Viviano Show Question O's/Phils

[Sports Guy]

A lot of OFers had better years than Nick this year...he wasn't all that great.

However, its highly unlikely that I would trade Nick for most, if any, of those OFers

[weams]

Um....explain your claim as to why he's the next Frank Robinson??

A claim based on what I gather was made purely on three facts: 1) they are both strong 2) they are both Orioles and 3) they are both black.

Because that's just about all they have in common.

Right handed and similar swing structure. Frank had a much better eye (at age thirty). Frank was also much slower. They have similar builds and sizes. Frank did not swing for the fences, he just found the seats, often. Jones tries to hit home runs too much at this point in his career.

[ScottieBaseball]

Who cares about his career as that is not what this dicussion is even about. It is about who on the Orioles roster right NOW would replace a Phillie in the WS if Charlie Manuel could choose. That is the topic.

So Matsui homered in last night's game. He's officially a better player than everyone who hasn't homered in the last 24 hours?

By the way...I'm no stat head, but they are a clear, tangible, fair metric for evaluating past performance. Markakis is statistically the better baserunner. You're free to place more value on his stride, size, and 10-15 games you've watched in Werth.

Werth has longer legs but Markakis is better than Werth in everything else.

[Leitch]

The very idea that Chase Utley moving to third to accomodate Brian Roberts would improve a team just goes to show that no one will ever take seriously the defense of an excellent hitter.

Chase Utley is an excellent defensive player, and considerably better so than Brian Roberts.

[ScottieBaseball]

Right and those here arguing with me are doing it just to be contentious and no other reason at all. Thank you for your spot on post!:clap3:

I beg to differ. While you were valuing Werth's stride and handsome good looks, I (and several of those who agreed with me) was trying to have an intelligent discussion.

At some point you have to acknowledge that more threads you start end up locked and the common denominator is you. Stop pretending it's everyone else. Offenders are moderated appropriately even when you're off the deep end, but it doesn't change the fact that you're usually the one trying to defend some hair-brained, convoluted idea/opinion.

[ejf1025]

To be fair, he didn't bring up the baserunning, and he was getting bashed for picking Werth over Nick in general. Others made baserunning a focus of this thread much more-so than he did. And then you and others started bringing up things that have nothing to do with this thread to make him look worse.

Power has been another focus of this thread, with people using career hr's and dividing that by how many years they've been in the league. Well that's a poor at best way to reach a conclusion. Werth actually has 400 less ab's in his career than Nick and 16 more hr's. More importantly he doubled Nick's hr production this year. At least Crazysilver noticed this problem before.

This thread is an example of the response to a post being more about who said, not what was said.

Fine...I accept your points. Scottie brought up baserunning...OldFan's rebuttal was overstated--and that's being kind.

However, I am not going to buy this "who stated" it argument. OldFan makes his bed and needs to lie in it. When you come out as adamantly and with such conviction as he does...you leave little room for discussion or amending positions.

Making statements like he's "vastly superior"--you should be able to back it up. Using steals and steals% has almost as many holes as career HRs....the numbers James clearly show that Markakis is not "conservative" on the bases and is more productive then Werth when he is on base. Is that a be all end all argument...no. But it certainly shows that OldFan's claims of being vastly inferior and ultra-conservative are just wrong.

When he does this, it is perfectly legitimate to question the source and cite examples where he did something similar--use a small sample size to justify his own personal preference.

Furthermore, especially in the case of his anti-Markakis position, it is a disservice to take this "analysis" at face value and not question that it is based on some inherent biased.

This man clearly dislikes Markakis, it has clearly become personal (questioning his marriage and his ability as a husband...I don't even think he ever apologized)....and will jump at any opportunity to try and turn a micro argument into a macro view of him.

He could have left it at I would take Werth, he was more productive in the field and at the plate this year. It may be unpopular but look at the numbers.

He didn't do that.

[VTmook213]

Did it ever cross you mind the reason Markakis never got picked off is the guy takes a lead like your grandmother would (about two steps) and is about as dangerous a threat to steal as Matt Wieters? :laughlol:

Werth is a vastly superior base runner in speed, steals, percentage of steals without being caught. Markakis probably has more infield hits though as he has an extra step towards first in batting lefthanded.

I've never watched Werth on any sort of regular basis, so I'm just going to assume you're correct that Werth is faster and takes a much larger lead off of bases.

... however, if that's the case, then why does Markakis score much more often from first and second base than Werth does? We know, from what you told us, that Werth leads off farther - so he should have an advantage there over Markakis. And we also know, from what you told us, that Werth is much faster than Markakis because of his long legs and large stride - so he should also have an advantage there over Markakis.

And yet somehow Markakis scores more often. Hmmm, how is that possible? Either one of two things is happening:

1) What you told is incorrect, and Werth is not actually faster than Markakis

2) What you state - that Werth is a vastly superior baserunner - is incorrect

So which is it?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/markani01-bat.shtml#batting_baserunning

Jason Werth

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/werthja01-bat.shtml#batting_baserunning

1st S3 (Times as a runner on first and a single is hit and reaches third or scores)

M-12 W-9

RS% (percentage of times as runner player scores)

M-11% W-10%

2nd SH (Times on second and runner scores on hit)

M-21 W-11

[ejf1025]

The very idea that Chase Utley moving to third to accomodate Brian Roberts would improve a team just goes to show that no one will ever take seriously the defense of an excellent hitter.

