Jay Bruce

Anyone have any success with Bruce. I had used him before with limited success and was wondering on anyone elses history....In US Cellular was deciding between (only choices available)..Bruce, Cruz, Upton or Pence...Most pitchers in my division are RH..Bruce seems expensive....

Dale

Hey Dale, no-one seems to be answering, so I'll take a stab at it....

I say it that way because my "shtick" is usually small ball, or variations thereon. I don't often deliberately venture into the homer-domes.

I am giving you my "quick answer". I haven't run my run production models or anything like that.

To me, the choice between those four players seems clear, in the 2012 set.

Eliminations

- Justin Upton - not enough ballpark home runs in a home run park. Sorry, to me, that eliminates him. If you take him, the portion of his salary that relates to defense and speed is essentially more or less wasted.

- Pence - same idea as Upton, but a little more nuanced. He's got nice BP HRs versus lefty pitchers, but only 4 vs RHP, and yet he's R rated. That must mean that he's got better OBP vs. RHP. I would only pick Pence if you need to get under the salary cap and his lower $ are all that you've got left. And the BP HRs vs LHP will only help in the 20-30% or so that he will face against LHP. Again, unless your strapped for cash, I would look for more BP HRs vs RHP.

-Cruz - see comments as for Pence above - ecxept Cruz is REALL L balanced. Now, if you're facing a TON of lefty pitchers, Cruz could be your guy - or

My choice - subject to above comments -

- Jay Bruce. He has 6 BP Hr's vs RHP, and 7 vs LHP. I'm a little surprised that he doesn't have more than 6 BPHRs vs RHP, given the large number of "pure" HR die roll chances, but maybe that's because his real life home BP was Cincinatti. But Bruce has more chances to benefit from the great homerun chances at US cellular. If you figure that you'll roll those extra die roll chances for ballpark homeruns about 3 times per season or more, multiply those numbers and that's how many more homeruns he'll hit. Admittedly, his avg and OB are low, but the BP Hrs, pure HRs fielding, arm and some speed are very good value for the money. The ONLY reason I would pick Cruz over Bruce at US Cellular would be if the % of lefties being faced was very high - say 33% and up. Then I would consider Cruz. Otherwise, Bruce it is.

Again, I didn't run numbers, and I'm not a HR park manager. But those are my thoughts!

Good luck - let me know what you do and how it turns out, for my interest (and others!)

Geoff

Thanks Geoff. I will post back and let you know results. You spoke of run simulation models. I would be interested in what you use to run those.

Thanks again,
Dale

I would take Pence and my reasons are these money you save over 3 .5 million on Pence over Bruce to use on upgrading elsewhere and most importantly is that you can get the same production in the right parks in a league im in that is 135 games in I have Pence in Rangers park 242/307/464 while Bruce in Yankee 232/314/500 they are both hitting near the bottom of the order and in parks that should help them I cant justify the extra money for Bruce.

I will also say this I don't like any of the higher priced RF until you get down to Markakis but that's just me

rudy

Thanks Geoff. I will post back and let you know results. You spoke of run simulation models. I would be interested in what you use to run those.

Thanks again,
Dale

In brief, its
(W+IBB) *1.4 +SI *2 + 2B * 3.25 + 3B *4.4 + HR * 6 (or 5.75 to be picky).

You can adjust for the player's defensive abilities by using the X chart and evaluating his defense. In that case, I multiply the base hits and errors times the probabilities, multiply by the number of die roll chances that relate to X readings for that position, and multiply by 10. Whatever that number is, subtract it from the player's offensive rating total.

The resulting number isn't a predictor of runs scored as such. It's just a relative rating number that I am familiar with and comforatble with. Generally, a good player comes out around 100 for the offensive totals, and of course it goes up or down from there. Interestingly, I find that I can accurately interpret the L-R balance ratings (e.g. 1 L, or 2 R) by comparing the offensive totals vs LHP and offensive totals vs. RHP. Take the difference in the offensive totals, divide by 10, and round to the nearest whole number. If you do that for the player's HOME ballpark (for ballpark effects), the resulting number is usually the same as the balance rating. This gives me some comfort that the system is close to what strat uses for balance ratings. Being an accountant, I really like that. The same things work the same way on the pitcher's cards, except that, to derive the balance ratings, divide by 7 instead of 10.

