Mancini is an average defensive left fielder according to UZR

[mdbdotcom]

32 minutes ago, weams said:

Trumbo has a big arm. 

Big arm. Hates pie. Fail.

[Aristotelian]

24 minutes ago, weams said:

Trumbo has a big arm. 

 

22 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Yes, he’s excellent at throwing the ball in after he fails to catch it.

Exactly. He gets to show it off on those long ones after he watches the ball go over his head.

[wildcard]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

I am sure if I went back and looked I could find a dozen posts by you attributing drops in his offensive performance to the fact that he was banged up.   I find it surprising that you are arguing now that his various injuries affected his defense but not his offense.   

Where did I say that the injury didn't affect his offense?  A player hits a wall its tends to affect his whole game. Don't confuse the fact the Mancini kept playing with whether its affect his game.

Mancini was hitting to a 771 OPS on April 20th.   In May his OPS was 597.   

[InsideCoroner]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Yes, he’s excellent at throwing the ball in after he fails to catch it.

I've never seen a big guy so frightened of a padded fence.  I sometimes wonder if he got attacked by a pack of rabid walls as a kid in California.    

[25 Nuggets]

You could make this argument - Mancini is your typical average lousy defensive left fielder.

Other than that I got nuthin'

[Frobby]

45 minutes ago, wildcard said:

Where did I say that the injury didn't affect his offense?  A player hits a wall its tends to affect his whole game. Don't confuse that fact the Mancini kept playing with whether its affect his game.

Mancini was hitting to a 771 OPS on April 20th.   In May his OPS was 597.   

So:

A.   Mancini had a .771 OPS as of April 20.

B.   Mancini banged his knee against a wall on April 20.

C.   Over his next 19 games, up through May 15, Mancini had an .806 OPS.

D.   From May 16-31, Mancini had a .380 OPS.

Your conclusion from this is that the knee injury caused his slump 3+ weeks later, and is also the main cause of his declining range stats in 2018.  My conclusion is that Mancini’s slump was probably unrelated to his knee, and not the main cause of his declining range stats in 2018.    I’m willing to concede that his knee may have had some impact on his range figures for 2018, but I don’t think it was the main cause.   

I guess we’ll see how much OF Mancini plays in 2019, and how he does out there.   

[wildcard]

12 minutes ago, Frobby said:

So:

A.   Mancini had a .771 OPS as of April 20.

B.   Mancini banged his knee against a wall on April 20.

C.   Over his next 19 games, up through May 15, Mancini had an .806 OPS.

D.   From May 16-31, Mancini had a .380 OPS.

Your conclusion from this is that the knee injury caused his slump 3+ weeks later, and is also the main cause of his declining range stats in 2018.  My conclusion is that Mancini’s slump was probably unrelated to his knee, and not the main cause of his declining range stats in 2018.    I’m willing to concede that his knee may have had some impact on his range figures for 2018, but I don’t think it was the main cause.   

I guess we’ll see how much OF Mancini plays in 2019, and how he does out there.   

I have looked at his day to day results.  I see your point(s).   You seem to be right.  Hitting the wall was ugly but probably not the cause of his offensive problem in the 1st half.

[Frobby]

Just now, wildcard said:

I have looked at his day to day results.  I see your point(s).   You seem to be right.  Hitting the wall was ugly but probably not the cause of his offensive problem in the 1st half.

You never know for sure.    I think “probably” is the best we can do.   

[Moose Milligan]

3 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Guilty. It’s hard watching games when we lose 120. 

It's really not.  Just have to adjust expectations accordingly.  I only really watched last year to see how bad it could get and for individual player performances.  

[Ohfan67]

11 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

It's really not.  Just have to adjust expectations accordingly.  I only really watched last year to see how bad it could get and for individual player performances.  

Wait. Some players performed last year? I missed that. 

[DrungoHazewood]

From Bill James' Breaking the Wand essay in the 1988 Baseball Abstract, exerpted from his 15 most basic things he'd learned from his work to that point:

Quote

 

12. Rightward shifts along the defensive spectrum almost never work. (see #2)

(#2 was "Talent in baseball is not normally distributed. It is a pyramid. For every player who is 10 percent above the average player, there are probably twenty players who are 10 pecent below average.")

