Problem solved tonight when Hanley hit the wall. Hope everyone is happy. Looked more like a shoulder than a wrist injury that forced him to leave the game.
Seriously? Who here is happy he got hurt? The two have nothing to do with each other.Harry Hooper said:Problem solved tonight when Hanley hit the wall. Hope everyone is happy. Looked more like a shoulder than a wrist injury that forced him to leave the game.
You people always do....luckysox said:Thanks for the clarification. I'm keeping my $10, though.
Let's try this again.gryoung said:I'll be curious if they let Hanley stay in LF all season. They probably will, just because there really is nowhere else to put him barring a Pablo/Ortiz injury. But this signing has some serious "egg on face" potential for Cherington. At least until Ortiz retires.
In LF, Hanley is truly a train wreck. Part of it is a lack of instincts, part of it is the fact that he just can't move out there with his bulked up body. Just to name one weakness, he takes forever to run down any balls in the corner or in the gap, and anyone on first base can basically walk home. There are, of course, plenty of other weaknesses.
My assessment is mostly on the eye test, which certainly is problematic (though so are SSS UZR and WAR as we have been reminded many times), especially since I haven't been to a game live all year. He probably can't get any worse, so I expect at least some improvement over the year, but some improvement might not be good enough to even reach run-of-the-mill "below average" status.
I looked up his UZR numbers out of curiosity, which again, shouldn't be treated as anything close to gospel at this point. But they also match what I think we're seeing, making them at least worth watching as he gets more innings out there. He hasn't hit very well either which doesn't help, possibly related to his AC joint injury. But I think it's pretty safe to say his defensive awfulness is going to significantly cut into whatever offensive value he provides going forward.
UZR: - 9.2
UZR/150: -44.2
WAR: -0.6
If people are wondering why the sum of this team doesn't seem to match up with the individual parts…. maybe we should start here. A square peg in a round hole might just be a bad part.
If by that you mean his attitude, it seems like that has not been a problem this year. He seems to be going out of his way to be a great teammate, all love and kisses, etc. Baserunning and fielding have been the problem with him.gryoung said:Let's try this again.
Outside of the offensive and defensive statistics for Hanley (a tough thing to suggest in this forum, my biggest concern with him is his presence. This was/is my basis for opposing the signing. He's always been, and apparently continues to be, a giant pain in the ass.
With the Sox having so many young core players on the roster, and more likely showing up over the course of the season, he's not the guy these kids should be exposed to every day. Yes, there are several guys there who can show the "right way" to do things, but Hanley certainly sets a very large poor example........
Given the youth movement, bringing him back was a strange decision.
Al Zarilla said:If by that you mean his attitude, it seems like that has not been a problem this year. He seems to be going out of his way to be a great teammate, all love and kisses, etc. Baserunning and fielding have been the problem with him.
Speaking if square pegs, I wonder how much of the pitching staff's woes have been because we have a bunch of converted infielders playing outfield. Hanley has obviously been a problem out there. Betts looks better but he's not got a ton of experience, ditto Holt. Add in the immobile Craig in RF early in the season and that seems like a lot question marks or worse out there.radsoxfan said:If people are wondering why the sum of this team doesn't seem to match up with the individual parts…. maybe we should start here. A square peg in a round hole might just be a bad part.
Red(s)HawksFan said:
Yeah, I'm not sure why we are supposed to believe that Hanley is some kind of poor influence on the younger players. Was he a malcontent with a bad attitude as a 23-24 year old in Miami? Yes he was. Was he not a "team player" regarding changing positions when Miami signed Jose Reyes? Yes, and they dealt him away. But he's 31 years old now and has apparently matured.
I think he should get a bit of a clean slate given he came, practically hat in hand, to the Red Sox offering to change positions in order to make himself attractive to them. He wanted to be here, to play with Ortiz, to wear the uniform of the team that originally signed him. The fact that he was included in a meeting today that Farrell had with his veteran "leaders" (Ortiz, Pedroia, Napoli, Sandoval, Hanley) seems to indicate the manager and his teammates don't seem to view him in a negative light.
He's been shit in the field, and shit on the bases, but there's nothing to indicate he's been shit in the clubhouse or dugout.
He's also been injured for a good portion of the season, so they may want him resting whenever possible.Harry Hooper said:
The word among some media members is that Hanley is rarely seen doing any sort of extra fielding work in Fenway. If this is true, then that is both concerning in regard to his playing LF and also in terms of not providing the best example for the young'uns.
