JBJ: Elite Defender With Some Pop

[Lowrielicious]

I wonder if that play was considered a "wall ball". Jackie caught it ~12 feet away from the wall. Did they project that it would have landed within 8 feet?

Which raises another point of complexity that the "wall ball" may not take into account. A ball landing within 10 feet (or 15 feet for that matter) of the wall is a lot more difficult running at full pace (and having to stop or collide with the wall) than a ball landing within 3 feet on a high fly that the fielder can get to and camp under.

 

[charlieoscar]

This is just a quick study from 2017 Retrosheet data for:
Runner on 2nd, Batter singles to outfield and takes second on throw while runner scores, no errors on play.

As can be seen, the Red Sox were close to the top in home games with the batter taking second.

 

[nvalvo]

Which raises another point of complexity that the "wall ball" may not take into account. A ball landing within 10 feet (or 15 feet for that matter) of the wall is a lot more difficult running at full pace (and having to stop or collide with the wall) than a ball landing within 3 feet on a high fly that the fielder can get to and camp under.

Even within the wall ball slice, they should still be comparing the play to other balls hit on a similar trajectory, no?

 

[effectivelywild]

This is just a quick study from 2017 Retrosheet data for:
Runner on 2nd, Batter singles to outfield and takes second on throw while runner scores, no errors on play.

As can be seen, the Red Sox were close to the top in home games with the batter taking second.

And yet near the bottom when you combine home and away games. Wouldn't you expect that if they were truly bad at hitting the cutoff man/ preventing needless extra bases, they would also be bad at it on the road?

 

[Byrdbrain]

And yet near the bottom when you combine home and away games. Wouldn't you expect that if they were truly bad at hitting the cutoff man/ preventing needless extra bases, they would also be bad at it on the road?

One would certainly think that if this statistic meant anything and wasn't just random noise that a team that is pretty much at the top at home would at least show up on the scoresheet on the road.

 

[Plympton91]

One would certainly think that if this statistic meant anything and wasn't just random noise that a team that is pretty much at the top at home would at least show up on the scoresheet on the road.

Yeah, that was my immediate reaction too. There’s no reason why “hitting the cutoff man” would have a park effect, so the proper thing to do is combine the home and away samples to get a more meaningful statistic. If you do that, the Red Sox are quite good.

The other problem with this stat is that being very low in this metric could represent an outfielder who is too conservative. You could be great at this stat if you never try to throw a runner out at the plate. But that wouldn’t be a good outcome. Seems to me like this might be one of those rankings where the best place to be is in the middle.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Last 27 games: .295/.358/.526 on a .348 BAbip in 106 PA with 9bb/23k.
If you ignore the first 2 games where he went 6/7...
25 games: .250/.323/.455 on a .302 BAbip in 99 PA with the same 9bb/23k.

It also looks like he's been hitting lefties better lately, and he has a pretty huge Home/Road split. .264/.341/.446 at home vs .169/.263/.283 on the road.

 

[Reverend]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the 42% catch thing and how that could be when JBJ made such an awesome play to snag it and I wanted to try to explain why, at least to me, it makes sense.

I've rejected a whole bunch of more elaborate versions for this--here goes:

• 42% means that fewer than half of MLB CFs positioned as JBJ was make that catch.
• JBJ is in the bottom 25% of CFs in terms of speed.

Ergo: All other things/skills being equal, another CF of JBJ's speed would be WAY less than 42% likely to make that catch.​

Conclusion: The Red Sox are willing to position JBJ that far to right field in situations like that because they trust him, in spite of his inferior speed, to make that catch. [Editorial Note: That's baller as shit.]

That suggest to me that the Red Sox believe that JBJ is a superior center fielder.


Edit Addendum: A lot of the roll wall stuff--which was fucking awesome--becomes mitigated when you consider that a faster CF would have just gotten there in time and been able to decelerate before crashing into the wall without executing a tactical roll. Again, this does not mean JBJ is a lesser CF, it just means that different players will play the field differently under conditions of optimal strategy precisely because the strategy will be tailored to their strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Al Zarilla]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the 42% catch thing and how that could be when JBJ made such an awesome play to snag it and I wanted to try to explain why, at least to me, it makes sense.

