Has Billy Beane lost his touch?

[Lex Luthor]

One year ago the Oakland A's had the best record in baseball at 59-36. Then on July 31st the A's traded Yoenis Cespedes for John Lester. The A's record before the trade 66-41. The A's record after the trade was 22-33.

In the offseason Billy Beane traded Josh Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays for third baseman Brett Lawrie, right-hander Kendall Graveman, left-hander Sean Nolin and minor league shortstop Franklin Barreto. Donaldson and Cespedes were the two best players on the A's roster. Now they're both gone and the team went from first to worst. Josh Donaldson is having an MVP season. Cespedes barely missed making the All Star team and is having a solid season. The A's have the worst record in the American League at 41-50.

It looks to me like Billy Beane has destroyed this team. Has Billy Beane totally ****ed up, or do Lawrie, Graveman, Nolin and Barreto have so much potential that the Donaldson trade could eventually work out in favor of the A's?

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

I looked on espn and filtered it to fielding and saw 0.7 earlier. I can only assume he's a negative WAR defender. I'm sure if you moved him to 2nd or left he'd be fine, but he's a terrible defensive SS. For as brilliant as you paint yourself, you're not very ****ing good at reading comprehension as I never questioned his value with a bat.

Your inability to write is not a problem with my reading comprehension. You said he was a 0.7 WAR player, you didn't say he was a 0.7 WAR defender.

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

I am very interested in how Marcus Semien, a dude with 28 ****ing errors, is a 0.7 WAR player at SS

I realize errors really aren't the holy grail ... but 28 errors and a positive WAR player? What? His fielding percentage is god awful.

I explained to you why he's a 0.7 WAR player, (you were actually looking up his fWAR rating, because ESPN uses Fangraphs and Bref you ****ing mong, )

Your inability to comprehend positional adjustments is a you problem
Your inability to comprehend how his offense factors into his WAR is a you problem.
Your inability to clearly state what you want to write about, (you should have said Defensive WAR) is also a you problem.

In short, I'm not sorry that you're ****ing stupid, but goddamn am I ****ing sick of you airing it out constantly.

[Hootie]

Hard for me to argue on a phone. On his batting page on ESPN he had a 1.2 WAR, on his fielding page he had a 0.7 WAR from what I remember. I took that as him having a 0.7 fielding WAR, which I found baffling. I'll have to look tomorrow, as mobile ESPN is terrible

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

Hard for me to argue on a phone. On his batting page on ESPN he had a 1.2 WAR, on his fielding page he had a 0.7 WAR from what I remember. I took that as him having a 0.7 fielding WAR, which I found baffling. I'll have to look tomorrow, as mobile ESPN is terrible

He does have a 0.7 DWAR on ESPN, but it's a case of them mixing and matching. They use Fangraphs for some saber stats, BWAR for others. That's why you should have said DWAR and not WAR. And it's especially confusing when he has 0.7 fWAR too, but that's just a weird coincidence.

He gets it from his positional adjustment as a shortstop.

Again, as I told you before, come up with a new metric if you don't like it, but it's generally true that bad shortstops are better fielders than great first baseman.

Why do you think Alex Gordon is so much better in left than he was at third? Or Ryan Braun for that matter?

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

He does have a 0.7 DWAR on ESPN, but it's a case of them mixing and matching. They use Fangraphs for some saber stats, BWAR for others. That's why you should have said DWAR and not WAR. And it's especially confusing when he has 0.7 fWAR too, but that's just a weird coincidence.

He gets it from his positional adjustment as a shortstop.

Again, as I told you before, come up with a new metric if you don't like it, but it's generally true that bad shortstops are better fielders than great first baseman.

Why do you think Alex Gordon is so much better in left than he was at third? Or Ryan Braun for that matter?

Yes, I should've clarified. I reread what I said so I understand you had no idea I was talking about his fielding.

My point stands. How in the God damn **** is he a positive DWAR player at SS with 28 errors? I understand he'd be fine at 2nd or left I already acknowledged that.

