All star game HR derby

[theobird]

I said it at the time, I just hate our guys participating in that contest. So now, I will say it again. Gunnar Henderson has 1 hr since the all star break. Went in with 28, now has 29. 

[OriolesMagic83]

23 minutes ago, theobird said:

I said it at the time, I just hate our guys participating in that contest. So now, I will say it again. Gunnar Henderson has 1 hr since the all star break. Went in with 28, now has 29. 

Witt, who barely lost the HR Derby and hit a ton of HR in it has been on fire.  He just had one of the greatest months ever, hitting .489 for the month.  Gunnar barely took a dozen swings in the HR Derby, I don't see how it could have affected him.  Witt should be an ice cold slump based on the number of swings he took.

[baltfan]

20 minutes ago, theobird said:

I said it at the time, I just hate our guys participating in that contest. So now, I will say it again. Gunnar Henderson has 1 hr since the all star break. Went in with 28, now has 29. 

I said the same thing too.  I agree that for many it doesn't hurt them and for some it actually helps.  But Gunnar doesn't have a natural swing for homers in BP.  There was always a risk that he would alter his swing in order to try to win.  He also struggled initially in the contest which might have caused him to further press.  Correlation is not necessarily causation, but there seems to be an awful lot of correlation here.  Gunnar has a total of 4 doubles, 1 triple and a homer since the All-Star break.  That is in 19 games where he is hitting .280, so it isn't like he is just in some deep slump.  The one homer he hit barely made it over the fence.  Even when Gunnar struggled last year in the beginning of the season, his power numbers were never this bad.  I would not be surprised in the least to hear Gunnar down the road attribute this drought to the Derby.  

[baltfan]

7 minutes ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Witt, who barely lost the HR Derby and hit a ton of HR in it has been on fire.  He just had one of the greatest months ever, hitting .489 for the month.  Gunnar barely took a dozen swings in the HR Derby, I don't see how it could have affected him.  Witt should be an ice cold slump based on the number of swings he took.

Two things can be true at once.  The Derby might have helped Witt and hurt Gunnar.  It is just annoying that when people on this board say things like they worry that the contest will hurt Gunnar that they are shouted down with a bunch of people talking about what it on average does or does not do to participants.  Gunnar was playing as well as he possibly could.  At that point, a lot of us thought first don't do anything that could potentially screw this up.  But lots of people on this board wanted to pretend that it was basically impossible for his swing to get screwed up.  

[now]

And didn't the same thing happen to Adley last year?

[glenn__davis]

25 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Two things can be true at once.  The Derby might have helped Witt and hurt Gunnar.  It is just annoying that when people on this board say things like they worry that the contest will hurt Gunnar that they are shouted down with a bunch of people talking about what it on average does or does not do to participants.  Gunnar was playing as well as he possibly could.  At that point, a lot of us thought first don't do anything that could potentially screw this up.  But lots of people on this board wanted to pretend that it was basically impossible for his swing to get screwed up.  

I just think the problem is there's no way to know.  There are plenty of examples of players performing well after the derby and performing poorly after the derby.  So is the derby having any effect, or is it just a matter of the ebbs and flows of the baseball season happening to coincide with the break?  I lean strongly towards the latter.

In Gunnar's case his HR pace had slowed significantly prior to the break.  Just 2 HR in the 16 games leading up to the break.  

[Frobby]

36 minutes ago, now said:

And didn't the same thing happen to Adley last year?

Not really.  He had a better OPS after the break than before.  He hit marginally fewer homers per game, but way more doubles per game.  I would not say the derby affected him.  

As to Gunnar, he’d only hit 2 homers in his last 16 games before the All Star break.  
 

[Spy Fox]

1 hour ago, OriolesMagic83 said:

Witt, who barely lost the HR Derby and hit a ton of HR in it has been on fire.  He just had one of the greatest months ever, hitting .489 for the month.  Gunnar barely took a dozen swings in the HR Derby, I don't see how it could have affected him.  Witt should be an ice cold slump based on the number of swings he took.

Jose Ramirez, Pete Alonso, and Teoscar Hernandez have also been very hot in the second half after participating in the derby. 

It may occasionally happen that the derby affects a player somehow. But mostly I think people underrate how these guys already deploy different types of swings in different situations every day, and won't be so thrown off by spending one night swinging for the fences. 

[baltfan]

33 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

Jose Ramirez, Pete Alonso, and Teoscar Hernandez have also been very hot in the second half after participating in the derby. 

It may occasionally happen that the derby affects a player somehow. But mostly I think people underrate how these guys already deploy different types of swings in different situations every day, and won't be so thrown off by spending one night swinging for the fences. 

I think the issue is he had been so good all year that it didn’t make sense to risk it.  Although you could make the argument that since he hit two homers in the 16 games prior to the break maybe it could help

[Sports Guy]

2 hours ago, baltfan said:

Two things can be true at once.  The Derby might have helped Witt and hurt Gunnar.  It is just annoying that when people on this board say things like they worry that the contest will hurt Gunnar that they are shouted down with a bunch of people talking about what it on average does or does not do to participants.  Gunnar was playing as well as he possibly could.  At that point, a lot of us thought first don't do anything that could potentially screw this up.  But lots of people on this board wanted to pretend that it was basically impossible for his swing to get screwed up.  

Do you have any evidence that this screwed up his swing?

