Sunday, January 09, 2005
JIM THOMSEN'S PIECE ON BLOOMQUIST
Okay, readers. This one is in big thanks to Jim Thomsen, who sent me a copy of this today after we realized that it wasn’t printed in the online edition of the Bremerton Sun (so we couldn't link to it), so he’s decided to let us provide an online home for it. Thank you very much, Jim.
Here is how the piece ran this morning, with links and any parenthetical notes provided in the "editor's note" paragraph by me, and any cut-outs in the article also noted.
----------(start of piece)
Objective ‘stathead’ says Willie isn’t the answer
Editor’s note: This commentary by Jim Thomsen is a rebuttle(sp) to a column (use this if needed) written by Sun sports editor Chuck Stark in Wednesday’s editions of The Sun.
Dear Chuck Stark: Just heard that you wrote a column urging new Mariners manager Mike Hargrove to consider giving local boy Willie Bloomquist a shot as the starting shortstop of the 2005 Mariners.
While it's laudable that you'd stand up for the South Kitsap lad, and remind us that he's one of those gritty-gamer, get-the-uniform-dirty types that stir up sepia-toned images of yesteryear, you conveniently forgot one small detail:
As much as I risk a punch in the mouth by saying this in Kitsap County, Willie Bloomquist isn't really good enough to play Major League baseball. At best, he's an end-of-the-bench scrub who helps the team most by being used the least.
That stark not-Stark assessment isn't based on subjective imagery. It's based on hard objective reality.
Let's start with offense. Can we agree that the most important elements are getting on base and advancing baserunners?
If so, a look at the numbers shows that Willie doesn't do these things very well as compared to other major league players. In 2004, Willie posted an on-base percentage of .283. The American League average was .333.
Willie's plate discipline, quite frankly, is horrible. He walked 10 times against 48 strikeouts in 2004; the league average ratio is one walk for every 1.9 strikeouts.
Nor did he advance baserunners. The average AL player's slugging percentage — total bases divided into at-bats — was .433; Willie's was .330. Just 12 of his 46 hits were extra-base hits, at a percentage far worse than that of Ichiro — who was roundly criticized for passing up too many extra-base-hit opportunities for surer-thing singles in pursuit of the single-season hit record.
Willie's batting average, such as it is, is an empty illusion. And bringing up his .455 average in 33 at-bats during his 2002 Mariner debut means nothing.
It's a faulty basis for projecting any future level of performance because a) his minor-league statistics indicated nothing of the sort (not when he hit .270 at Triple-A in 2002 and .255 in San Antonio in 2001, in full seasons); b) he hasn't done anything like it since; and c) it's too small a sample size to be meaningful in his statistical evaluation. [David's note -- the last four words of the final sentence of the paragraph did not appear in the print edition]
It's a fluke; a nice line in his Macmillan Encyclopedia entry. It's absolutely no rationale for either you or Willie to think he can hit .280 over the course of a full season, as you both claimed.
And as for the argument that Willie only needs regular playing time to fulfill his full potential?
Last year, as a utility player, Willie hit .250 with a .288 on-base percentage and a .316 slugging percentage. That was at the All-Star break. With the trade of starting shortstop Rich Aurilia — a better player with better numbers who was let go because he wasn't good enough to play — Willie got a window of opportunity to start at short.
And he promptly punted it, thus prompting the premature callup of partially formed phenom Jose Lopez. Virtually the same thing happened in 2003, when Willie got an extended midseason audition at shortstop created by Carlos Guillen's injuries.
Willie's numbers during that 2004 starting stretch? A batting average of .232, an OBP of .269 and a slugging percentage of .313. No wonder the Mariners felt they had to bring up the raw Lopez right away.
I'll give you this: Willie is a decent percentage base stealer.
Ah, you say, but what about that great dirty-uniform defense of his? You say he'll make not only all of the routine plays but makes spectacular ones as well.
The numbers say otherwise. Actually, they don't say it as much as they scream it. The two best methods the analytical community has developed for judging a player's defense are range factor, in which a player's total putouts and assists are divided by the number of innings he played, and zone rating, the percentage of balls fielded in a position's "zone."
Bloomquist's range factor of 4.07 was well below that of every AL shortstop that saw significant playing time — save Chuck's favorite dirty-uni comparable, David Eckstein, who's hobbled by having knees the height of a 7-year-old's and an arm to match. And Bloomquist's range factor was awful as well — at .769, he was the only shortstop except Kansas City's Angel Berroa to be below .810.
