Brewers Minor League System

[A. Cavatica]

I assume you mean Frank had 258 plate appearances adjacent to Carlos, 'cause that gives the .434 OBP. The .434 is consistent with his career OBP (.429) and is higher than his previous two full seasons (.361, .390). It's too small a sample for me to claim that Frank was HELPED by batting adjacent to Carlos, but there's certainly no evidence that Frank was HURT by it.

So what's the breakdown for the other players?

[ondafarm]

Originally Posted by A. Cavatica

I assume you mean Frank had 258 plate appearances adjacent to Carlos, 'cause that gives the .434 OBP. The .434 is consistent with his career OBP (.429) and is higher than his previous two full seasons (.361, .390). It's too small a sample for me to claim that Frank was HELPED by batting adjacent to Carlos, but there's certainly no evidence that Frank was HURT by it.

So what's the breakdown for the other players?

More importantly, the .434 matches his season OBP. He is the only player not hurt by batting around Carlos.

[ondafarm]

Mags Ordonez was 17 for 54 batting around CLee. That's a .315 OBP compared to his season avg .351 OBP.

[A. Cavatica]

Originally Posted by ondafarm

Mags Ordonez was 17 for 54 batting around CLee. That's a .315 OBP compared to his season avg .351 OBP.

Anything can happen in 54 at-bats.

[ondafarm]

Fine, here's the list for 2004.
player w/CLee season
Thomas 112-258 .434 (.434)
Ordonez 17- 54 .315 (.351)
Konerko 135-404 .334 (.359)
Uribe 31- 98 .316 (.327)
Perez 11- 44 .250 (.285)
Gload 5- 19 .263 (.375)
Harris 2- 11 .182 (.343)
Rowand 25- 72 .347 (.361)
Everett 11- 37 .297 (.320)
others (Dransfeldt, Borchard, Valdez, etc)
5 - 69 .072

Valentin 56-175 .326 (.287)
R.Alomar 7-28 .250 (.203)

In short, Carlos Lee costs the White Sox roughly 25 points of OBP, roughly 140 baserunners or 45 runs in a season. Does he drive in that many more than Aaron Rowand would if he played left field?

[A. Cavatica]

So the five players who spent the most time batting adjacent to Lee in 2004 were:

Konerko (404 PA) - OPS 25 points lower
Thomas (258) - OPS same
Valentin (175) - OPS 39 points higher
Uribe (98) - OPS 11 points lower
Rowand (72) - OPS 14 points lower

Thomas and Valentin did not suffer from batting adjacent to Lee, and Uribe & Rowand only suffered a little. But the sample sizes for all four were small.

Your argument seems to be founded on Konerko's numbers. With 250+ each way (adjacent to Lee and separated from Lee) his sample size looks a little healthier. But you can slice Konerko's numbers in half using other criteria, and you'll see that a 25 point differential is unremarkable:

Pre-All-Star .384, Post-All-Star .333 (2003: .267 and .346)
vs. LHP .372, vs. RHP .354 (2003: .373 and .272)
Home .414, Road .301 (2003: .324 and .286)
Day .393, Night .343 (2003: .291 and .311)

Remember that correlation does not imply causation. Konerko was 51 points of OBP hotter in the first half, but with everyone healthy, there was often someone between Lee & Konerko in the order. Did Konerko following Lee cause Konerko's second-half slump, or does Konerko's second-half slump make it look like Lee hurt Konerko? Or were the two events unrelated? We don't know. If Lee really hurts the performance of batters adjacent to him in the lineup, you ought to see the same effect with other batters, and in other seasons.

Now, what about the claims that Lee drives in "mostly meaningless runs" and "cost as many runs in the field as he scores"?

[ondafarm]

Originally Posted by A. Cavatica

Your argument seems to be founded on Konerko's numbers. With 250+ each way (adjacent to Lee and separated from Lee) his sample size looks a little healthier. But you can slice Konerko's numbers in half using other criteria, and you'll see that a 25 point differential is unremarkable:

Pre-All-Star .384, Post-All-Star .333 (2003: .267 and .346)
vs. LHP .372, vs. RHP .354 (2003: .373 and .272)
Home .414, Road .301 (2003: .324 and .286)
Day .393, Night .343 (2003: .291 and .311)

Remember that correlation does not imply causation. Konerko was 51 points of OBP hotter in the first half, but with everyone healthy, there was often someone between Lee & Konerko in the order. Did Konerko following Lee cause Konerko's second-half slump, or does Konerko's second-half slump make it look like Lee hurt Konerko? Or were the two events unrelated? We don't know. If Lee really hurts the performance of batters adjacent to him in the lineup, you ought to see the same effect with other batters, and in other seasons.

You obviously do not have a degree in stats. The two batters out of 11 who improve around Lee are both part-time lefties. It is not surprising that they would perform better when batting around a righty. Thomas had all of his ABs before Lee, which diminishes the effect. The same dampening effect is seen with other batters as demonstrated by 8 of 11 batters showing a decrease. Konerkos ABs were split between first and second half and were all batting after Lee. Carlos Lee is a menace on the basepaths and kills rallies. He costs the White Sox runs.

[SoxFan48]

This is a delicious thread topic for reply:

1. What is the evidence that Carlos Lee RBI's were "meaningless"?
2. What is the evidence that his defense cost as many runs as his RBI's? Lee had 99 RBI's in '04. Can you cite 99 runs cost by his defense?

Statements like RBI's are meaningless and defense costing as many runs as RBI's are opinions, totally unsupported by any meaningful analysis. That is what Bill James was and is all about--stop stating opinions, do the research and discover the truth.

[Joel Perez]

Who can we get from the Brew Crew???

Calling all minor league gurus out there!!!

What's done is done, let's move on!

[CHISOXFAN13]

Originally Posted by Joel Perez

Who can we get from the Brew Crew???

Calling all minor league gurus out there!!!

What's done is done, let's move on!

ESPN Radio just said it was TRavis...something. I wasn't fully paying attention. We'll have to do some searching now.

Edit: New thread in the clubhouse now. Travis Hinton is the PTBNL.

[ondafarm]

Originally Posted by SoxFan48

This is a delicious thread topic for reply:

1. What is the evidence that Carlos Lee RBI's were "meaningless"?
2. What is the evidence that his defense cost as many runs as his RBI's? Lee had 99 RBI's in '04. Can you cite 99 runs cost by his defense?

Statements like RBI's are meaningless and defense costing as many runs as RBI's are opinions, totally unsupported by any meaningful analysis. That is what Bill James was and is all about--stop stating opinions, do the research and discover the truth.

CLee is the antithesis of a clutch hitter. In 2004, 75 of his 99 RBIs came in games in which the Sox scored five or more runs; 63 of the RBIs came when the margin of the game was 3 or more runs. Taken together this means almost two thirds of his runs driven in were virtually meaningless.



Next time you want to have a plate full of crow, come around again.

[A. Cavatica]

Originally Posted by ondafarm

CLee is the antithesis of a clutch hitter. In 2005, 75 of his 99 RBIs came in games in which the Sox scored five or more runs

Wow. I believe in 2005 he played for the Brewers, so naturally his RBI were meaningless to the Sox.