bat.

Would John Jaso, Ryan Doumit, Russel Martin or Jarrod Saltalamacchia be upgrades?

Doumit maybe yes (he's also a switch hitter, which is nice). Martin no (he's on a career downswing), Salty probably not (he had more power than JP, but that may very well be a fluke and otherwise he's very similar in profile to JP), Jaso also probably not (power spike for him last year too that props up his SLG and thus OPS. the rest of his career is similar to or worse than JP).

Also none of these guys are all that good defensively, which is where a lot of the value above JP would come from.

 

[Sokil]

There's Nemesis' post. Read some of the articles provided and then get back to me and give a logical explanation as to how clutch is not a myth.

A point but not a strong one. Fact still remains and he even admits to it. Some players aren't clutch and fall apart under pressure, others handle the pressure and maintain their ability; others may overachieve but there's small sample sizes so blah blah blah.

Much ado about nothing.

 

[AndMat*]

The Nemesis Wants Dickey to **** all over his face.

 

[Bomber0104]

So this means JP and the new guy are our catchers for the indefinite future?

FML!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Bomber0104]

150 people on this thread right now. Impressive.

Hopefully the interest carries on over to the Skydome.

 

[le_sean]

On the flip side, why is RA Dickey all of the sudden the piece that pushes us into meaningful baseball territory? Pretty sure people were confident a week ago that we'd be in a pennant race into September.

Look at it this way. Dickey is replacing Happ in the rotation. Happ's WAR was 0.6 last year (between Houston and Toronto). In fact, his accumulated WAR over 6 MLB seasons is 4.4. Dickey's was 5.6 just last season; 12.1 in his last three seasons in which he became an established pitcher. That is a huge discrepancy between the two. Not only does it mean much better odds to win the division, but also better odds to get home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

 

[Bomber0104]

Look at it this way. Dickey is replacing Happ in the rotation. Happ's WAR was 0.6 last year (between Houston and Toronto). In fact, his accumulated WAR over 6 MLB seasons is 4.4. Dickey's was 5.6 just last season; 12.1 in his last three seasons in which he became an established pitcher. That is a huge discrepancy between the two. Not only does it mean much better odds to win the division, but also better odds to get home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Best to look at all these statistics in a weighted average over three seasons at a minimum.

Can't infer all that much based off a Cy Young season. That probably isn't going to happen again lol

 

[AndMat*]

So we gotta wait till tuesday?

 

[Bomber0104]

So we gotta wait till tuesday?

Possibly. Sounds like Monday or at the latest Tuesday will be pay day for Dickey.