Fangraphs on Kinsler
Fangraphs takes a look at Kinsler's great start.
almost 3 years ago
Gdawg
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Interesting article.
Thanks to t ball for for posting the “RBiA is a launching pad?” comment before anyone else had to.
I can understand people thinking it’s hitter friendly, but it isn’t like we play in Fenway. Did anyone ever talk about Fenway inflating Manny’s career numbers? No, but if it’s Texas then we must have attached rocket boosters to our god damned baseballs.
Exactly
I’m so tired of that automatic reference. It’s as if every national baseball writer/blogger has that as an autotype shortcut on their computer.
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Nice challenge, t.
Go get ’em!
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Fenway
Fenway isn’t nearly as hitter-friendly as TBIA.
by Adam J. Morris on Apr 17, 2009 11:48 AM CDT up reply actions
You really think so, Adam?
I’m familiar with Gassko’s park factors (mentioned in t ball’s comments on FanGraphs), but I typically go with BR’s. Gassko’s spreadsheet shows Fenway gives up a significantly higher number of singles and doubles (1.21 and 1.53 to the outfield in particular), while giving up fewer triples and homers (0.82 and 0.93), but the Ballpark’s numbers are (in order of 1B, 2B, 3B, HR): 1.02, 0.98, 1.60, and 1.10.
Are you being sarcastic here, or did I miss something else in this data?
Look at how far outside the norms doubles are hit at Fenway
well outside of 2 standard deviations.. .
He's replied to me
saying I’m lazy for assuming he didn’t have facts to back it up. True, but I’ve now replied asking for that data. Fangraphs doesn’t list park factors that I can find, I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just wished writers would offer a bit more info when throwing the park factor thing out there.
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Yeah, his response is a little confusing....
….given that he called RBiA a “launching pad” and mentioned how Kinsler’s stats are buoyed by the park. I think it’s ridiculous to then get defensive about you calling him out on his laziness.
by FuturePants on Apr 17, 2009 12:23 PM CDT up reply actions
Carruth's response is very confusing.
And I just posted over at FanGraphs with some reasons I think so. As I commented there, it’s interesting (to me, at least) that Carruth didn’t consider the park factors for Detroit, or look at Kinsler’s home/away splits for last season, or really provide any particular empirical evidence for his park-factors conclusion ~ in either his original comments or his reply to tball. A citation of Gassko isn’t enough; we need to see how Carruth’s using those numbers to back his claim. Otherwise, very weak sauce.
Thanks for your reply
Here’s what I just posted over there, I’m hoping Carruth checks in later and clarifies:
Snark, thanks for pointing that out, I forgot that Gassko’s spreadsheet was for multiple years. I’d still like to know two things:
1. Why do BR’s park factors show a decidedly less hitter-friendly environment for 2006-2008?
2. Why should I trust Gassko’s numbers more than BR’s or ESPN’s?
3. Does anyone have good data on L-R splits?
4. When talking about what is basically a stupidly hot streak and a very small sample, is there even a point to mentioning the park factor?
We talked about this here in some detail last year, and I remember someone posting some Bill James info that provided splits. Lefties hit HRs at a much higher rate than righties, for whom the park factor was 99.
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No response yet,
and to be honest, I’m not expecting one. Carruth’s reply to you read like a half-hearted, pro forma comment. As you point out, it’s not clear that it makes much (if any) sense to try to attribute much (if any) of Kinsler’s early performance to RBiA park factors. I have to suspect Carruth knows that, and was reacting mainly out of pique… oh, well.
I'd really like to know
if Gassko’s stuff is available free somewhere. I don’t subscribe to Bill James (where I think the splits info we had on this site a while back came from) or anywhere else.
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do you need LSB to help you out with this?
We’ll show him too give snarky replies to one of our members!
By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.
-The Outlaw
yeah
no one gives t ball a heard time but us!!
Grieve: The Yanks have struggled so far. - Lewin: Yeah, cry me a bag of money.
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*hard
I hate my keyboard…
Grieve: The Yanks have struggled so far. - Lewin: Yeah, cry me a bag of money.
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Let's not call me that
Just think of me as a guy that is willing to help out a fellow Rangers fan on the down low.
By 2028, Mark Teixeira will be in the HOF.
-The Outlaw
Agreed.
I get the feeling that most saber writers think that RBiA has a high park factor and that this a basic fact of nature.
“Well, gravity on Earth is approximately 9.81m/s², so the Rangers’ park factor MUST be 111 and change!”
I find it particularly bizarre given that we’ve had so many high-powered offenses over the years. To me, this says that the ballpark is particularly neutral given that we’ve had a historically crappy pitching staff and insane offense. I just get the feeling that most people assume there’s a causal relationship between crappy pitchers, great hitters, and our park factor, and it irritates me that other people, who are so ready and willing to break down other statistical barriers, aren’t willing to challenge their own positions on this sort of stuff.
I don't think it's just most saber writers.
I think it’s all writers. In fact, I think it’s saber writers to less of a degree than the Kurkjians and Gammonses of the world, but still an annoying degree.
The Manny example is a good one. Texas helps hitters, but so do a lot of other parks. But they don’t deal with the “only good because he’s in Texas” tag to the extreme Rangers hitters do (with the exception of the Rockies). It’s pretty ridiculous. And extremely annoying.
This is part of my beef
I just don’t see other teams’ hitters (again, with the exception of Colorado) being discounted in this way. I don’t even see the point of mentioning the park, Kinsler is obviously just crazy hot right now and the park doesn’t have anything to do with it.
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Are park factors broken down lefty/righty?
Because I would guess that TBIA is neutral to RH, but a pretty significant advantage of LH.
Kinsler is a pretty straight pull hitter, and I’d guess that TBIAs dimensions to left mitigate much of the jet stream effect there. But I honestly don’t know.
Most of them are not.
Which is one of my larger annoyances in life. Right behind nuclear war and ahead of burnt toast.
And how many of kinsler's hits have actually been ballpark influenced?
You can split the gap anywhere. According to hittracker in neutral conditions kinsler’s 3 homeruns would be homeruns in 30/30, 30/30, and 29/30 ballparks.
Maybe the triple on wednesday got jetstreamed over the fielder, but hes clearly just crushing the ball in general.
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