Oh, and Willie's fielding percentage in 139 1/3 innings at shortstop last year wasn't all that great — .955.
Willie can't get to as many balls as his contemporaries, and he can't turn as many of the balls he does get to into outs. That's empirical fact.
But, you say, what about Willie's "intangibles"? What about the things that don't show up in a box score?
All I can say is this: Willie looks like a major league player. He is, by all accounts, extremely hard-working and exceptionally likeable. That much has gotten him to the majors despite average minor-league performances, propelled by old-schoolers like former Mariner general manager Pat Gillick, who trusted his scouting instincts far more than he even scoured a stat sheet. [David's note -- the final sentence in this paragraph ended with the word "majors" in the print edition.]
In fact, everybody loves Willie. Which is great. I'm a Kitsap County native, too, and I love nothing more than seeing one of our own do well.
But the lovefest over Willie, based on unrealistic expectations from the small splash he made when he first came up, has gotten completely out of control. It's become a triumph of illusion over reality, and the Mariners have no room to buy into illusions if they are going to rebound into contention after the disaster that was 2004. [David's note -- the entire last sentence of this paragraph was left out of the print edition.]
Because of his local-kid pixie-dust aura and his willingness to stand at any of about six positions on the field with a glove and do what he's asked, I'd grudgingly go along with the idea that he doesn't completely hurt the Mariners as their 25th man. But no more.
The bottom-line question is this: Does Willie's hustling, good attitude, scrappy play and fan-friendly demeanor help the Seattle Mariners win ballgames?
I don't know, and neither do you.
Call me a stathead who can't get his nose out of the scoresheets all you want. Say the stats don't matter, that what the fans appreciate with their own eyes matters more.
But I've got far better reasons for thinking Willie Bloomquist doesn't do anything to help a major league baseball team win ballgames than you do for thinking he does.
Sincerely,
Jim Thomsen
-------------------
Jim Thomsen, a Bremerton resident who was raised on Bainbridge Island, is a freelance journalist and Seattle Mariners fan from the beginning who has been dabbling in baseball performance analysis since the early 1980s. You can email your comments to jthomsen(at)hotmail.com.
-------------------(end of piece)
Once again, big thanks to Jim Thomsen. Great piece, Jim. Like I said earlier, it's a Pulitzer. Easy.
Here is how the piece ran this morning, with links and any parenthetical notes provided in the "editor's note" paragraph by me, and any cut-outs in the article also noted.
----------(start of piece)
Objective ‘stathead’ says Willie isn’t the answer
Editor’s note: This commentary by Jim Thomsen is a rebuttle(sp) to a column (use this if needed) written by Sun sports editor Chuck Stark in Wednesday’s editions of The Sun.
Dear Chuck Stark: Just heard that you wrote a column urging new Mariners manager Mike Hargrove to consider giving local boy Willie Bloomquist a shot as the starting shortstop of the 2005 Mariners.
While it's laudable that you'd stand up for the South Kitsap lad, and remind us that he's one of those gritty-gamer, get-the-uniform-dirty types that stir up sepia-toned images of yesteryear, you conveniently forgot one small detail:
As much as I risk a punch in the mouth by saying this in Kitsap County, Willie Bloomquist isn't really good enough to play Major League baseball. At best, he's an end-of-the-bench scrub who helps the team most by being used the least.
That stark not-Stark assessment isn't based on subjective imagery. It's based on hard objective reality.
Let's start with offense. Can we agree that the most important elements are getting on base and advancing baserunners?
If so, a look at the numbers shows that Willie doesn't do these things very well as compared to other major league players. In 2004, Willie posted an on-base percentage of .283. The American League average was .333.
Willie's plate discipline, quite frankly, is horrible. He walked 10 times against 48 strikeouts in 2004; the league average ratio is one walk for every 1.9 strikeouts.
Nor did he advance baserunners. The average AL player's slugging percentage — total bases divided into at-bats — was .433; Willie's was .330. Just 12 of his 46 hits were extra-base hits, at a percentage far worse than that of Ichiro — who was roundly criticized for passing up too many extra-base-hit opportunities for surer-thing singles in pursuit of the single-season hit record.
Willie's batting average, such as it is, is an empty illusion. And bringing up his .455 average in 33 at-bats during his 2002 Mariner debut means nothing.
