Adam Duvall

[sfgdood]

33 HRs 102 RBI

Anyone still prefer Belt?

[klaiggeb]

We'd lose defense for sure... but it's hard to argue with those numbers

Of course, he wouldn't hit 33 HRs in our park... but 25 sure would be in his reach.

boly

[Islandboagie]

Let me first say I pushed for Duvall to get more at-bats as a Giant, so part of me agrees with you, Randy.

However, NL West pitching is better than the central, and every park in the central is hitter friendly. Those two might correlate. But the fact remains, hitters have a much better opportunity to put up big numbers in the central than they do in the west.

[klaiggeb]

You're absolutely correct on all points, boagie... but still, even if Duvall hit 20-25 HRs for us...that would be a huge improvement offensively.

My concern is his defense.

From what I've read, not seen, read, he's simply not that good at 1B... as in he can't "pick the ball" anywhere near as well as Belt.

So how many runs would he cost us?

I'm guessing a lot.

boly

[Rog]

It's easy to look at Adam Duvall's gaudy 33 homers and 103 RBI's and think he's a better player than Brandon Belt. If one goes beyond the numbers though, he realizes that Belt's glove is far superior (although Duvall has done a nice job in the outfield) and that Brandon makes a lot fewer outs than Adam. But since we started with the numbers, let's take a deep look at them.

Wins Above Replacement -- Belt 3.9, Duvall 3.3 Advantage: Belt

Batting Average -- Belt .271, Duvall .244 Advantage: Belt

OBP -- Belt .388, Duvall .297 Advantage: Belt

SLG -- Belt .464, Duvall .506 Advantage: Duvall

OPS -- Belt .853, Duvall .803 Advantage: Belt

OPS+ -- Belt 132, Duvall 113 Advantage: Belt

Runs -- Belt 74, Duvall 84 Advantage: Duvall

Hits -- Belt 144, Duvall 132 Advantage: Belt

RBI's -- Belt 79, Duvall 103 Advantage: Duvall

Home Runs -- Belt 16, Duvall 33 Advantage: Duvall

Doubles -- Belt 39, Duvall 31 Advantage: Belt

Triples -- Belt 8, Duvall 6 Advantage: Belt

Walks -- Belt 101, Duvall 39 Advantage: Belt

RISP -- Belt .290/.848, Duvall .266/.922 Advantage: Duvall

Runners On Belt .316/.934, Duvall .291/.907 Advantage: Belt

Late and Close Belt .263/.791, Duvall .209/.714 Advantage: Belt

High Leverage Belt .291/.835, Duvall .291/.847 Advantage: Duvall


Final score: Belt 11, Duvall 6. We see that Duvall has areas of advantage, but given the harder park to hit in, Belt is clearly a better hitter despite fewer home runs and RBI's. Defensively it's clearly Belt.

If a guy is a better hitter and better fielder, he's likely a better player. Duvall had better tighten his belt is he wants to catch Brandon.

[Rog]

still, even if Duvall hit 20-25 HRs for us...that would be a huge improvement offensively.


Rog -- It's easy for us old guys to think that way. We're guys who grew up evaluating players on batting average (Belt), home runs (easily Duvall) and RBI's (easily Duvall). We'd even forgive Duvall's 158 strikeouts. (Belt has 147 himself.)


But we've grown a lot in evaluating offense. Belt's OPS+ of 132 (including park effects) is far better than Duvall's 113. (100 is average.)

A method I like to use is bases created (total bases plus walks + HBP + sacrifices + sac flies) divided by outs made (at bats - hits + DP's + sacrifices + sac flies). Belt has created 356 bases while making 399 outs, for an average of .892. Duvall has created 319 bases while making 417 outs, for an average of .758. In the bank account of runs, bases created are deposits and outs made are withdrawals, so this is an important evaluation. Clearly Belt's batting bank account has a much higher balance. Since if we take a team's bases created and divide it by four (bases per run), we get a number very close to the number of runs scored by a team, this is of high importance and a very nice way to evaluate a hitter. No method is perfect, but clearly we've come a long, long way from batting average, home runs and RBI's.

But a total base is better than a walk, you say. Well, at least 60% of the time it isn't, since about three out of every five times a batter comes to the plate, the bases are empty and his primary job is to get on base and avoiding making an out. But let's say a total base is worth twice as much as a walk and thus divide walks, HBP, sacrifices and sacrifice flies by two.

Now Belt creates 301 "bases" while making 399 outs, for a .758 average. Duvall creates 294 "bases" while making 417 outs, a .705 mark. Still a very clear advantage to Belt.