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Do you have any evidence that this screwed up his swing?

I said previously beside correlation, no.  However, this is the worst extra base hit drought of his entire career.  The larger point is that undoubtedly there are some people the Derby will not hurt, some that it will actually improve, and some that it will have their swing altered and hurt.  

Gunnar was having a ridiculous season.  Even if there was a 1/100 chance that he would be one of the ones that gets screwed up, you could definitely argue it wasn't worth the risk.  This is especially true because Gunnar was going to have to alter his swing in order to try to lift the ball in order to win.  

Finally, there are a million articles on the internet that completely miss the point and draw conclusions that they really aren't equipped to draw. They say things like Bobby Abreu's slump after the Derby or David Wright's slump were the result of decreases in HR/FB percentage.  In some cases they say the regression was to career norms.  In others, they say it was just bad luck.  Well, how the heck do they know?  Maybe their swings were altered so they weren't as efficient anymore.  

But none of this probably matters.  I am sure that if Gunnar or anyone else came out and said the Derby hurt their swing, many on this board would claim that he is just mistaken.  But all of that is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the conclusions you can make from stats alone.  It's kind of funny that many people that cite stats in support of their arguments while acting like you are a fool are the ones that don't understand the limitations to the conclusions that they can make from those states.  I love stats, but part of understanding them is to understand their limitations.  

[OnlyOneOriole]

5 hours ago, baltfan said:

Two things can be true at once.  The Derby might have helped Witt and hurt Gunnar.  It is just annoying that when people on this board say things like they worry that the contest will hurt Gunnar that they are shouted down with a bunch of people talking about what it on average does or does not do to participants.  Gunnar was playing as well as he possibly could.  At that point, a lot of us thought first don't do anything that could potentially screw this up.  But lots of people on this board wanted to pretend that it was basically impossible for his swing to get screwed up.  

Agree although I think I remember him having that really bad 4 strikeout game on SNB the day before All Star week as I recall. 

So he may have already hit his slump.

I think as you said some people it can help, as in it really give them confidence going into the 2nd half.  And others it probably makes worse.  I don't ascribe to the "it change's your swing" narrative.  I mean these guys in BP try to hit bombs on purpose every day and it doesn't change anything. 

I am a bigger believer in that the lack of rest and break from baseball for 4 days, and instead have to go through the hustle and bustle of the week,  hurts much more. 

[Moose Milligan]

4 hours ago, glenn__davis said:

I just think the problem is there's no way to know.   

That's right.  But that won't stop people from thinking it must have caused a problem for Gunnar because they thought it would prior to the HR derby.  And since he hasn't hit a lot of homers since then...well, everyone loves to say how right they were all the time.  But no one can know for sure what's caused his power outage.

There's no evidence.  As @Frobby pointed out, 2 homers in the 16 games leading up to the ASB.  So, his HR stroke was decreasing before the ASB.

This whole thing is silly.

[Sports Guy]

56 minutes ago, baltfan said:

I said previously beside correlation, no.  However, this is the worst extra base hit drought of his entire career.  The larger point is that undoubtedly there are some people the Derby will not hurt, some that it will actually improve, and some that it will have their swing altered and hurt.  

Gunnar was having a ridiculous season.  Even if there was a 1/100 chance that he would be one of the ones that gets screwed up, you could definitely argue it wasn't worth the risk.  This is especially true because Gunnar was going to have to alter his swing in order to try to lift the ball in order to win.  

Finally, there are a million articles on the internet that completely miss the point and draw conclusions that they really aren't equipped to draw. They say things like Bobby Abreu's slump after the Derby or David Wright's slump were the result of decreases in HR/FB percentage.  In some cases they say the regression was to career norms.  In others, they say it was just bad luck.  Well, how the heck do they know?  Maybe their swings were altered so they weren't as efficient anymore.  

But none of this probably matters.  I am sure that if Gunnar or anyone else came out and said the Derby hurt their swing, many on this board would claim that he is just mistaken.  But all of that is based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the conclusions you can make from stats alone.  It's kind of funny that many people that cite stats in support of their arguments while acting like you are a fool are the ones that don't understand the limitations to the conclusions that they can make from those states.  I love stats, but part of understanding them is to understand their limitations.  

I think the limitations being shown are by you and your posts here.

You are seemingly treating this as a fact that the derby messed up his swing, yet you reject those who are saying there’s no evidence of that (and there isn’t).

If Gunnar comes out and says it messed him up, I will believe him. I think that’s a real thin excuse but it is what it is if he believes it.

But until then, to me this is typical fan stuff because they heard a player say it before, therefore it becomes gospel for everyone who struggles after doing it.

[baltfan]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I think the limitations being shown are by you and your posts here.

You are seemingly treating this as a fact that the derby messed up his swing, yet you reject those who are saying there’s no evidence of that (and there isn’t).

If Gunnar comes out and says it messed him up, I will believe him. I think that’s a real thin excuse but it is what it is if he believes it.

But until then, to me this is typical fan stuff because they heard a player say it before, therefore it becomes gospel for everyone who struggles after doing it.

So if he had hit 8 homers since the Derby you wouldn’t be using that as evidence the Derby didn’t mess up his swing?  I gave you evidence.  His performance has substantially dropped off.  Give me your evidence that it didn’t affect him.  Give me evidence the drop off isn’t related.