What is the deal with Cobb

[edbazo]

[quote:3c87a5986c]Good pitching combined with baserunning ability leads to wins in real baseball and ATGII more consistently than any other single strategy. The realization of that has lead to incredible number of small ball teams and premiums on drafts for the best small ball players in ATGII.
[/quote:3c87a5986c]

Just my opinion, obviously, but I think that the reason we are seeing so many smallball teams is that the best values are obp guys. When the pricing was done for ATGII, it seemed pretty clear that obp was not priced quite as highly as slugging. Guys like Rolfe, Cochrane, Chance, etc. actually came down in price a little, while many similarly priced sluggers went up. In ATG I, power teams won, and won, and won, whether the team was built with great starting pitching or cheap value starters.

I realize that I'm avoiding the real contention here (sabremetrics in MLB) but that's cause I don't feel like arguing. :)

[harry lime]

They hit 200 HR's! They were not a small ball team.

It's pretty apparent to me that Boston had a philosophy that relied pretty heavily on a sabaremetric approach, mixed with good scouting. But their offensive philosophy was definitely sabre-influenced. They fired their manager because he refused to follow along. If you think Grady was fired solely for the Pedro fiasco, then you weren't paying much attention to baseball in Boston is 2003. So I guess you could say in 2004 they proved something. There are many ways to win. To say the White Sox, by virtue of 1 World Series win have given conventional wisdom a slap is wrong on so many levels. Firt of all, the White Sox play pretty stright forwrd. The A's and the so-called "Moneyball" approach are the ones that are challenging conventional wisdom.

I think you are confusing Moneyball with sabremetrics. Though Beane's teams do have a sabremetric approach, the "Moneyball" term means finding what the market undervalues.

The White Sox didn't win because they were more of small ball team-- they won because they pitched a lot better.

[harry lime]

[quote:7b7eb72b95]As I said the White Sox play to win by one run. I don't see how you win 20 of your last 22 in a pennant race by luck. They were better at the fundamentals of baseball by the end of the season because they practice them all 162 games.[/quote:7b7eb72b95]

Again-- I don't think it was all luck. And I do want to stress that I'm not taking anything away from Chicago. They were a very good team. They did everything well. They could bunt when they needed to, they HR's, they pitched great, had very good defense. My only contention is that they somehow reinvented the wheel.

[harry lime]

I deleted most of that last post, I kept getting interupted and after re-reading it was poorly conveyed.

[quote:07082799a5]They traded Carlos Lee for Scott Posednick. Why they thought running and bunting were more important than high average and home runs. It was a renunciation of the style that Sabermetrics says you should follow. They named it "smartball" later called Ozzieball as a direct jab at Billy Bean's "money ball" or sabermetrics as it is called here. This was not just a team that happens to play this way. Ozzie saw how it worked at Florida and said get rid off all these high run guys I want a certain style of player.[/quote:07082799a5]

And they ended up scoring 120 runs less. How is that an upgrade?

[quote:07082799a5]As I understand it you believe they won with a fundamentally flawed strategy in a park that dramatically favors another style. I don't really believe in 99 games of luck myself so I think there must be something extrodinarily powerful in their style and it is the determination to make it work, which does not show up in statistics at all.[/quote:07082799a5]

I don't believe in 99 games of luck either-- but that's assuming with bad luck they win 0. I do believe in 9 games of luck, though. And if they win 9 less games they miss the playoffs.

I just don't see how scoring less runs is a good offensive philosophy. It puts more pressure on your pitchers to be perfect. And it leaves luck too much wiggle room.

[Leo / loob]

Charlie & Harry, ESPN put some great #'s together for this!! Check out the different pages of the stats, ya name it, its there....

And, just like the team I just posted on the threads, it looks, by the #'s anyway, they went half small ball, and half basher

Anyhoo, enjoy this awesome link!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/aggregate?statType=batting&group=7&seasonType=2&type=type1&sort=runs&split=0&season=2005

[gkhd11a]

Thanks Leo,


Notice White Sox last in doubles.

[buster j ratt]

Just my opinion but gloryifying Guillen wrong the Astros beat themselves no clutch hitting and a bad pitch here and there had nothing to do with Guillen I suppose he caused Lidge to throw gopher ball to Podsednik As for Cobb money not worth it here Furillo driving in 146 runs I like better But RF Ruth is the kicker but Liebold has caused almost as much trouble as Cobb on smallball teams for lots less money

[ROBERTLIND]

Trading Lee (8mil) for Podsednik (0.7mil) freed up enough money to sign Iguchi and Dye who were big upgrades over Willie Harris and Joey Borchard. Some bunts and stolen bases helped Konerko avoid being close to the top in GIDP like he was last year (he had 23 GIDP in 2004). Defensive players are cheaper so he only picked up great defensive players which made his pitching give up 186 fewer runs than in 2004 while not blowing his budget on stud starters or sluggers with 4's in the field. This was a very well run team. If Guillen was a soft spoken, articulate person, you would think that he was brilliant. Kenny Williams also does not get enough credit, almost every player on that team was rejected by everyone else and picked up at bargain prices.