Yeah, but the more powerful Duvall advances runners more bases, you say. It would take me a long time to do this calculation, but I've done enough of them to know that Belt has advanced runners more bases. Why? Well, some of Belt's walks advanced runners (29 to Duvall's 6, to be exact). And, with the bases loaded, for instance, a home run can advance runners no more than 10 bases (four for the batter, three for the runner on first, two for the runner on second and one for the runner on third), a double can advance the runners 8 bases (four for the batter, three for the runner on first, two for the runner on second and one for the runner on third).

So Belt almost certainly advanced runners more bases while making fewer outs. When we dig deeply into the numbers, we see that Belt is clearly a better hitter than Duvall, even though batting average, home runs and RBI's (the old method) might make us believe otherwise.

You are right, Boly, that Belt is easily the better defender. The surprise is that the difference isn't as great in the batting comparison, Belt is better there too. When we add in that Brandon hits in a tougher hitters' park, the difference becomes greater.

Even with the comparative parks stacked against him, last season Belt both created more bases for himself and advanced runners farther. And he did so while making many fewer outs.

Incidentally, I am open to arguments against any of the ideas I presented here. I'm open to learning, as I hope all of us are. Maybe one or more here can help me improve this comparison. I would welcome it.

[Islandboagie]

Belt has compiled nice stats based on his good first half and his ability to draw walks (or in my opinion, his INability to make pitchers pay for mistakes.) I won't say who I'd rather have, but I do prefer a hitter in the middle of the lineup to have some consistency. Belt has very little.

[Rog]

Something I don't believe anyone here has said anything about, but which Boagie alluded to right as I was looking it up,, is that Brandon has faced 248 more pitches than any other Giant. In a sense, one could say that Brandon has made opposing pitchers throw two more full games than any Giants hitter.

Brandon is certainly not without his flaws at the plate (as his 147 strikeouts illustrate), but he has been the Giants' best hitter this season. As for his consistency, certainly not a strength, but about the same this season as Buster Posey.

Brandon continues to get a bad rap here. I don't think there is any other Giant you could have taken out of the lineup this season and have it cost them more runs. Anyone that anyone else can think of? In terms of drop off, it might be Buster Posey, but in terms of actual runs lost, it seems fairly clear that would have to be Brandon.

[sfgdood]

No shock at all that our resident Stats Dork would throw out as many designer stats to back his guy. He does it all the time. Me? I like HARD numbers. Runs, HR, RBI. Stick to those and it's as Dick Vitale used to call it..."it's an NCer, baby! NO CONTEST!"

[klaiggeb]

Posey...check that 6-4-3 Poh-zee, cost us a ton of runs this season

I don't have the numbers but I believe he's now passed 6-4-3 McGhee in grounding into DPs this season, albeit McGhee did it in less games.

Posey has killed rallies at an alarming pace this year... so much so that when he's hitting with runners ON, much less in scoring position... I find myself praying for a past ball so he CAN'T kill the rally.

And that's sad. Really, really sad.


Once-upon-a-time it wasn't like that.

But it is now.

He's off balance easily 50% of his swings, or so it seems, and he swings over the top of the ball so much I cringe with each of his at bats.


boly

[Rog]

No shock at all that our resident Stats Dork would throw out as many designer stats to back his guy. He does it all the time. Me? I like HARD numbers. Runs, HR, RBI.


Rog -- Those numbers are called "counting numbers." No question they have meaning. When it comes to batting, hits is the counting number. Batting average is the rate stat. So it's not that rate stats are foreign to us, it's just that we usually don't use them much beyond batting average.

A big step in the right direction was using on-base percentage, slugging percentage and on-base PLUS slugging percentage (OPS). Both on-base percentage and slugging percentage correlate more closely with runs scored than does batting average, and OPS correlates the most closely of the three.

But batting average is a far better indicator than hits.

Home runs are pretty explanatory, but total bases or especially the rate stat of slugging percentage give a better indicator of a player's power. Home runs are the biggest indicator of power, of course, but doubles and triples enter into the equation as well. Would we rather have a home run -- or two doubles? Depends on the situation, of course, but overall a team is often better off with two doubles than a home run in one at bat and an out in the other. The total bases are the same, and the slugging percentage is the same. The result depends on the situation, but since no out is involved in two doubles, the result can be better.

Bottom line though, slugging percentage or the more exotic "isolated power" (SLG - BA) is usually a better indicator of true power than simply the number of home runs. Slugging percentage is clearly a better indicator of effectiveness than a count of home runs, since it combines batting average and isolated power.

