Lurking: Ryan Flaherty?

[scOtt]

It was the eye right?

With you it's always the eyes.

Nah, just the lurking.

[Jonesy10]

When Schoop isn't jumping out of his shoes at the plate it's hard not to love him. Bottle it up Jon.

[Old#5fan]

When Schoop isn't jumping out of his shoes at the plate it's hard not to love him. Bottle it up Jon.

I agree he definitely is a better mistake pitch hitter than FlAherty with obvious more hr power.

[Can_of_corn]

I agree he definitely is a better mistake pitch hitter than FlAherty with obvious more hr power.

Ball sounds different off his bat.

[Oldorioles]

See MrOrange's post. Flaherty has shown that he can be a quality mlb player (1.4 WAR in limited time last season). Schoop hasn't. His OPS in May is barely .500...might be below that after tonight. I like Schoop, but he is simply hurting the team right now. The bottom line is that right now Flaherty deserves to start more than Schoop does. Some people just don't want to hear it because they have an unconditional hate for Flash and man crush on Schoop.

Flaherty hits 3 run HR, makes 2 defensive miscues, bench him! Flaherty with a great bunt single, Kirby waves him to second only to be tagged out, Flash's fault.

Again, bottom line is that Flaherty has started slow every year and hit much better after that. If he's showing any signs of heating up there's no reason Flaherty shouldn't start because Schoop is terrible (right now) and doesn't belong in the big leagues at this point in time.

Anybody that can't see that has to have an unconditional hatred of Flaherty.

You continue to conveniently leave out Flaherty's WAR in other seasons and only mention last year, which is the ONLY season he has had a positive WAR. The facts are in 2012 he had an fWAR of -0.5 (his rWAR was -0.2) and this season his fWAR is -0.2 (rWAR is -0.6). Is this "Quality"? Look, I think Flaherty's defensive versatility is a good thing and I like that he has a little bit of pop. For several years our bench hasn't had many options with some pop. I can definitely see him in the majors, but I just feel he is not a starter...he's a utility infielder coming off the bench.

I know not everyone agrees with this and you can certainly feel differently, but to state Schoop is terrible and doesn't belong in the big leagues while Flaherty not only belongs but "deserves to start" is silly considering Schoop has him beat in almost every metric this season. If you prefer Flaherty, that's fine but if you're going to call Schoop terrible than Flaherty has to at least be called the same. No?

[olehippi]

Regardless of his meager hitting stats, Flaherty is the only player on this team with experience playing at all four infield positions and both corner OF positions, and to do so capably. He is an accomplished utility player. And with the emergence of Jonathan Schoop at 2B, that is the roll Flaherty is again assuming. I think we should be happy to have such a player on the team.

[Oldorioles]

Regardless of his meager hitting stats, Flaherty is the only player on this team with experience playing at all four infield positions and both corner OF positions, and to do so capably. He is an accomplished utility player. And with the emergence of Jonathan Schoop at 2B, that is the roll Flaherty is again assuming. I think we should be happy to have such a player on the team.

Agreed, I think he provides some value to the team as a versatile utility player.

[CA-ORIOLE]

You continue to conveniently leave out Flaherty's WAR in other seasons and only mention last year, which is the ONLY season he has had a positive WAR. The facts are in 2012 he had an fWAR of -0.5 (his rWAR was -0.2) and this season his fWAR is -0.2 (rWAR is -0.6). Is this "Quality"? Look, I think Flaherty's defensive versatility is a good thing and I like that he has a little bit of pop. For several years our bench hasn't had many options with some pop. I can definitely see him in the majors, but I just feel he is not a starter...he's a utility infielder coming off the bench.

I know not everyone agrees with this and you can certainly feel differently, but to state Schoop is terrible and doesn't belong in the big leagues while Flaherty not only belongs but "deserves to start" is silly considering Schoop has him beat in almost every metric this season. If you prefer Flaherty, that's fine but if you're going to call Schoop terrible than Flaherty has to at least be called the same. No?

Flaherty's WAR will degrade if he's not playing second base. Last year he got regular time at second base.

Nobody believes Flaherty has more upside than Schoop. Schoop had been playing pretty poorly. Another week of poor play he'd have been in the minors imo. It was nice to see Schoop have a breakout game today. Hopefully it will translate into more going forward.

