I’m no expert on arbitration hearings, but I also am not sure he would have received 6.25 mil in one. For that to happen you would need similar players to make that much, and while his SB total & Def would have jumped it some, his lack of power, walks, and BA should have negated it heavily. I can’t think of a player like him that is making that kind of money (if you’ve got an example, by all means let me know). Over two years in 2 arb hearings? that might equal out to 6.25, maybe slightly higher. All this is of course opinion, but it didn’t look like much of a deal at the time to me.

So, in my view, the Reds offered Willy a tad more than he would’ve gotten through arbitration for year 1… and in addition (with Dickerson having been very good for a month, and with former 1st rounder Stubbs starting the year in AAA) guaranteed Willy a SECOND year at about a 75% raise over year 1! Guaranteed it! Coming off .251/.308/.296 with half his games in Coors.

Now I certainly don’t claim to know what goes into decisions made in an MLB front office. I don’t claim to. I don’t have access. I’m just a dude commenting on a blog.

But even with my simplistic information, that strikes me as a blatantly stupid move, and I called it that (as did many others) at the time of the signing.

I’m sure the Reds have tons more information than we do. Tons. And I’m sure they analyze these things long and hard, and considered a lot of things we never did.

But in the end, they still signed him, for 2 years guaranteed, with a guaranteed built-in 75% raise for year 2, with Dickerson and Stubbs already in the system and as close to ready as they’re going to get (at least by 2010). It’s turned out very badly in this case.

How can we have faith in the decision-making of this organization? We lowly blog-dudes, with far less information (basically just whatever I can find on baseballreference.com and thebaseballcube.com, in my case), actually do seem to be reaching better conclusions at times (not always, of course, but sometimes) than the Reds are. How can this happen?

And how can we believe that they’re heading a good direction overall?

erik:
I didn’t mean to infer that those are new stats, if you were replying to my comment. I probably should have disjointed the two sentences, since I was more referring to the fact that they don’t even use those simple stats when evaluating players (i.e. Willy Taveras, who’s sh*tty season was no surprise to a lot of us).

Erik, how do you know the Reds don’t use these figures in evaluating talent? Have you heard this from Terry Reynolds or Chris Buckley? The stat community seems to think that player evaluation is as simple as looking at a couple of columns on a spreadsheet.

Look around, ask around. No team—none, not even Oakland—uses stat evaluations as its sole or even definitive measure. It’s a tool, an element, that fits into the overall evaluation of skill sets. If a team likes a player’s skill sets, his stat line isn’t going to scare them off.

On Taveras, here’s exactly what the Reds saw: They needed a center field/leadoff type to bridge them two years to get to Stubbs, who, if he didn’t/doesn’t pan out, they know they have to go shopping. But they needed time. They didn’t trust Dickerson’s 4-6 weeks of last year. Taveras would help them defensively and with some speed, which they needed, and any offensive shortcomings like his OBP could be worked on, as suggested by new evaluator Mike Squires, who came from the Rockies.

To the braintrust, Taveras’ pros overlapped his cons as a stopgap. That’s how they were thinking.

As for his contract, they gave him the amount ($6.25 mil) over two years what he would have received at arbitration for one year if the Rockies hadn’t non-tendered him. On that level, it looked like a bargain—to the Reds. They reacted too fast. They should have allowed Taveras’ market to play out. And then, perhaps, passed.

Mr. Redlegs: All this peripheral statistical yammering and yet, Brennaman is right.Reds suck with RISP.Runners are in position to score, hit isn’t delivered. Pretty simple.Has nothing to do with OBP, has nothing to do with anything else. It’s a singularly focused topic: getting a hit with RISP.

Brennaman is right that the team sucks in the statistical category AVG w/RISP.

As many others has said, the problem is that the Reds suck offensively, period. It’s not like they hit in other situations but then fail all of sudden when runners get into scoring position.

For example, my point was that if you have a Paul Janish up (.210 hitter); you cannot expect just because there is RISP that he is magically going to change his swing to become a .300 hitter. He is just a poor hitter in any situation.

Mr. Redlegs: Uh, OBP, SLG and OPS are not “new” stats.Branch Rickey was using OBP as a tool evaluating talent for the Cardinals in the 1930s and it has been a measuring device fairly regularly since the 1960s.Slugging percentage has been a fairly popular stat since the big-bat era of the 1950s and commonly used in the old Sporting News annuals, and OPS arrived in 1984, which, incidentally is the year OBP became an “official stat.”In fact, Bill James was talking about these measures in his Abstracts. That was 1985. Almost 25 years ago.