RBI's are important. After all, what can be more important offensively than scoring runs? But as we've discussed here many times, RBI's and runs scored are actually team statistics. With the exception of the home run, runs scored and RBI's rely on more than one player. RBI's can be a product of opportunity as well as effectiveness. Last season Joey Votto was an outstanding example of this. Despite hitting 35 home runs, Joey drove in only 80 RBI's. Clearly he didn't have a ton of RBI opportunities, and the MVP voters no doubt considered this when he finished #3 in the MVP voting last season.

When so-called "designer stats" are criticized, it is often because they aren't understood. Remember, batting average was once a "designer stat." Since the game is decided on runs scored, one could argue that in a sense, even RBI's are a designer stat.

No single stat is perfect. But the one that compares bases created with outs made is a strong one. The name of the game is scoring runs, which are built on bases created. Outs are the cost of creating them. The idea is to create bases and avoid making outs. That's the concept behind "keeping the line moving." The last is a catch phrase which seems to be pretty well understood. But many don't take the concept deep enough to fully understand that its components are creating bases while avoiding making outs.

That's what baseball is all about: Creating bases (which leads to runs) while avoiding making outs (which keeps the inning from ending and allows the opportunities to create runs to continue), is what offensive baseball is all about. Defense is about converting outs while preventing bases being created by the offense.

Baseball is a simple game. And advanced stats (which some would call designer stats) help us understand it better. If a game is simple, we fans should be able to understand it well, and the better indicator a stat is, the more it can help us understand the game.

Rather than critizing stats, we should be working harder to develop and understand them. That increases our understanding of the game. It can take a little work to understand stats (and certainly to develop them in a meaningful manner), but it's well worth the effort. That added understanding is part of what keeps the game simple for us.



Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall#ixzz4LlZCXqjP

[sfgdood]

In the realm of politics, we call what the stats geek just posted as "major spin." We see it often when he tries to make excuses for someone he likes or to justify an opinion he held that went false. It's not rocket science. Runs, HRs and RBI are production numbers. You can try to justify the clod who can't produce in the most real terms if you like, but I look at bottom line things that help win games. Runs win games. HRs and RBI produce runs. It's really that simple. In those basic terms, Duvall is FAR better than the big oaf.

[Rog]

I don't have the numbers but I believe he's now passed 6-4-3 McGhee in grounding into DPs this season, albeit McGhee did it in less games.


Rog -- You are correct here. Buster has grounded into 17 double plays to McGehee's 15. And this indicates why rate stats are so important.

We mentioned that Buster had more at bats, and that is part of the reason there is almost no comparison between the two players. Buster has hit into a double play 17 times in 108 opportunities, or once every 6.3 chances. Casey grounded into his 15 double plays in just 26 chances, or once every 1.7 shots.

What Buster has done isn't great, but neither is it horrible. Casey's rate of grounding into double plays was awful. I haven't calculated Pablo Sandoval's chances, but in 2010 Pablo hit into 26 double plays. That season he had 563 at bats. Buster has had 527 at bats this season, so it is likely that Pablo did far worse in grounding into double plays in 2010 than Buster has done this season.

As an aside, Pablo bounced back very nicely in 2011, but 2010 was his first bad season at the plate. He made 443 outs while creating 283 bases, for a .639 average that is poor, and particularly poor for a power hitter.

There is possible good news for Pablo and the Red Sox for the postseason. According to Red Sox manager John Farrell, Pablo has dropped a lot of weight, has played in several Instructional League games, is taking batting practice with the Red Sox and could be available if the Red Sox suffer an injury in the postseason. Third baseman Travis Shaw has struggled badly in the season's second half after a strong first half as Pablo's injury replacement. If the Red Sox believe that previous postseason results are more important than regular season results, it wouldn't be out of the question for them to replace Shaw. who hit a woeful .195 in the second half, with Pablo -- Red Sox roster injury or not.

Wouldn't it be incredible if Pablo could figuratively rise from the dead and put up another spectacular postseason performance?




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LlmjTcE5

[Rog]

By the way, I'd gladly settle for Pablo vs. the Giants in the World Series RIGHT NOW!

[Rog]

I have a question, Randy. I asked for ideas that would contradict the stats I presented. I said I was open to learning. Why did you reply with only with continued slurs?

How about manning up and taking on a premise rather than shrinking away from it with slurs? It seems the intellectually honest thing to do, and perhaps it will help us learn here -- me included.

[klaiggeb]

Boagie-elt has compiled nice stats based on his good first half and his ability to draw walks (or in my opinion, his INability to make pitchers pay for mistakes.) I won't say who I'd rather have, but I do prefer a hitter in the middle of the lineup to have some consistency. Belt has very little.

***boly says***

Boagie summed up exactly what I've been saying about Brandon. I want a middle of the order hitter who's consistent.

Brandon is simply ... not.