I've rejected a whole bunch of more elaborate versions for this--here goes:

• 42% means that fewer than half of MLB CFs positioned as J

• JBJ is in the bottom 25% of CFs in terms of speed.

Ergo: All other things/skills being equal, another CF of JBJ's speed would be WAY less than 42% likely to make that catch.​

Conclusion: The Red Sox are willing to position JBJ that far to right field in situations like that because they trust him, in spite of his inferior speed, to make that catch. [Editorial Note: That's baller as shit.]

That suggest to me that the Red Sox believe that JBJ is a superior center fielder.

If you Google Jerry Rice 40, you get somewhere between 4.4 and 4.7 secs. Average that out to 4.55 and that’s not an elite receiver 40 yard dash time. But, he seemed to hardly ever get caught in the open field. To me, JBJ is something like that. Maybe he manages to always get to top speed in a couple of steps, or maybe he gets perfect jumps in the right direction. Maybe. Probably. Of course, these amazing traits in the field don’t translate for him on the bases where he’s average, it seems. Anyway, the 42% is daft.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

If you Google Jerry Rice 40, you get somewhere between 4.4 and 4.7 secs. Average that out to 4.55 and that’s not an elite receiver 40 yard dash time. But, he seemed to hardly ever get caught in the open field. To me, JBJ is something like that. Maybe he manages to always get to top speed in a couple of steps, or maybe he gets perfect jumps in the right direction. Maybe. Probably. Of course, these amazing traits in the field don’t translate for him on the bases where he’s average, it seems. Anyway, the 42% is daft.

Hes 41/45 in SB Attempts for his career so he's a pretty good base stealer. Maybe he just gets perfect jumps everywhere.

 

[Al Zarilla]

Hes 41/45 in SB Attempts for his career so he's a pretty good base stealer. Maybe he just gets perfect jumps everywhere.

Maybe he does (get perfect jumps), although they don’t send him much compared with Mookie or Beni.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

"You can't steal first base"/half of SoSH

 

[Reverend]

If you Google Jerry Rice 40, you get somewhere between 4.4 and 4.7 secs. Average that out to 4.55 and that’s not an elite receiver 40 yard dash time. But, he seemed to hardly ever get caught in the open field. To me, JBJ is something like that. Maybe he manages to always get to top speed in a couple of steps, or maybe he gets perfect jumps in the right direction. Maybe. Probably. Of course, these amazing traits in the field don’t translate for him on the bases where he’s average, it seems. Anyway, the 42% is daft.

There is some of that I am sure. Rice's own answer, though, was that he did it through conditioning and would then really put it to the defense later in the game. I've never run the numbers to verify, but Rice had clearly thought it through, especially with respect to adjustments he'd have to make as he got older and wouldn't be able to just kick the crap out of everyone in the 4th quarter.

So to the extent that Rice benefitted from conditioning, probably not the same effect.

However, I think that is a pretty good example of how we have traditionally relied on the most easily quantifiable traits, and that's not always correct. Increasingly we're learning that while these "hard traits" like speed may be correlated with success, they are not nearly as deterministic as we once thought, requiring us to look at other, more subtle and, often to my thinking anyway, more interesting ways of playing the game

 

[Reverend]

Hes 41/45 in SB Attempts for his career so he's a pretty good base stealer. Maybe he just gets perfect jumps everywhere.

If the guy can read the ball coming off the bat before it hits it, well, whatever ability allows him to do that, I figure there's reason to believe he can read a pitcher too.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

If the guy can read the ball coming off the bat before it hits it, well, whatever ability allows him to do that, I figure there's reason to believe he can read a pitcher too.

I think they are related but his minor league numbers give me pause. 35/58 SB/SBA. Also most of the recent Redsox farmhands have had considerably better success base stealing in the majors than in the minors. The only one who has been worse is Mookie, and he's 100/119 in his MLB career vs 92/107 in the milb. For reference: Xander (43/54 vs 17/33 ), Ben10 (40/47 vs 26/38).

