Adam Jones 2nd worst in MLB at swinging at Ball Four

[Can_of_corn]

Right. Because a center fielder would not have much of a chance otherwise.

Cept Jones (and Trout if the LAAoA had a clue).

[CA-ORIOLE]

I mistakenly assumed that when they split up the Gold Gloves that they would have enough sense to do the same with the Silver Slugger.

So why do guys like Jones and Bruce win the Silver Slugger ?

[Can_of_corn]

So why do guys like Jones and Bruce win the Silver Slugger ?

I have no idea how Bruce won.

Jones led AL outfielders in HR and RBI.

Pulled this off of Hardball Talk

Bruce’s OPS of .807 ranked behind the following non-Silver Slugger NL outfielders

–Justin Upton: OPS was 11 points higher

–Dominic Brown: 11 points higher

–Hunter Pence: 15 points higher

–Carlos Beltran: 23 points higher

–Carlos Gomez: 36 points higher

–Giancarlo Stanton: 38 points higher

–Marlon Byrd: 40 points higher

–Matt Holliday: 72 points higher

–Shin Soo Choo: 78 points higher

–Jayson Werth: 124 points higher

[weams]

The room Orioles outfielder Adam Jones stepped into Wednesday afternoon at the Brooklyn O’Malley Boys and Girls Club in South Baltimore barely resembled the one he last saw in July, when he attended the groundbreaking for an expanded Technology and Learning Center at the facility.

...

Jones saw first hand the result of a $75,000 donation made by him and the Orioles Charitable Foundation to renovate the center.

Kids rushed to 24 new computer terminals, four times more than previously existed. The walls were freshly painted black and orange and the room had new carpeting and lighting. Jones’ jersey hung on the wall, and the new center was renamed in honor of Jones and the Orioles.

...

“When you do charitable deeds, it’s good to see that it’s actually going toward something good,” Jones said. “It’s going to benefit a lot of kids, not just this group but it’s going to benefit a lot of groups and hopefully a lot of generations.”

The center will enhance the Boys and Girls Club’s ability to provide educational support, computer skill development and career enrichment, college prep and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs to its at-risk and underserved members.

Growing up in San Diego, Jones was a member of the Encanto Boys and Girls Club.

“Obviously this is something I love to do … just the fact that it’s a place for kids to always come if they don’t necessarily want to be at home,” Jones said. “It was always a place where my friends came. We did homework and we did other stuff. It was always a place where you could hang out. I just want to create a better opportunity for these kids here.

“Trust me, I see myself in a lot of these kids here,” Jones added. “There’s a few I definitely see myself in. That’s what it is. I think as adults, I think we begin to see reflections of ourselves.”

Ed Encina

[CA-ORIOLE]

Yeah, they must isolate doubles, HR's and RBI's.

edit: Jones was 3rd in SLG PCT among qualifying oufielders, so I guess that's right. Seems like a bad year for AL outfielders.

[weams]

So why do guys like Jones and Bruce win the Silver Slugger ?

Voters are teammates, managers, and coaches. Voters may NOT vote for a candidate from their own team.

[25 Nuggets]

Yeah, they must isolate doubles, HR's and RBI's.

edit: Jones was 3rd in SLG PCT among qualifying oufielders, so I guess that's right. Seems like a bad year for AL outfielders.

I think it was, a little... among the top ten in the AL in average, OBP, SLG and OPS combined the only OF that show are Mike Trout, Torii Hunter and Daniel Nava. Trout and Jones were the only two OF in the AL in the top ten in Total Bases.

I think the injury to Jose Bautista and the suspension of Nelson Cruz helped Jones win the SS.

[Babypowder]

I think it was, a little... among the top ten in the AL in average, OBP, SLG and OPS combined the only OF that show are Mike Trout, Torii Hunter and Daniel Nava. Trout and Jones were the only two OF in the AL in the top ten in Total Bases.

I think the injury to Jose Bautista and the suspension of Nelson Cruz helped Jones win the SS.

Jones would be 5th in line by wOBA and wRC+. I think games played probably excludes Victorino and Bautista though. Nava should have won one IMO. Then again, lack of PAs due to platooning may have hurt him too.

[Frobby]

Certainly eh? He was 44th in MLB in wOBA this year.

I don't respect that stat. But I understand if you do.

You don't think obp should count more then slugging.