 

The defensive spectrum goes  1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C.  Even 1B to LF rarely works.  A first baseman is almost always playing first base because at some lower level he wasn't good enough to play anywhere else. Notre Dame, the equivalent of maybe a low A team, had at least three better outfielders than Trey Mancini.

[tntoriole]

6 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

From Bill James' Breaking the Wand essay in the 1988 Baseball Abstract, exerpted from his 15 most basic things he'd learned from his work to that point:

The defensive spectrum goes  1B - LF - RF - 3B - CF - 2B - SS - C.  Even 1B to LF rarely works.  A first baseman is almost always playing first base because at some lower level he wasn't good enough to play anywhere else. Notre Dame, the equivalent of maybe a low A team, had at least three better outfielders than Trey Mancini.

So, in high school, in Winter Haven, FL, he only played first base all three varsity years, was on All Florida teams, etc. , at Notre Dame he was there for two years playing only at first base, all conference awards, etc. and was very successful, gets drafted and is in the minors for years successfully advancing, again only at first base...and so now,  apparently somebody along that chain should have put him at another position years ago.  Although if I am the coach at Notre Dame and I recruit an All Florida first baseman and he is tearing it up at first base as a freshman and sophomore, maybe throwing him into another position doesn’t occur to me. 

It would also be useful to know if it works the other way...do center fielders, shortstops and second basemen transition to first base easily?  Since defense in your paradigm is apparently not based on specific learned skills but is just an innate physical set of characteristics that can be transitioned to any position at a major league level.

Poor Trey....wasted his entire life playing that first base.  

 

[DrungoHazewood]

16 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

So, in high school, in Winter Haven, FL, he only played first base all three varsity years, was on All Florida teams, etc. , at Notre Dame he was there for two years playing only at first base, all conference awards, etc. and was very successful, gets drafted and is in the minors for years successfully advancing, again only at first base...and so now,  apparently somebody along that chain should have put him at another position years ago.  Although if I am the coach at Notre Dame and I recruit an All Florida first baseman and he is tearing it up at first base as a freshman and sophomore, maybe throwing him into another position doesn’t occur to me. 

It would also be useful to know if it works the other way...do center fielders, shortstops and second basemen transition to first base easily?  Since defense in your paradigm is apparently not based on specific learned skills but is just an innate physical set of characteristics that can be transitioned to any position at a major league level.

Poor Trey....wasted his entire life playing that first base.  

 

Because it takes a lesser skill set to play those positions.  Also, defense at those positions is relatively less important.

I think if Trey Mancini's high school or under 15 coach thought he'd be a good outfielder he'd probably have been an outfielder.  I think that the fact that players generally do slide leftward on the defensive spectrum without much issue validates the concept.  Look at Manny.  All world third baseman, wants to play shortstop and he's maybe an average shortstop.  The other way around, minor league shortstop who transitions to third upon promotion to the majors and with essentially zero acclimation time becomes one of the best in the league.

[tntoriole]

8 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Because it takes a lesser skill set to play those positions.  Also, defense at those positions is relatively less important.

I think if Trey Mancini's high school or under 15 coach thought he'd be a good outfielder he'd probably have been an outfielder.  I think that the fact that players generally do slide leftward on the defensive spectrum without much issue validates the concept.  Look at Manny.  All world third baseman, wants to play shortstop and he's maybe an average shortstop.  The other way around, minor league shortstop who transitions to third upon promotion to the majors and with essentially zero acclimation time becomes one of the best in the league.

In hindsight, it is easy to say that.   Changing a kid who is a star in high school, college also involves risks.  If his coach had changed him to an outfielder at 15, I wonder if the coach would have done that if he knew that "you know what if you stay at first base, in 2016 you will become a full time major leaguer with the Orioles- then it may become a problem for you and the team (particularly since the knucklehead organization you will play for signed the worst first baseman in history to the worst contract in history...but hey)."  But lets switch you to another position and maybe then you might not even make the big leagues.    I think the coaches then likely felt that Trey was a star on their team and unlikely tried to mess him up too much. 

[Frobby]

Honestly, Trey may have played 1B in high school because he was tall.   As an OF, he’s not an average major leaguer, but certainly showed enough where he’d be better than most high school players.    Coaches like having a tall 1B, especially when the other infielders are not always on the money with their throws.