Blake Swihart is currently 7/11 vs 27/40. He is 3/4 this year. I'd guess he's the next in line to surprise us with his much improved base stealing ability. I don't know if it's a thing, but it looks like a thing.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

I think they are related but his minor league numbers give me pause. 35/58 SB/SBA. Also most of the recent Redsox farmhands have had considerably better success base stealing in the majors than in the minors. The only one who has been worse is Mookie, and he's 100/119 in his MLB career vs 92/107 in the milb. For reference: Xander (43/54 vs 17/33 ), Ben10 (40/47 vs 26/38).

Blake Swihart is currently 7/11 vs 27/40. He is 3/4 this year. I'd guess he's the next in line to surprise us with his much improved base stealing ability. I don't know if it's a thing, but it looks like a thing.

They might encourage minor leaguers to take more risks to develop their skills at a level where success doesn't matter as much.

 

[Cuzittt]

They might encourage minor leaguers to take more risks to develop their skills at a level where success doesn't matter as much.

And where umpiring isn't as good. Or as plentiful (plenty of two and three man crews in the low minors).

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

And where umpiring isn't as good. Or as plentiful (plenty of two and three man crews in the low minors).

I'm not following. Are you saying worse umpires will call baserunners out more often?

 

[Cuzittt]

I'm not following. Are you saying worse umpires will call baserunners out more often?

I'm saying two things.

1) Younger umpires may be more apt to call a player out if the ball beats them to the bag even if they evade the tag.
2) Perhaps more importantly, in a 2 or 3 man crew, the umpires are not in ideal position to see if a player evades a tag.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

I'm not following. Are you saying worse umpires will call baserunners out more often?

It should be easy enough to see if that's the case by comparing league totals. It's also possible there are park effects on umpires due to lighting or whatever else.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

It should be easy enough to see if that's the case by comparing league totals.

How? There's got to be a dozen confounding factors.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

How? There's got to be a dozen confounding factors.

Just compare SB/SBA attempts in the majors to SB/SBA attempts in the minors over a period of however many years. I don't know how informative it is but it's what we have.

I'm not sure if those minor league stats are readily available though? The MLB ones are. This year, 1573 SB, 617 CS.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

Just compare SB/SBA attempts in the majors to SB/SBA attempts in the minors over a period of however many years. I don't know how informative it is but it's what we have.

I'm not sure if those minor league stats are readily available though? The MLB ones are. This year, 1573 SB, 617 CS.

I'm gathering them by team. I might do it today.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/

 

[Cesar Crespo]

I'm gathering them by team. I might do it today.
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?year=2018 Probably save you a lot of time.

edit: Quickly looking through, it looks like the minors have slightly worse SB% as a whole. So it is a thing, just an MLB thing. Not a Redsox thing.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/league.cgi?year=2018 Probably save you a lot of time.

Thanks!

SB % by level:

• MLB 71.8%
• AAA 69.8%
• AA 70.1%
• Adv. A 67.3%
• Low A 68.1%
• Short-Season 70.4%
• Rookie 69.9%
• Japan/Korea 71.4%
• Dominican 65.8%
• Independents 72.3%

But again, there are too many factors. Skills of baserunners vs. catchers, instant replay, # of umpires, skills of umpires, organizational goals, etc.

 

[Reverend]

I'm saying two things.

1) Younger umpires may be more apt to call a player out if the ball beats them to the bag even if they evade the tag.
2) Perhaps more importantly, in a 2 or 3 man crew, the umpires are not in ideal position to see if a player evades a tag.

I wonder if there are observable, generalizable tendencies among less experienced/skilled umpires that are exploitable for educational purposes.

Like, if you knew minor league umps tended to be off on certain kinds of calls in a regularized, predictable direction, then you'd want to tailor your play not necessarily to take advantage of it to score more runs, but to train players in certain ways made available by the "defect" in umpiring.

I mean, it seems like boring statistical work, but there's a lot of money in baseball and the edges teams are looking for are more and more subtle.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Training players to gain an edge in the minors that won't translate to the majors seems to me to be a waste of training resources

 

[Reverend]

Training players to gain an edge in the minors that won't translate to the majors seems to me to be a waste of training resources

Yes, totally.