It's a faulty basis for projecting any future level of performance because a) his minor-league statistics indicated nothing of the sort (not when he hit .270 at Triple-A in 2002 and .255 in San Antonio in 2001, in full seasons); b) he hasn't done anything like it since; and c) it's too small a sample size to be meaningful in his statistical evaluation. [David's note -- the last four words of the final sentence of the paragraph did not appear in the print edition]
It's a fluke; a nice line in his Macmillan Encyclopedia entry. It's absolutely no rationale for either you or Willie to think he can hit .280 over the course of a full season, as you both claimed.
And as for the argument that Willie only needs regular playing time to fulfill his full potential?
Last year, as a utility player, Willie hit .250 with a .288 on-base percentage and a .316 slugging percentage. That was at the All-Star break. With the trade of starting shortstop Rich Aurilia — a better player with better numbers who was let go because he wasn't good enough to play — Willie got a window of opportunity to start at short.
And he promptly punted it, thus prompting the premature callup of partially formed phenom Jose Lopez. Virtually the same thing happened in 2003, when Willie got an extended midseason audition at shortstop created by Carlos Guillen's injuries.
Willie's numbers during that 2004 starting stretch? A batting average of .232, an OBP of .269 and a slugging percentage of .313. No wonder the Mariners felt they had to bring up the raw Lopez right away.
I'll give you this: Willie is a decent percentage base stealer.
Ah, you say, but what about that great dirty-uniform defense of his? You say he'll make not only all of the routine plays but makes spectacular ones as well.
The numbers say otherwise. Actually, they don't say it as much as they scream it. The two best methods the analytical community has developed for judging a player's defense are range factor, in which a player's total putouts and assists are divided by the number of innings he played, and zone rating, the percentage of balls fielded in a position's "zone."
Bloomquist's range factor of 4.07 was well below that of every AL shortstop that saw significant playing time — save Chuck's favorite dirty-uni comparable, David Eckstein, who's hobbled by having knees the height of a 7-year-old's and an arm to match. And Bloomquist's range factor was awful as well — at .769, he was the only shortstop except Kansas City's Angel Berroa to be below .810.
Oh, and Willie's fielding percentage in 139 1/3 innings at shortstop last year wasn't all that great — .955.
Willie can't get to as many balls as his contemporaries, and he can't turn as many of the balls he does get to into outs. That's empirical fact.
But, you say, what about Willie's "intangibles"? What about the things that don't show up in a box score?
All I can say is this: Willie looks like a major league player. He is, by all accounts, extremely hard-working and exceptionally likeable. That much has gotten him to the majors despite average minor-league performances, propelled by old-schoolers like former Mariner general manager Pat Gillick, who trusted his scouting instincts far more than he even scoured a stat sheet. [David's note -- the final sentence in this paragraph ended with the word "majors" in the print edition.]
In fact, everybody loves Willie. Which is great. I'm a Kitsap County native, too, and I love nothing more than seeing one of our own do well.
But the lovefest over Willie, based on unrealistic expectations from the small splash he made when he first came up, has gotten completely out of control. It's become a triumph of illusion over reality, and the Mariners have no room to buy into illusions if they are going to rebound into contention after the disaster that was 2004. [David's note -- the entire last sentence of this paragraph was left out of the print edition.]
Because of his local-kid pixie-dust aura and his willingness to stand at any of about six positions on the field with a glove and do what he's asked, I'd grudgingly go along with the idea that he doesn't completely hurt the Mariners as their 25th man. But no more.
The bottom-line question is this: Does Willie's hustling, good attitude, scrappy play and fan-friendly demeanor help the Seattle Mariners win ballgames?
I don't know, and neither do you.
Call me a stathead who can't get his nose out of the scoresheets all you want. Say the stats don't matter, that what the fans appreciate with their own eyes matters more.
But I've got far better reasons for thinking Willie Bloomquist doesn't do anything to help a major league baseball team win ballgames than you do for thinking he does.
Sincerely,
Jim Thomsen
-------------------
Jim Thomsen, a Bremerton resident who was raised on Bainbridge Island, is a freelance journalist and Seattle Mariners fan from the beginning who has been dabbling in baseball performance analysis since the early 1980s. You can email your comments to jthomsen(at)hotmail.com.
-------------------(end of piece)
Once again, big thanks to Jim Thomsen. Great piece, Jim. Like I said earlier, it's a Pulitzer. Easy.
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