What did Sabean say recently?

Brandon is not yet ready to hit in the middle of the order.

I couldn't agree more.

boly

[sfgdood]

I have a question, Randy. I asked for ideas that would contradict the stats I presented. I said I was open to learning. Why did you reply with only with continued slurs?

How about manning up and taking on a premise rather than shrinking away from it with slurs? It seems the intellectually honest thing to do, and perhaps it will help us learn here -- me included.

Dood - Proving my sig line correct once again. You don't get it and probably never will.

[Rog]

Belt has compiled nice stats based on his good first half and his ability to draw walks (or in my opinion, his INability to make pitchers pay for mistakes.)

Rog -- Brandon's hitting the 80 RBI plateau has been based in part on his continuing to hit well in the second half with men on base and in scoring position, despite a horrible second half with the bases empty.

As for his inability to make pitchers pay for mistakes, let's just throw his team-leading walks out of the picture and see he he ranks on the team in batting average and slugging percentage. His .275 batting average entering play today was tied with Brandon Crawford for third on the team behind Hunter Pence and Buster Posey. His .475 SLG led the team.

His 76 runs scored were second on the team, and his 82 RBI's trailed Brandon Crawford by just one for the team lead. It might be noted that Belt has cut Crawford's first half lead of 14 RBI's to just the one, meaning that Belt has our-RBI'd Crawford in the second half by 13.



Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall#ixzz4LsvdgchW

[Rog]

I do prefer a hitter in the middle of the lineup to have some consistency. Belt has very little.


Rog -- Belt's RBI split between halves of 47/35 would seem to indicate a lot more consistency than Crawford's 61/22 split.

Regarding Duvall, both he and Belt went 18 at bats between hits for their high this season. Brandon may have had a little bad luck though, as four of his 18 outs came on line drives. Only one of Duvall's 18 came on a line drive.

Belt isn't the most consistent of hitters, but despite that, he's been the Giants' best hitter this season. He's flat-out getting a bum rap here. Given that Brandon has been the Giants' best hitter and let's say their third- or fourth defender (on a very good defensive team), I think this idea of trading him just to trade him is folly.

If someone feels differently, please show us how Brandon has been so inconsistent as to overcome his very good hitting and fielding. If not, perhaps we should consider changing our position here.

Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LtIqVex6

[Rog]

I want a middle of the order hitter who's consistent.


Rog -- I'm sure the Giants do too. Can you name one Giants hitter who was? Maybe Angel Pagan, who has been rather inconsistent in the past. Actually, Angel's longest hitless streak this season was 19, or more than either Belt or Duvall.

Again, I don't see Belt as being consistent at the plate this season. But how many Giants were clearly better? Shall we get rid of the other Giants hitters as well. Or only those who play defense as well as Brandon.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LtOJJuyr

[Rog]

Proving my sig line correct once again. You don't get it and probably never will.


Rog -- And once again you duck a question you're apparently not up to any other way. This is getting a little repetitious, Randy. When are you going to step up?




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LtQfG3Fd

[sfgdood]

If you can't decipher my answer in my previous responses, then--as I have said a lot--you wont ever get it.

[Rog]

Just answer questions, Randy. Do you get that?

[sfgdood]

My previous posts answered your question. If you're too stupid or stubborn to see it, that's on you

[Rog]

I have a question, Randy. I asked for ideas that would contradict the stats I presented. I said I was open to learning. Why did you reply with only with continued slurs?


Rog -- What was your answer? I must have missed it.





Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall#ixzz4Lya386S5

[Rog]

Or how about this one: Incidentally, I am open to arguments against any of the ideas I presented here. I'm open to learning, as I hope all of us are. Maybe one or more here can help me improve this comparison. I would welcome it.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LyaQ0oUt

[Rog]

Rather than critizing stats, we should be working harder to develop and understand them. That increases our understanding of the game. It can take a little work to understand stats (and certainly to develop them in a meaningful manner), but it's well worth the effort. That added understanding is part of what keeps the game simple for us.


Rog -- Or here?




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LyatcevR

[Rog]

Oops! Operator error. Here it is.

Rather than critizing stats, we should be working harder to develop and understand them. That increases our understanding of the game. It can take a little work to understand stats (and certainly to develop them in a meaningful manner), but it's well worth the effort. That added understanding is part of what keeps the game simple for us.



Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3511/adam-duvall?page=1#ixzz4LybCZa00

[sfgdood]

the misuse or overuse of stats is an affront to the game I love. It makes me ill

[Rog]

the misuse or overuse of stats is an affront to the game I love. It makes me ill


Rog -- Yep. Measuring things is a hard way to tell their differences. Numerophobia.