Out of curiosity, where are you seeing this being reported?Harry Hooper said:
The word among some media members is that Hanley is rarely seen doing any sort of extra fielding work in Fenway. If this is true, then that is both concerning in regard to his playing LF and also in terms of not providing the best example for the young'uns.
Papelbon's Poutine said:Out of curiosity, where are you seeing this vein reported?
Sounds like the nonsense Felger and Mazz say....Harry Hooper said:
On the radio this past week. Sorry to say you can't take the media at face value in this town, so verification is still pending.
It wasn't a host, would never have mentioned it if it were.NDame616 said:Sounds like the nonsense Felger and Mazz say....
Harry Hooper said:It wasn't a host, would never have mentioned it if it were.
E5 Yaz said:
Then why both mentioning it at all? Unless we can source an accusation like this, it seems best unsaid here.
Harry Hooper said:
Sheesh, it wasn't whispered in a bar but broadcast on Boston sports radio by someone who seemingly covered the team. I can't recall who, but I bet someone else here can.
To be fair, Pedroia already has 5 errors in 50 games played. The most he's ever had in a season was 7 in 159 games. His fielding percentage of .979 is far below his career average of .991.MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:Alex Speier has a piece in the globe saying Hanley is the worst defensive player in baseball, though he uses defensive WAR and UZR to make his case and the same article says Pedey is below average this year, which I refuse to believe.
I don't think it has anything to do with diminished range or anything, just that he's had the dropsies a bit. I recall at least one of those likely plays just going right through him which we never see.MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:Alex Speier has a piece in the globe saying Hanley is the worst defensive player in baseball, though he uses defensive WAR and UZR to make his case and the same article says Pedey is below average this year, which I refuse to believe.
Partial season UZR and defensive WAR? Those are meaningless numbers, and Speier ought to know better. Very disappointing to see him misuse stats like that.MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:Alex Speier has a piece in the globe saying Hanley is the worst defensive player in baseball, though he uses defensive WAR and UZR to make his case and the same article says Pedey is below average this year, which I refuse to believe.
Ramirez, according to these calculations, has cost the Sox 1.4 wins with his glove — meaning that he’s been roughly 50 percent worse than the players who otherwise would have been characterized as the worst in the majors.
At his current pace, Ramirez would be worth -4.4 wins for the year with his glove. That would rank as the second-worst defensive season in Baseball-Reference.com’s records, ahead of only Adam Dunn’s dismal 2009 season (-5.2 wins) with the Nationals.
Fangraphs has him with a UZR that is 9.2 runs worse than a league-average left fielder. BIS has Ramirez at 11 runs worse than league average in left. To put that 11-run impact in context: Ramirez is costing the Sox, according to BIS, about a quarter of a run per game with his glove.
While I agree that it is a misuse of stats for a quarter season of data, I think it's interesting from a pure train wreck POV that his season could end at the worst side of that single season metric for whatever that one year of data is worth.The Gray Eagle said:Partial season UZR and defensive WAR? Those are meaningless numbers, and Speier ought to know better. Very disappointing to see him misuse stats like that.
The Gray Eagle said:Partial season UZR and defensive WAR? Those are meaningless numbers, and Speier ought to know better. Very disappointing to see him misuse stats like that.
grimshaw said:While I agree that it is a misuse of stats for a quarter season of data, I think it's interesting from a pure train wreck POV that his season could end at the worst side of that single season metric for whatever that one year of data is worth.
alwyn96 said:For what it's worth (nothing), Hanley as the worst defensive player in baseball passes my personal eyeball test. I obviously haven't seen every player in baseball, but so far I'd say he looks worse than Manny out there. That seems pretty bad.
UZR/150 is composed of (with Hanley's numbers in parentheses): Outfield arm runs saved above average (-3), Good fielding plays runs saved above average (-2), plus/minus runs saved above average (-6), Defensive runs saved (-11), Outfield arm runs saved above average (-2.8), Range runs above average (-6.4), error runs above average (-.1), and UZR which is from Speier's piece. UZR consists of the bolded.Rovin Romine said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't UZR and defensive WAR approximate how many runs/wins a fielder saves or allows based on range? By that I mean to say it's one of those stats that's useful for determining an abstract level of defensive skill?
In terms of negative defensive WAR, I think we can actually see, concretely, what Hanley does. How many true flubs has he had out there? How many of those flubs have actually been a missed out (resulting in more pitching) or an extra base (resulting or not resulting in an *actual* run), or an actual run? How many of those extra bases or actual runs have made a difference in a game?