Hence why it might make sense to learn precisely the game is called differently, at least at a probablistic level. That way they can approach the game in a way so as to avoid pursuing gains only available at the minor league level and instead to optimize strategy and play to develop players for the MLB level.

 

[Niastri]

I think you're mistaken about this. The whole point of the statcast percentages are that they are relative to the player's starting position, not the field.

So what they're saying is basically: on plays where a player had 4.8 seconds to travel 72 feet back and to their left (or whatever), X% end in outs. That analysis is really helpful, because unlike some of the other zone-based stats, it *doesn't* get screwed up by fielder positioning. But the trade off — if I understand this right — is that it might not know a ton about the locations of walls.

Ok, I take my excuse making back... The catch in question is nothing short of a great one, and the 42% number calls into question the entire stat.

Statcast is still cool I'm that it measures speed, distance, time and angles, though.

 

[Reverend]

Today's HRs (most recent first):

 

[SouthernBoSox]

He's had a break out year riddled with unbelievable bad luck.

I wish they had signed him on the cheap 2 months ago.

He's a game changing player.

 

[dbn]

There is literally no way a player can improve one aspect of his skill set after transitioning from the minors to the majors. Math is wrong.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Unless he goes completely in the tank, JBJ has put to rest any doubt that the sox wouldn't tender him a contract for 2019.
Now over his last 38: .277/.354/.554 on a .322 BAbip in 147 PA.

Season totals up to .215/.304/.387, and an OPS+ of 85. Not far off last year's 89.

 

[Al Zarilla]

Unless he goes completely in the tank, JBJ has put to rest any doubt that the sox wouldn't tender him a contract for 2019.
Now over his last 38: .277/.354/.554 on a .322 BAbip in 147 PA.

Season totals up to .215/.304/.387, and an OPS+ of 8. Not far off last year's 89.

You have a stuck "5" in your keyboard, or just a typo? Well, lots of 5s at other places in your post.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

You have a stuck "5" in your keyboard, or just a typo? Well, lots of 5s at other places in your post.

I had it at 87, went to correct it and apparently didn't hit the 5 hard enough.


edit: Either way, it's nice to see the power come back. It was missing earlier in the year and the 2nd half of last season. He's a completely different player with an ISO closer to .200 than .100. At .100, he's a questionable start and probably not worth 10 mil. At .200, he's a complete steal. It would be basically impossible for him not to be productive with his defense and that type of power... as we are seeing now. He's a few steady weeks of play or one monster game away from being a league average hitter despite his terrible start.

 

[Al Zarilla]

I had it at 87, went to correct it and apparently didn't hit the 5 hard enough.


edit: Either way, it's nice to see the power come back. It was missing earlier in the year and the 2nd half of last season. He's a completely different player with an ISO closer to .200 than .100. At .100, he's a questionable start and probably not worth 10 mil. At .200, he's a complete steal. It would be basically impossible for him not to be productive with his defense and that type of power... as we are seeing now. He's a few steady weeks of play or one monster game away from being a league average hitter despite his terrible start.

Great that JBJ is hitting and may it continue. Nice for him to be a complete player again.

 

[Plympton91]

Dp

 

[Shore Thing]

He’s approaching 2000 career AB’s and has a career .711 OPS and falling fast. He’s probably something we need to look at fixing at the trade deadline.

Since this post on June 13th: 47 games at .263/.343/.513 with a .304 BABIP. Not really "falling fast" anymore.

Good times.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

Another nice night at the plate last night to get his BA up to .230 and OPS up to .703. It's pretty amazing the hole he's dug himself out of - now basically at his career averages.

Since he bottomed out BA at .178 on June 23 he's at:

.294/.354/.525/.879 - over 51 games and 194 PA - which is basically Benintendi's line for the year (slightly better in the power numbers). 25 XBH and 35 R, too. A very productive offensive player. That SLG/OPS would be just outside the top 10 in the AL if for the full year.