Slugging is SO much better. SO much. Power is so under rated in this post PED era.

weams, I respectfully disagree, and I think you may not have a full understanding of wOBA. Most importantly, the weights used in calculating wOBA are not constant from one year to the next. If XBH are harder to come by in the post-PED era, such that the relative benefit of a walk or a single vs. a HR is shifted, the weights used to calculate wOBA are adjusted accordingly. They are adjusted every year. And it's not like they just make up the weighting factors. They actually look at how each event related to scoring runs in a given year. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/woba/

Rhetorically, let me ask you this: if power is so important, why did we only finish tied for 4th in the league in runs, when we easily hit more homers than any other team? Why were we tied in runs scored with the Indians, who hit 41 fewer homers than we did and had a slugging percentage 21 points below ours? Why did we score 22 runs fewer than the A's, who hit 26 fewer homers than we did and were 12 points below us in slugging?

Don't get me wrong, I really like Adam Jones. I gave him an A in the GTP exercise. I'm very happy he'll be our CF for the foreseeable future. But his "they don't pay me to walk" attitude is misguided. He'd be an even better player if he could hike his OBP back up to where it was in 2009 and 2012, and I seriously doubt it would cost him any home runs or RBI. I don't think he will ever be a high OBP guy, but this is an area where I think he is capable of some modest improvements that would help the team. (I'd also like to see him be more intelligent about judging when to try to throw a runner out at home plate; he has a great arm but he has a tendency to throw home even when he has no realistic shot at getting the runner, and allow the batter an extra base by doing so.)

[weams]

weams, I respectfully disagree, and I think you may not have a full understanding of wOBA. Most importantly, the weights used in calculating wOBA are not constant from one year to the next. If XBH are harder to come by in the post-PED era, such that the relative benefit of a walk or a single vs. a HR is shifted, the weights used to calculate wOBA are adjusted accordingly. They are adjusted every year. And it's not like they just make up the weighting factors. They actually look at how each event related to scoring runs in a given year. http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/woba/

Rhetorically, let me ask you this: if power is so important, why did we only finish tied for 4th in the league in runs, when we easily hit more homers than any other team? Why were we tied in runs scored with the Indians, who hit 41 fewer homers than we did and had a slugging percentage 21 points below ours? Why did we score 22 runs fewer than the A's, who hit 26 fewer homers than we did and were 12 points below us in slugging?

Don't get me wrong, I really like Adam Jones. I gave him an A in the GTP exercise. I'm very happy he'll be our CF for the foreseeable future. But his "they don't pay me to walk" attitude is misguided. He'd be an even better player if he could hike his OBP back up to where it was in 2009 and 2012, and I seriously doubt it would cost him any home runs or RBI. I don't think he will ever be a high OBP guy, but this is an area where I think he is capable of some modest improvements that would help the team. (I'd also like to see him be more intelligent about judging when to try to throw a runner out at home plate; he has a great arm but he has a tendency to throw home even when he has no realistic shot at getting the runner, and allow the batter an extra base by doing so.)

You are right. I may not fully respect that stat as it should be used and evaluated.

We did not set the table particularly well. and the lack of any real power from DH and Left Field certainly caused the lineup that we had to be limited a bit in it's run production.

I don't really believe in clutchiness. But we may have been a bit unlucky with runners in scoring position. I am glad this team has the power it does. A great asset.

[Frobby]

I came across a fascinating website today -- baseballsavant.com. Among other things, you can find graphs here showing how many pitches a batter saw in each of 9 segments of the strike zone, plus four areas outside the strike zone, and you can also break it down by count.

For example, you can look at how Adam Jones did on a full count here: http://baseballsavant.com/player.php?id=430945&team=&arm=&year=2013&player=&count=32&type=batter&pitch_type=&ddlVelocityGT=&ddlVelocityLT= You can see here that when the count was full, pitchers threw Jones a pitch outside the strike zone 46 times, and threw him a strike only 34 times. Of the pitches outside the zone, Jones whiffed 12 times, and got two hits. He also got called out on strikes two times (so, bad calls). Of the pitches in the strike zone, Jones whiffed only once, and got five hits. The only things you can't determine from this data is how often he fouled off pitches outside or inside the strike zone and how often he made outs on balls in play in those situations, and how his walks broke down between pitches outside the zone (good calls) and ones outside the zone (bad calls). So, we can determine that Jones fouled off 26 3-2 pitches, and made 16 outs on balls in play, and walked 13 times, but you can't break that down by inside/outside the strike zone.

Then here is Nick Markakis on a 3-2 count: http://baseballsavant.com/player.php?id=455976&team=&arm=&year=2013&player=&count=32&type=batter&pitch_type=&ddlVelocityGT=&ddlVelocityLT=

Pitchers threw him 62 balls and 42 strikes. Markakis whiffed on 5 pitches outside the strike zone in that situation, got 7 hits on pitches outside the zone and was called out on bad calls three times. Inside the zone, he whiffed twice, took one strike three, and had 8 hits. He fouled off 29 pitches, made 35 outs on balls in play, and walked 22 times.