I didn’t mean to infer that those are new stats, if you were replying to my comment. I probably should have disjointed the two sentences, since I was more referring to the fact that they don’t even use those simple stats when evaluating players (i.e. Willy Taveras, who’s sh*tty season was no surprise to a lot of us). I wasn’t saying those are SABR stats because they aren’t, I can see why that may have confused you, that is if you were replying to me.

And sure our RISP stats suck, our hitters suck. We don’t need better run producers, we need better hitters. My argument would be what’s easier to do? Increase the amount of runners in scoring position with players within our price range? or find a “clutch” hitter within our price range? With guys like Votto/Bruce/Rolen/Phillips/Gomes(maybe) I think I’d look to fix the two hole.

But I think there are not many of these “clutch” guys, and even for the truly “clutch” hitters, the differences (RISP vs. non-RISP) are pretty small.

For the most part, the way guys hit with RISP is how they hit without RISP.

Mr. Redlegs: All this peripheral statistical yammering and yet, Brennaman is right.Reds suck with RISP.Runners are in position to score, hit isn’t delivered. Pretty simple.

True, hard to disagree with this.

The solution, though, is where I think some people have differing opinions.

I think some would say, the solution is, we need hitters who are more clutch.

I would say, the solution is, we just need better hitters.

RC: But I’m also unconvinced by that very, very SABR idea that RISP is an utterly meaningless stat in every case.

just to update stat-heads take on the idea of clutch. Which is somewhat the same as the avg w/RISP

it is no longer thought that there is no such thing as clutch. It has been understood that some players seem to have short runs (half a year to a year) where they are better in these situations. But there are some problems still. It seems that the idea of clutch does not happen across years or careers and that nothing can seem to predict what direction a players clutch performance might go. Adam Dunn for example was great in the clutch in 2005 and bad in the clutch in 2008. Brandon Phillips was absolutely wretched in the clutch in 2007 (among the worst in baseball among regulars) but was excellent in 2006

this has some have guessed and I think guess is the right word might have something to do with luck or in more scientific terms, BABIP.

in other words I don’t think it is an excepted fact that stat-heads don’t believe in clutch.

but wait, wait….that is NOT what my takeaway from this GREAT post by Greg was.
it was sure, sure, we are bad in the clutch but we are also just BAD at hitting.
How many bad hitters (ok a nicer term, low run production hitters) are good in the clutch??? I thought so. How many high run production hitters are good in the clutch? If the Reds get more hitters who produce we WILL be better in the clutch.

Yes, the team doesn’t hit with RISP, but they don’t hit ever, so why is that a surprise? I don’t think it is that hard to grasp.

Watching the Balentien/Rosales display yesterday affected my thinking perhaps.

I’m not so impressed that we measure high in advancing a runner from 2nd with none out. That’s because Dusty too often sacrifices in that situation. Recently he did it when Arroyo was batting after the sacrifice bunt. I thought from there Dusty was going to be bold and have Arroyo squeeze, instead Arroyo pops out on the first pitch,
and ultimately the runner was stranded.

I haven’t heard sabermetrics people say that clutch hitting is a total myth, more that’s it’s overrated because it’s unusual.

OK, I agree that the stats quoted above show that RISP is a useless measurement for team measurements – it all comes out in the wash.

And I hate the word “clutch” as much as the next guy. It’s a shortcut word that promises more than it can ever deliver.

But, Ramon Hernandez has a pronounced differential with RISP. Aberration? Regression to the mean just waiting to happen? Maybe, except he did the same thing last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.

“Not trying hard enough the other three at bats?” Cute. Or maybe he knows where he is in the batting order – maybe he concentrates on putting the ball in play with RISP for the same reason he tries to hit it deep when nobody’s on: because the 7/8/9 hitters most likely ain’t knocking anybody in behind him…

I’m not really particularly comfortable with that kind of mindreading. But I’m also unconvinced by that very, very SABR idea that RISP is an utterly meaningless stat in every case. I think occasionally y’all accidentally throw a baby or two out with the bathwater.

Anyway, I mostly agree – RISP is usually a crap stat. Except when it isn’t.