Braves in throwbacks, try to take series vs. Brewers

raleighbravefan, position scarcity matters because if you have a shortstop who hits like an average firstbaseman, you don’t have to have a firstbaseman that hits like a firstbaseman. So such a shorstop is vastly more valuable than a firstbaseman of equal hitting prowess.

The reason behind it is that it’s harder to find a player capable of playing even a passable shortstop at the major league level who can hit like a firstbaseman because it’s just harder to play shortstop in the majors and hit. Fewer people have that combination of skills.

DS1, RBI count. You are misunderstanding the argument against using RBI. It’s just that RBI is a team stat, like pitcher wins, and should never be used to evaluate a player on an individual level. But team RBI are great.

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None of them take into account position scarcity or defense.

sOPS+ actually is a positional stat. And in it, Freeman was superior.

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DOB, any info on Mazzone’s whereabouts? Haven’t heard him on radio broadcasts this year.

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I’d much rather take part in a fake / real blog soap than read about Freeman vs Heyward value comparisons for the 2011 season.

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10Paul- “But the other guys, the other guys should not be looking to bunt a runner over in the first inning. Especially the #2 hitter.”

I agree. And so would many other if Bourn didn’t score. You are never going to have a chance at a big inning by having your #2 bunt over a guy, already in scoring position.

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raleighbravefan, the question is how much better is Freeman at preventing throwing errors than many other major league firstbasemen? He’s probably better but I don’t know that he’s extremely better and, even if he was, I don’t know how much of an impact he could possibly make in this area alone.

I know many will discard and criticize this (without doing any work at all to refute it and many of you won’t even bother to read very much of it before discarding and criticizing it), but here’s some good work on how much difference a firstbaseman can possibly make by being a good scooper: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/first-basemen-scoops/

…it appears that the spread in talent between the best and worst “scoopers” at first base is on the order of 2-3 runs, plus or minus (a 4-6 run spread). So before you start opining about how your favorite first baseman is so great defensively because he “saves so many errors,” consider that scooping ability is probably worth less than a ¼ of total defensive ability or value at first base. Fielding grounders is at least 75% of the package and “scooping” is the rest. But every little bit helps.

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The defensive metrics don’t like Freeman

Even the most sabermetrically-inclined will allow that defensive measurement still has a way to go, especially for C and 1B. Not that such a thing matters, when it interferes with an opinion. That only matters to an open-minded man or woman.

When all you wish to do is repeatedly trill the chorus of dogma, nuance matters not a whit, LOL.

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Shaun – I call bullsh!t on that. From a team prospective, a great hitting SS is NOT more valueble than a strong hitting 1B. What matters is team production, not individual. A SS’s hits are no more valuable than those of a 1B.Isn’t that the EXACT argument that you use AD NAUSIUM about RBI?

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Murph – on the rainout thing when there’s a retirement cermony: I had a ticket year before last for the Tom Glavine retirement ceremony. I got there around 5:30 – 6 or so. Around 7, about half an hour before the scheduled start, it started pouring rain. Rained buckets for 2 solid hours. Everybody was absolutely drenched. When the rain let up, they rolled out the stuff for the ceremony, spent 20 minutes on that and the game started around 9:30.

I was supposed to meet my husband at Wild Bill’s for a Cinderella concert after the game. When we go out there, we always get a hotel room at a place within walking distance so we don’t have to make an hour drive home after having a few drinks. $70 is a deal compared to the possibilities of a DUI. Well, by the time that game let out and I got out to Gwinnett County, the concert was long over, my husband was at the hotel, showered and already in bed. I think it was around 2 a.m.

I would think it would have to be a delay of three hours or more (not starting until 10:30 since Friday night games start at 7:30 normally) before they would reschedule the ceremony.

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From the previous blog which had 1,873 comments, JasonInFL led the way with 93 posts. There were 183 different poster names. Here are the Top 25:

Rank Poster Frequency

1 JasonInFL 93
2 nolie 92
3 count_schemula 84
4 phil 78
5 cabravesfan 76
6 Venice Jim 74
7 McFann :Ô: :Ô: 55
8 VaBravesFan 54
9 Nick 47
10 BravesQueen 43
11 LAG 39
12 Soph 35
13 Bat Masterson 32
14 abeeewright 32
15 Kwajbraves 30
16 kenhotlanta 30
17 tiger297 28
18 ChattTownBrian (CTB) 27
19 ChrisfromSacramento,Ca 27
20 njbraves 27
21 dogsbrekky 26
22 ZWacky 25
23 TNScott 23
24 uga-brave 23
25 Mixxo 22

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