And he strikes out too much. Leads the team right now; led the team last year (by a sizable margin) and would have led the team in '15 if he hadn't missed 60 games. If people are frustrated by short-term slumps, imagine the level of frustration people would have watching him continually K with RISP. Fans would blow a gasket. Springer is a very nice player but far from complete with some glaring holes in his game. It's why I'm certain they're going to let him walk (unless he re-ups for a ridiculously below-market deal) when his deal is up.
Where we disagree is that 2017 as a whole is a track record (IMO). And taken as a whole, his numbers arent so good for the #1 spot. His 2017 numbers reflect a lot more than a slump for a few games. Quit being silly and implying otherwise. You do realize that 2017 as a whole includes both his slumps AND his hot streaks, right?
I think ignoring 3 years and 38 games is a lot sillier. A 2-25 stretch is gonna tank anybodies number this early in the year. I'm probably gonna stop debating this. You are convinced Springer has been bad all year, I think he has been bad for 10 days. We are just gonna go around and around arguing the same point in different ways.
Springer had 741 PAs last year; he's had roughly a quarter of those so far this year. Sure, it's *a* track record... but still a significantly shorter one than 2015-2016. Players like routine; they don't like being jerked around on a whim because of a few bad games. They're going to let him hit out of it. And if he doesn't.... they'll make a change.
So, assume you put Altuve leadoff. What does the rest of your lineup look like using a typical set of players? Springer CF, Redick RF, Aoki LF, Bregman 3B, Correa SS, Altuve 2B, Marwin 1B, McCann C, Beltran DH
Im not ignoring it, its just the past is less relevant to me than the present. Are we going to apply this principle to Beltran? His career numbers and last year? How's that working out this year? Should we play Marwin less because his previous two years were not as good as this one? Should we ignore what Jake is doing this year because the sample is too small?
Projecting the future in baseball historically has not followed perceptions based on small sample sizes, so while more recent data is weighted more, it takes a lot more than 50 games to make accurate judgements in most cases. Looking at past data, Beltran wasn't looking that good as a DH heading into this season and the data this year just adds to it. Beltran is flirting with being worst hitter in baseball while Springer has only been slightly above average...Apples and Oranges comparison. Yes. Astros following lineup contructions based on appropriately weighting recent and less recent data has worked so well it has lead to Astros fans annoying poor disgruntled announcers from Arilington with smugness.
His avg, ops, and obp has been in decline since 2015. 2015 was his best year. 2016 was worse. 2017 is worse than 2016. He's declining if you compare him year by year. I would rather see someone leading off that can get on base at a higher rate. The man is batting .231, that is not acceptable for a lead off man.
I'm not sure the 18 year track record is all that important for a 40 year old. He's just not going to be the same player. He was worse the 2nd half of last year than the 1st half, and the trend has continued. He's not looked good at ANY point this season, really. Of all the talk about trying to get Marisnick or MarGo more at bats, it seems like DH is an easy place to do that (or putting them in the field and getting the regulars some breathers by playing DH). Even more so in that Beltran not playing every day is not a big deal - he has enough of a track record that he doesn't need the playing time and is old enough that he could use the rest. And yet, he has the 5th most ABs on the team. (edit: looking at the totals, everyone after the top 4 should be at least partially a part time player, so this last part isn't super surprising) I agree that he'll eventually start losing ABs, probably. But from a pure on-field performance and expected performance standpoint, it seems something that would have already happened given all of the above. I imagine he plays, at least in part, for those other reasons like leadership, being an example, etc. I do think teams value that stuff more than you might think.
I think the old proverb "if you ain't in first, yer last" applies to many of the recent complaints about players, stats even though the team is actually in first
I've been on the "Beltran looks bad" train since the first week of the season. That said, he has been a relatively streaky hitter more than we might want to believe. Year: 1st half / 2nd half 2012: great / decent 2013: great / decent 2014: bad / decent 2015: decent / great 2016: great / good 2017: bad / ? Roughly defining by OPS: .600-.700 = bad .700-.775 = decent .775-.825 = good .825-.925 = great
I disagree. The message you would be sending is: We don't have patience with guys. And if they did it to George it would be compounded because he's established and been there so long. Teams have pecking orders that are established in part by seniority. They influence things. I'm not sure you can argue otherwise. Unless you want to believe that stats make all the lineup decisions, which is not true.
I assume Astros do something like this, and this seems as good as any place to put it. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/sund...rnette-on-the-shuuto-sss-match-up-comps-more/ The Texas Rangers manager brought up a salient point when doing so. When there’s not much of a history between a particular hitter and a particular pitcher, introducing comps to the equation can help. “(You’re) finding like pitchers, like hitters, like stuff, matching them up and extrapolating them out to come up with a better predictor,” explained Banister. “So when you get that 15 to 25 at-bat matchup, which you go, ‘it’s a little light’ — if you can find comparables, and predict that out, there’s maybe a little more feel-good on decision making. But that’s challenging.” ——— Seattle’s Scott Servais had a similar take when I asked him if his club uses match-up comps when putting together their lineups. “Quite a bit,” said the Mariners skipper. “Every team uses a different formula, or matrix number — whatever you want to call it — to line up. We certainly have one. Our analytic guys produce that number for me on a daily basis. I don’t go with it all the time, but the majority of time I do. It’s based not on just the handedness of the pitcher, but kind of what his fastball does, what his repertoire is, what our hitter does. It’s kind of a complex formula.”
Hell No! If he was batting 3rd after our table-setters, he'd probably have many more HRs and RBIs. George is an absolute beast with RISP, but a pathetic table-setter.
Springer is batting .217 with bases empty (.243 leading off) and .324 with RISP this year. He rises to the occasion when RISP. It makes no sense for him to leadoff if the guy does so much better with RISP. On the other hand, Altuve is now .217 with RISP and .317 with bases empty. Hinch can't figure out the table setters (Altuve) from high RISP guys. http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/32078/george-springer