While we can't know how many runs a spectacular defensive play prevents, I think we can track pretty directly what the consequences of Hanley's fielding is. I haven't seen enough games to judge, but has he actually cost the team a game?
We went through this with Manny in Fenway.
*PS - I'm not saying that he's not a shitty fielder. I just wonder if defensive WAR measures actual harm in the standings, rather than a level of crappiness that could potentially cost the team X number of games in the standings.
geoduck no quahog said:OK, what's with the taking of the pitches (bat on the shoulder) thing. I think I've seen that 3 times lately. WTF? I imagine his teammates don't necessarily appreciate that batting approach.
Is something wrong with this guy? Is he trying to get benched? Does he need to get laid more often?
grimshaw said:UZR/150 is composed of (with Hanley's numbers in parentheses): Outfield arm runs saved above average (-3), Good fielding plays runs saved above average (-2), plus/minus runs saved above average (-6), Defensive runs saved (-11), Outfield arm runs saved above average (-2.8), Range runs above average (-6.4), error runs above average (-.1), and UZR which is from Speier's piece. UZR consists of the bolded.
That's not how it works though. UZR and DRS are context-independent because you can't just say "well, he didn't lose us any games with his defense." If you played the first 50 games over 1000 times, Hanley's defensive performance is estimated to cost you that many runs on average.Rovin Romine said:
Well, that's the math for the stat. I guess what I'm asking, more directly, is: has Hanley's defense actually "made a difference" in any particular Sox loss this year?
(Because I'm thinking that "historically bad" defense would have at least 3 specific games lost that we can personally lay at Hanley's feet.)
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:Manny wasn't anywhere CLOSE to how bad Hanley has been. Manny was great at playing the wall, often barehanding balls and firing in to second. He was double-digits in assists three different times. Imagine Hanley doing that?
Sure, Manny was about 9 runs below average per season on average, but that's mostly a range thing. His hands and arm were both more than adequate.
Ramirez, who will own a Gold Glove only if he mints it himself, overran Edgar Renteria's ground ball single in the eighth, allowing pinch runner Jason Marquis, who had stopped at third, to score, just barely beating Ramirez's belated throw to the plate. Marquis, who was running for Mike Matheny after the Cardinal hit a one-out single off Mike Timlin, already had had a previous adventure on the basepaths, losing his balance and staggering into second base advancing on a bloop single by pinch hitter Roger Cedeno, hitting off Alan Embree.
Larry Walker, the St. Louis right fielder who already had four hits in the game, including a home run and two doubles, then flared a fly to left and Ramirez appeared to be in position to make a routine running catch. But inexplicably, a Manny moment: Ramirez went into a popup slide, caught his spike, and missed the ball. Just like that, the lead the Sox had fashioned the inning before on singles by Ramirez and David Ortiz was gone, and Foulke had his first blown save of the postseason, though if the rules allowed it, the official scorer could easily have hung it on Ramirez.
There was also the patented Manny sideways dive that expressly gave the ball an opportunity to bounce right on by him. Here's Hanley aping him. And if I remember correctly, Manny never really sprinted in the outfield. This was about as hard as he'd go. Hard to imagine him making this catch, for example. Now, admittedly, it doesn't look like there's too much of a difference in motor, there, but I think it is there. All of this is anecdotal, of course, but I just think it's important to remind people just how bad Manny was.Average Reds said:
The bolded is perhaps the greatest lie ever told on this board.
By the time he left the Sox, Manny had become serviceable in left. In his first few years, he was a horror show, and on occasion he would put on displays that would make the mind reel. Take this description from game 1 of the 2004 World Series:
I can't find the video of that moment just yet, but the memory is seared in my consciousness. And if the Sox hadn't bailed Manny out by winning that game, it's possible that he would have become an all-time series goat for his display of ineptitude.
Hanley is bad and clumsy out there right now. But he's nowhere near as putrid as Manny at his worst. The good news is that (like Manny) he'll get better.
Toe Nash said:That's not how it works though. UZR and DRS are context-independent because you can't just say "well, he didn't lose us any games with his defense." If you played the first 50 games over 1000 times, Hanley's defensive performance is estimated to cost you that many runs on average.
Also, if he misses a ball, it has snowball effects beyond the direct impact of that play, as the pitcher has to throw more pitches, more batters come up, etc., even if there is no damage done in that inning.
None of his home runs "made a difference" either -- they all came in losses or in games the team would have won anyway if you remove the runs from the homer from the game. But no one thinks of it that way because we assume absent really bad luck or something very weird that he's going to hit some HR that count over the course of the year.