 

[SouthernBoSox]

He's had a complete break out year from a batting profile perspective. He was riddled with bad luck for months.

I hope they take advantage of that and sign a discounted extension in the off season.

 

[Saints Rest]

Another nice night at the plate last night to get his BA up to .230 and OPS up to .703. It's pretty amazing the hole he's dug himself out of - now basically at his career averages.

Since he bottomed out BA at .178 on June 23 he's at:

.294/.354/.525/.879 - over 51 games and 194 PA - which is basically Benintendi's line for the year (slightly better in the power numbers). 25 XBH and 35 R, too. A very productive offensive player. That SLG/OPS would be just outside the top 10 in the AL if for the full year.

Is JBJ the streakiest player in recent Red Sox history? He seems to have long chunks of seasons, not simply run-of-the-mill slumps and hot streaks a la Mookie's recent slump, where he plays significantly above or significantly below his career averages. Put another way: he rarely plays at his averages, or even close to them; he's either Jekyll or Hyde, just not JBJ career stats.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Is JBJ the streakiest player in recent Red Sox history? He seems to have long chunks of seasons, not simply run-of-the-mill slumps and hot streaks a la Mookie's recent slump, where he plays significantly above or significantly below his career averages. Put another way: he rarely plays at his averages, or even close to them; he's either Jekyll or Hyde, just not JBJ career stats.

At least since Brian Daubach. Maybe I'm forgetting someone in between.

 

[Savin Hillbilly]

Is JBJ the streakiest player in recent Red Sox history?

Yes. He's macro-streaky.

Consider this: his career wRC+ is 92. Only 9 of his 33 months in the major leagues have been within 20% of that in either direction. Contrast this with Mookie (13 of 27 months) or Xander (17 of 31).

Now it gets really freaky. You'd expect that month-by-month variation to even out a little at the level of the half-season, as it does with Mookie (8 of 10 half-seasons within 20%) and Xander (6 of 11).

Not with Jackie. The variation gets more pronounced. Jackie has only had two half-seasons out of 12 within 20% of his career average wRC+. (Only four of them are even within 30%.) How about the full-season level? Only two years out of six within 20%.

It's like Jackie lives in a different time dimension when it comes to streakiness. Years are his months.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Just to add more context and to show how extreme it is. When he's on, he's essentially a HOF. A .900 OPS bat with generational defense at CF. When he's off, he's worse than Darren Lewis.

2018:
First 251 PA: .178/.275/.288 .232 BAbip
Last 155: .294/.354/.525, .366 BAbip.

2017:
First 292 PA: .290/.363/.490, .319 BAbip
Last 249 PA: .204/.277/.302, .265 BAbip

2016:
First 387 PA: .306/.385/.556, .349 BAbip
Last 249 PA: .206/.293/.376, .246 BAbip

2015:
First 71 PA: .121/.254/.172, .146 BAbip
Last 184 PA: .294/.366/.613, .375 BAbip

Pretty remarkable. Over 2400 PA and we still aren't really sure what we'll get from JBJ next year. If you remove his first 2 years of play due to him being rushed, he's slashed .249/.330/.441 in 1878 PA. I used to be ok with ignoring those 2 seasons because when you follow his career trend, it fit the narrative. The last 2 seasons have shown he's perfectly capable of hitting like 2013/14 JBJ for 200+ PA samples at any given time tho.

I wish all his cold streaks were more in line with his 2nd half of 2016. That's still at least a somewhat productive player and is a lot easier a hole to dig yourself out of. I'm really curious how he ages and to see if his streaks become shorter or more prolonged. Signing JBJ long term would be an interesting proposal. He could easily be a steal or overpaid depending on their evaluation of his offense.

I could easily see JBJ hitting .270/.350/.510 or .215/.320/.370 next season. The variance is huge.

 

[Al Zarilla]

Nice to see Jackie near the top of page 3 out of 5 pages (and 2 players on a short page 6) of qualified players right now (fWAR). Something mind boggling though: they have him with 1 (one) defensive run saved as a center fielder and 2 as a right fielder. WTF? For comparison, Mookie has 15 so far this year, all RF. Defensive advanced stats I will probably never understand.