Chase Utley is an excellent defensive player, and considerably better so than Brian Roberts.

Well, I think it's based on maximizing rosters...the 3B on both teams are wretched.

[Leitch]

Well, I think it's based on maximizing rosters...the 3B on both teams are wretched.

Haha, I keep forgetting that Pedro Feliz plays 3B for the Phillies.

[mweb]

I beg to differ. While you were valuing Werth's stride and handsome good looks, I (and several of those who agreed with me) was trying to have an intelligent discussion.

At some point you have to acknowledge that more threads you start end up locked and the common denominator is you. Stop pretending it's everyone else. Offenders are moderated appropriately even when you're off the deep end, but it doesn't change the fact that you're usually the one trying to defend some hair-brained, convoluted idea/opinion.

He's probably referring to people arguing with him about saying Werth is currently better than Nick as a player, which he is right about.

I generally agree with your 2nd paragraph, but not sure how he can be blamed for this thread. His first post was not a hair-brained, convoluted idea/opinion at all, in fact it was correct. And for that he gets called blinded by his dislike of Nick by you and his opinion gets knocked/dismissed by others.

Yes, after the steals part of his argument, he had some odd reasoning regarding the base running aspect of this debate and was way too strong with that opinion. That's a problem, but if most others said what he said in his first post, no one would have slammed that post, and we would have never even gotten into those weird fielding posts.

[ejf1025]

Haha, I keep forgetting that Pedro Feliz plays 3B for the Phillies.

Yea, Chase could just handle that switch and still be a plus bat over there...my favorite non-O for full disclosure...

I'm hoping nobody would actually WANT Roberts of Utley...that'd be certifiable.

[mweb]

Fine...I accept your points. Scottie brought up baserunning...OldFan's rebuttal was overstated--and that's being kind.

However, I am not going to buy this "who stated" it argument. OldFan makes his bed and needs to lie in it. When you come out as adamantly and with such conviction as he does...you leave little room for discussion or amending positions.

Making statements like he's "vastly superior"--you should be able to back it up. Using steals and steals% has almost as many holes as career HRs....the numbers James clearly show that Markakis is not "conservative" on the bases and is more productive then Werth when he is on base. Is that a be all end all argument...no. But it certainly shows that OldFan's claims of being vastly inferior and ultra-conservative are just wrong.

When he does this, it is perfectly legitimate to question the source and cite examples where he did something similar--use a small sample size to justify his own personal preference.

Furthermore, especially in the case of his anti-Markakis position, it is a disservice to take this "analysis" at face value and not question that it is based on some inherent biased.

This man clearly dislikes Markakis, it has clearly become personal (questioning his marriage and his ability as a husband...I don't even think he ever apologized)....and will jump at any opportunity to try and turn a micro argument into a macro view of him.

He could have left it at I would take Werth, he was more productive in the field and at the plate this year. It may be unpopular but look at the numbers.

He didn't do that.

Look at his first post and how that was responded to. That's clearly a who said it issue and not what was said. I bet if simply said he thought Werth was a better runner based on steals and left it at that, he'd still be getting bashed for that first comment. Yes, after that, his base-running comments went too far, I agree. His comments on that were no more wrong or absurd than some of the one's showing how Markakis is a better player than Werth though.

[Singleton]

Wow. I lot of angry posts which I suspect have more to do with history from a lot of other threads than this one.

At the risk of jumping in front of a blood thirsty crowd, I have to say that I don't think it is crazy to take Werth over Markakis under certain conditions. It certainly isn't so nutty to generate all this hate. On many levels Werth had a better 2009 than Markakis. He had more homers and a higher OBP.

I think the argument over baserunning is silly. They're both good and the difference in either direction isn't significant.

I'm also surprised at everyone bringing up career stats. By that metric, you can't say Weiters is better than Ruiz.

Markakis had a down year (for him) in 2009. Given his age and a few other years, it is probably a blip on the screen or graph. Long-term, I'd take Markakis.

But if you asked me who to put in rightfield for the rest of the World Series or maybe even for 2010 only, I would at least have to pause and don't think either answer is worth the ridicule that has come forth.

[Singleton]

He's probably referring to people arguing with him about saying Werth is currently better than Nick as a player, which he is right about.

I generally agree with your 2nd paragraph, but not sure how he can be blamed for this thread. His first post was not a hair-brained, convoluted idea/opinion at all, in fact it was correct. And for that he gets called blinded by his dislike of Nick by you and his opinion gets knocked/dismissed by others.

Yes, after the steals part of his argument, he had some odd reasoning regarding the base running aspect of this debate and was way too strong with that opinion. That's a problem, but if most others said what he said in his first post, no one would have slammed that post, and we would have never even gotten into those weird fielding posts.

Good post. You beat me to it.

[ejf1025]

Look at his first post and how that was responded to. That's clearly a who said it issue and not what was said. I bet if simply said he thought Werth was a better runner based on steals and left it at that, he'd still be getting bashed for that first comment. Yes, after that, his base-running comments went too far, I agree. His comments on that were no more wrong or absurd than some of the one's showing how Markakis is a better player than Werth though.

Well, I didn't respond to his first post.

Maybe if, when the subject of Markakis comes up, he would be able to control himself and just leave it at "I'd take Werth," I'd be more willing to cut him some slack.

The fact is nobody knows if that first comment would have been left alone, because OldFan himself takes the conversation to another level.