[El Gordo]

The key for Schoop is if he can continue to make adjustments and show progress with the bat. He can't wait another two/three weeks to have another good game. His glove is fine, but Flaherty's is better, so Schoop's bat has to keep improving.

[eddie83]

The key for Schoop is if he can continue to make adjustments and show progress with the bat. He can't wait another two/three weeks to have another good game. His glove is fine, but Flaherty's is better, so Schoop's bat has to keep improving.

The better we hit as a team the less his offense matters as well.

[DrungoHazewood]

The better we hit as a team the less his offense matters as well.

I never believed that. I think everyone on the team needs to have something they do well or they're a candidate for being platooned/replaced/benched/demoted. You stick with Schoop if you think he has the potential to be an asset. If he's an average glove who's offense isn't there that's a candidate position to improve the team. Maybe the available resources and opportunities don't let you improve right now, but everything matters.

[eddie83]

I never believed that. I think everyone on the team needs to have something they do well or they're a candidate for being platooned/replaced/benched/demoted. You stick with Schoop if you think he has the potential to be an asset. If he's an average glove who's offense isn't there that's a candidate position to improve the team. Maybe the available resources and opportunities don't let you improve right now, but everything matters.

His glove is an asset. Flaherty hasn't shown a lot of offense in his chances. I can't see Buck using Lombardozzi there considering he is weaker defensively unless we are struggling to score runs and he thinks Steve can be more consistent.

[Flash- bd]

I don't mean to defend anyone here and don't want to get involved in this argument, but I just want to point out that war is an estimate of a players value, not a fact. A lot of flaherty's supposed value was based on defensive metrics that are definitely not facts. Now Flaherty's pathetic hitting this year is a fact.

Lol, yes. A fact! A fact! A fact based on 104 PAs. Here's another fact: Flaherty's career OPS (still a relatively small sample, sadly) is .640, which was 57 pts higher than Schoop's season OPS before he hit 2 HRs yesterday.

Anyways, CA-ORIOLE has said it right, if Schoop's big game yesterday was a sign of things to come and not just a nice blip in an otherwise poor long-term performance, then he is here to stay and we can be happy knowing that Ryan is a very capable utility man who can step in nicely should Schoop get hurt.

edit: thanks for pointing out error I made while quickly checking Schoop and Flaherty's stats, MrOrange. It's been fixed. Happily, fixing the error doesn't change the point of my post at all.

[MrOrange82]

Lol, yes. A fact! A fact! A fact based on 104 PAs. Here's another fact: Flaherty's career OPS (still a relatively small sample, sadly) is .660, which was 77 pts higher than Schoop's season OPS before he hit 2 HRs yesterday.

Anyways, CA-ORIOLE has said it right, if Schoop's big game yesterday was a sign of things to come and not just a nice blip in an otherwise poor long-term performance, then he is here to stay and we can be happy knowing that Ryan is a very capable utility man who can step in nicely should Schoop get hurt.

Flaherty's career OPS is actually .640, which is three points lower than Schoop's current OPS (and, incidentally, 20 points lower than Schoop's career OPS, which really is .660). Sadly, it seems Ryan flew too close to the sun with that career-high .683 OPS last season

[Ohfan67]

Lol, yes. A fact! A fact! A fact based on 104 PAs. Here's another fact: Flaherty's career OPS (still a relatively small sample, sadly) is .660, which was 77 pts higher than Schoop's season OPS before he hit 2 HRs yesterday.

Anyways, CA-ORIOLE has said it right, if Schoop's big game yesterday was a sign of things to come and not just a nice blip in an otherwise poor long-term performance, then he is here to stay and we can be happy knowing that Ryan is a very capable utility man who can step in nicely should Schoop get hurt.

WAR estimates are estimates of value. They are not like batting average, slugging percentage, etc., especially the defensive estimates. They are an index of several other indexes. They are not statistics like batting average and the like. that's what I meant...WAR, especially the defensive values, has its strengths but definitely weaknesses.

I am not trying to defend Flaherty or Schoop. I think Flaherty is exactly how he has performed, by the way. Anyway, I was just pointing out that the WAR you cited would have a huge standard error around it if they calculated such a thing, especially because it was largely based on Flaherty's supposed defensive value. Those calculations are basically impressions with numbers attached.