 

[SirPsychoSquints]

Nice to see Jackie near the top of page 3 out of 5 pages (and 2 players on a short page 6) of qualified players right now (fWAR). Something mind boggling though: they have him with 1 (one) defensive run saved as a center fielder and 2 as a right fielder. WTF? For comparison, Mookie has 15 so far this year, all RF. Defensive advanced stats I will probably never understand.

I'm not finding that stat - those would be above average for the position, right?

 

[Al Zarilla]

I'm not finding that stat - those would be above average for the position, right?

Here's Jackie's and Mookie's fangraphs pages, if you want to compare them:

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12984&position=OF
https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13611&position=OF

Scroll down about 3/4ths of the way and you find Advanced Fielding and a column headed DRS, for Defensive Runs Saved. Like I said, Mookie has 15, OK, but Jackie has only 3, only 1 as a CF. I looked up fangraphs definition of DRS and I still don't understand why JBJ's DRS numbers aren't higher, which they have been in his prior years. Maybe because he has just average speed in getting to balls? But didn't he have approximately the same speed in prior years, or is he slowing down. That can't be it, except remember the incredible catch he made that they rated as 44% or something catchable? All the commentators were saying had to be <10% catchable and give us a break.

http://fieldingbible.com/Fielding-Bible-FAQ.asp

Oh well, JBJ's defensive WAR component is a strong 11.3, in spite of his only average DRS. I think he wins the gold glove.

 

[Cesar Crespo]

Here's Jackie's and Mookie's fangraphs pages, if you want to compare them:

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12984&position=OF
https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13611&position=OF

Scroll down about 3/4ths of the way and you find Advanced Fielding and a column headed DRS, for Defensive Runs Saved. Like I said, Mookie has 15, OK, but Jackie has only 3, only 1 as a CF. I looked up fangraphs definition of DRS and I still don't understand why JBJ's DRS numbers aren't higher, which they have been in his prior years. Maybe because he has just average speed in getting to balls? But didn't he have approximately the same speed in prior years, or is he slowing down. That can't be it, except remember the incredible catch he made that they rated as 44% or something catchable? All the commentators were saying had to be <10% catchable and give us a break.

http://fieldingbible.com/Fielding-Bible-FAQ.asp

Oh well, JBJ's defensive WAR component is a strong 11.3, in spite of his only average DRS. I think he wins the gold glove.

It could just be noise. Don't defensive metrics need like 3 year sample sizes?

 

[RorschachsMask]

This year to me was different than past when he was struggling. He had that tough few week stretch when he couldn't hit a fastball above the waist, but otherwise he was legitimately crushing the ball.

The poster who said he's had a career year destroyed by poor luck was spot on.

 

[BaseballJones]

This year to me was different than past when he was struggling. He had that tough few week stretch when he couldn't hit a fastball above the waist, but otherwise he was legitimately crushing the ball.

The poster who said he's had a career year destroyed by poor luck was spot on.

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=12984&position=OF#battedball

Line drive rate:
2016: 18.4%
2017: 18.4%
2018: 20.1%

Soft/Med/Hard contact rate:
2016: 16.0%/48.1%/36.0%
2017: 17.5%/49.2%/33.3%
2018: 10.5%/50.2%/39.3%

BABIP:
2016: .312
2017: .294
2018: .292

And from his baseball savant stat cast page....

Exit Velocity:
2016: 90.1
2017: 88.1
2018: 91.8

Launch Angle:
2016: 10.1
2017: 9.4
2018: 11.0

Hard Hit%:
2016: 40.0%
2017: 39.7%
2018: 48.8%

Long story short, basically every metric shows that he's hitting the ball harder, more line drives, and more in the air than ever before. And yet his BABIP is worse than the past two years. His SLG, OPS, and ops+ is the worst it's been since his rookie season.

So yeah, he's actually doing the things it takes to put up some really good offensive numbers. But....it's just not happening for him. An entire season of mostly bad luck. Maybe that will turn around here in September and October.