Alcides Escobar had a negative DWAR from what I remember just last year ... Yet a dude with 28 errors in around 80 games is on pace to add 1.5 wins to his team with defense alone?

Yeah, no. Something is off here.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

He's 0.7 overall in fWAR. Look it up.

Regardless, as I explained to your dumb **** ass before, positional adjustments. A bad shortstop is considered a better defender in almost all cases than a great 1B. Hence the adjustments.

Also, Escobar rated 9.0 in Fangraphs' defensive ratings, which put him 7th in the league for SS's last year.

He has never had a negative WAR defensive season per Bref, either. You don't know what you're talking about.

What did Esky grade out on ESPN? DWAR. I swear he was like -0.1 last year because I never understood how he was a negative DWAR guy.

I think ESPN is just ****ed up and have ****ed up their DWAR when you filter.

[tk13]

As great as they make the Royals look sometimes, defensive stats have always seemed a bit wonky to me. I think speed and defense are a lot harder to quantify than pure offensive plate performance. So many little factors to consider. I guess that's true of everything, but it's not always as definite as single, double, triple, homer.

[Hootie]

...and my only ****ing point from the get go is Semien is a garbage ****ing defensive SS so any metric that grades him out positively in that respect is something I refuse to take seriously. I'll create my own metric called "Semien sucks at SS" and it will automatically grade him out as a terrible defensive SS

[eDave]

How can you lose your touch with numbers and metrix?

[tk13]

I also think that's why the Royals always do terrible in projections too. They are pretty much the opposite of what some people believe leads to baseball success. Same thing's true of the Giants.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by tk13

I also think that's why the Royals always do terrible in projections too. They are pretty much the opposite of what some people believe leads to baseball success. Same thing's true of the Giants.

That's a good point about the Royals defense, but I disagree with you on the Giants.

Zips, for example, projects Cain to have a defensive performance 30% lower than his current one over the remainder of the season. However, given the variability of defensive metrics (you generally need three years of data) it's not as wild as you may believe.

The Giants were fortunate to have tremendous hit sequencing in the playoffs, which is not a skill. The truth is, if you throw enough teams into a grab bag one of them is going to get lucky over a small sample size. Three postseasons is itself a small sample. If the Giants were a consistently excellent team they wouldn't follow up WS titles with .500 or below seasons.

For all the talk about the Cardinals and their "devil magic", it really should be the Giants:

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

What did Esky grade out on ESPN? DWAR. I swear he was like -0.1 last year because I never understood how he was a negative DWAR guy.

I think ESPN is just ****ed up and have ****ed up their DWAR when you filter.

Never lower than 0.6 or 0.7, which was last year and a few years back.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

Yes, I should've clarified. I reread what I said so I understand you had no idea I was talking about his fielding.

My point stands. How in the God damn **** is he a positive DWAR player at SS with 28 errors? I understand he'd be fine at 2nd or left I already acknowledged that.

Alcides Escobar had a negative DWAR from what I remember just last year ... Yet a dude with 28 errors in around 80 games is on pace to add 1.5 wins to his team with defense alone?

Yeah, no. Something is off here.

The fact of the matter is that if you put every player in baseball at SS, the majority would have more than 28 errors.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

The fact of the matter is that if you put every player in baseball at SS, the majority would have more than 28 errors.

Dude, what?

I'm pretty sure DWAR grades Semien based off of the average SS. Not the average fielder. There is no ****ing God damn way Semien is 0.7 DWAR through 80 games playing SS compared to a replacement level SS. No way.

[Hootie]

I truly don't understand why you and Hamas are trying to explain to me that SS are generally the best defensive player on the field. Well no ****ing duh.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

Dude, what?

I'm pretty sure DWAR grades Semien based off of the average SS. Not the average fielder. There is no ****ing God damn way Semien is 0.7 DWAR through 80 games playing SS compared to a replacement level SS. No way.

No, but the 0.7 overall compares him to all players and finds him to be slightly above average as a fielder overall and a terrible SS. These things aren't mutually exclusive.