JR House

[Moose Milligan]

There's a new sheriff in town and his name is TommyD4207.

[Tony-OH]

There's a new sheriff in town and his name is TommyD4207.

Well, I don't know about him being Sheriff, since afterall, you have to have the ability to kick cowpokes outta town to be Sheriff , but he's certainly found a home for this thoughts on the Orioles here at the Hangout.

[The Wedge]

Let it be known that my head has exploded from all of this. I hope you guys are happy.

[TGO]

I just did a quick check...The average Int'l team attempted 155 steals...The average AL team attempted 132 steals.

I am not sure if this is just an Int'l league thing or throughout the minors but if an average MiL team is attempting to steal much more than the average AL team, the numbers by Tommy need to be adjusted IMO.

And remember, the Int'l team is attempting 23 more steals(on average) but playing in 18 less games.

On a per game basis, the average Int'l team is averaging 1.07 attempts per game...The average AL team attempts .81 steals per game.

I was about to post the same thing.

And it makes sense. Guys in AAA are going to try to get noticed by the big club, and one way they can do it is stealing bases.

And it makes even more sense for road teams in Norfolk. Tough place to hit anything more than singles.

[rolliefingers]

(Disclaimer about that table being an average team in an average inning. Different individual situations will vary.)

Offer might not be valid in Alaska, Hawaii or Canada.

[olehippi]

Let it be known that my head has exploded from all of this. I hope you guys are happy.

Know the feeling.....I thought this was a word problem and started having flashbacks to a math course I took in college. I need to go smoke some medicine now.....

[rolliefingers]

Tommy, one major quibble, though: If a healthy J.R. House got 400 ML PAs as a DH and backup C, I would be absolutely astonished if he didn't put up at least a .750 OPS. There is absolutely no question that he's a much better hitter than Bako.

[Sports Guy]

I was about to post the same thing.

And it makes sense. Guys in AAA are going to try to get noticed by the big club, and one way they can do it is stealing bases.

And it makes even more sense for road teams in Norfolk. Tough place to hit anything more than singles.

Right and this has to be taken into the context of Tommy's thought and he didn't do that.

Plus, if you play House, as i have suggested, against teams that don't run that often, it decreases the SB's against as well.

I know i would like to have House as the backup catcher for this team and for what i have seen out of him behind the plate, i would have confidence in him back there as well.

[DrungoHazewood]

7. As far as Paul Bako having a 28.6 CS % since he's turned 30 years old, that's very close to the 70% figure in which the other team is giving runs back to the Orioles. Bill Parcells would say, "That's a good thing, not a bad thing, a good thing."

Also, lest we forget, 28.6% of a much lower number of guys total attempting to steal vs. 22.7%-23.1% of guys attempting to steal with up to 4 times as many guys attempting to steal, it's a very large gap. As I said, it could be possibly .3 runs per game.

Please correct me if I'm making a mistake here, but I think you're overstating the advantage in a small difference in CS%, even with the difference in number of steals.

If a catcher allows 77 steals and 23 caught, that's roughly (77*.25) - (23*75) = +2 runs.

If a catcher allows 36 steals and 14 caught that's roughly -1.5 runs.

The difference in these two scenarios is 3.5 runs, or about 1/3 of a win.

[Lt Melmo]

Tommy, one major quibble, though: If a healthy J.R. House got 400 ML PAs as a DH and backup C, I would be absolutely astonished if he didn't put up at least a .750 OPS. There is absolutely no question that he's a much better hitter than Bako.

Give him 600 ABs and at 07's rate he'd be hitting 47 homers.

Hey, everyone else does it with LH's small sample, why can't I have some fun?

[PoorMike]

A couple of points (with no numbers):

As a backup, you could 'hide' him vs certain teams that are likely to run on him. Or at least you could use him when a lefty is pitching so the pitcher could hold them a little closer to first.

My observation of House's small sample of throws was that he took too long to make a strong throw. I'm sure many catchers could make good throws if given more time, but the key is to make a strong snap throw. House seemed to have to 'power-up' to make a strong throw, which defeats some of the purpose.

He was a minor league FA for a reason. He was standing on the sidelines of the West Virginia-MD game in 2005 for a reason. Yes he deserved a little more of a shot but I'm not going to lose any sleep over this. His upside isn't that big to me.

[TommyD4207]

For once, I have a mostly free day, what better way than to spend it on here?

1. About adjusting to the fact that minor league steal on a more regular basis, believe me I thought long and hard about that and came to the conclusion that it is not wise to do so. Mostly because it's a two-way street when it comes to more attempts. You all are claiming, rightfully so, that the number of attempts that he's having is not an abnormal thing across AAA and that it's not an even comparison. That's certainly true. What's also true, though, is that the number of unsuccessful attempts comes out to a higher amount of unsuccessful amounts.

The whole CS % of the entire IL last year 50.83. The whole CS % of the entire AL last year was 27. That's a glaring difference. That really puts into perspective the skill of the base stealers in the AL. JR House, is way, way below average as far as throwing out base stealers in the IL. As you said, the average amount of guys stealing per inning in the IL is 1.07. The average CS % is 50.83. JR House has a CS % of 23.1 this year and had an average of 1.50 guys steal on him per inning (again, this assuming that he caught every inning of every game he was credited for, which again is highly unlikely, but I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt).

I decided to keep it even on that though.

2. As for guys trying to steal a lot to get noticed in AAA, I've never heard anything about that but I can see the logic behind it. Again, that should probably help House but apparently it didn't. This just makes it even more of a fearful circumstance, the fact that he is that below average. I would honestly hate to see what he'd do over any significant playing time in MLB.

I completely agree with you on saying that more guys will steal in AAA but we seem to be interpreting it entirely differently. I believe that that should equate to him having a higher CS %, closer to league average, especially considering he plays in Norfolk but that's certainly not the case.

3. As for overstating the argument, like we said, the difference on the run expectancy said that it was around .18-.20 runs. Since House allows anywhere in between 1.5-2.0 SB's per game and Bako allows .5 per game, that's anywhere between a .20-.30 run difference according to the run expectancy matrix. Over the course of a few games, that adds up. Hope that clears things up.

4. As for being astonished if he didn't put up a 750 OPS in a backup catcher/DH role, I wouldn't be shocked at all. Like I said, his 2006 season in AA last year translated into a 719 OPS. He had a 828 OPS in the minors this year, would that necessarily translate into a 750 OPS? Sean Smith has not done his translations, but it'd probably be around there. Again, this assuming that House plays in a role where he's playing 1B because his stats have shown over the last 450 AB's that he didn't hit anywhere near as well when he played catcher.

[Sports Guy]

A couple of points (with no numbers):

As a backup, you could 'hide' him vs certain teams that are likely to run on him. Or at least you could use him when a lefty is pitching so the pitcher could hold them a little closer to first.

My observation of House's small sample of throws was that he took too long to make a strong throw. I'm sure many catchers could make good throws if given more time, but the key is to make a strong snap throw. House seemed to have to 'power-up' to make a strong throw, which defeats some of the purpose.

He was a minor league FA for a reason. He was standing on the sidelines of the West Virginia-MD game in 2005 for a reason. Yes he deserved a little more of a shot but I'm not going to lose any sleep over this. His upside isn't that big to me.

You would have said the same thing about Guthrie.

[Dr. FLK]

You would have said the same thing about Guthrie.

And Carlos Pena (who I believe was signed to a minor league deal).

[Dr. FLK]

Do you mean 1.50 per game? Per inning seems pretty hard to believe unless I don't understand something here.

Wow. 13.5 SB per game! They must run a lot in that league!