In brief, that's my model. I like the way it works in kind of a decimal way, working to numbers above and below 100, and multiples of 10 (for hitters anyway).

Two other "by the way" comments -
-Every year I buy the strat ratings spreadsheet. I add a bunch of columns to calculate these ratings. I have a couple of cells at the top to enter the ballpark effects so that I can quickly recalculate using different ballparks. I don't really think I can distribute that because I would be sharing the same data that strat sells it for (which I support and appreciate). But you could, in theory, do the same thing yourself with the same spreadsheet (purchased from strat). I understand that there are other run production model packages that you can buy. Send me a PM if you want. But like I said, this is my "not so secret" formula. The rest, as one person said to me once, is "brute force and ignorance".
-I don't try to calculate base stealing or base running. Fielding I just do calculations for "on the fly", except that I use a spread sheet that DeanTSC published once upon a time which gives you X chart probabilities - especially re errors.

I would take Pence and my reasons are these money you save over 3 .5 million on Pence over Bruce to use on upgrading elsewhere and most importantly is that you can get the same production in the right parks in a league im in that is 135 games in I have Pence in Rangers park 242/307/464 while Bruce in Yankee 232/314/500 they are both hitting near the bottom of the order and in parks that should help them I cant justify the extra money for Bruce.

I will also say this I don't like any of the higher priced RF until you get down to Markakis but that's just me

rudy

Rudy, this gets to the practical side of it. You may be bang on the money. Like I said initially, I haven't tried to do teams in homerun parks very often, so I don't have much practical experience to share. Others may have a lot more to share than I do, and with more experience to back it up.

I liked Bruce 2011. Haven''t used him in 2012 set. Would rather put his inflated "defense" salary towards a middle IF or CF.

Geoff,

Thanks for that info. I will put it to use. Funny, I am an accountant as well....It is always good to have additional information and formulas to calculate performance. There is a book I found the other day at a "Half Priced Books" called "Hackers" for baseball... It has pages and pages of formulas and coding to write querys etc to access and analyze baseball data from various web sites. I just started getting into it but it looks like something you would be interested in. From what I can tell it gets a little deep into the coding and formula writting but it produces some interesting information on looking at player performance.

Dale

Thanks Geoff. I will post back and let you know results. You spoke of run simulation models. I would be interested in what you use to run those.

Thanks again,
Dale

In brief, its
(W+IBB) *1.4 +SI *2 + 2B * 3.25 + 3B *4.4 + HR * 6 (or 5.75 to be picky).

You can adjust for the player's defensive abilities by using the X chart and evaluating his defense. In that case, I multiply the base hits and errors times the probabilities, multiply by the number of die roll chances that relate to X readings for that position, and multiply by 10. Whatever that number is, subtract it from the player's offensive rating total.

The resulting number isn't a predictor of runs scored as such. It's just a relative rating number that I am familiar with and comforatble with. Generally, a good player comes out around 100 for the offensive totals, and of course it goes up or down from there. Interestingly, I find that I can accurately interpret the L-R balance ratings (e.g. 1 L, or 2 R) by comparing the offensive totals vs LHP and offensive totals vs. RHP. Take the difference in the offensive totals, divide by 10, and round to the nearest whole number. If you do that for the player's HOME ballpark (for ballpark effects), the resulting number is usually the same as the balance rating. This gives me some comfort that the system is close to what strat uses for balance ratings. Being an accountant, I really like that. The same things work the same way on the pitcher's cards, except that, to derive the balance ratings, divide by 7 instead of 10.

In brief, that's my model. I like the way it works in kind of a decimal way, working to numbers above and below 100, and multiples of 10 (for hitters anyway).

Two other "by the way" comments -
-Every year I buy the strat ratings spreadsheet. I add a bunch of columns to calculate these ratings. I have a couple of cells at the top to enter the ballpark effects so that I can quickly recalculate using different ballparks. I don't really think I can distribute that because I would be sharing the same data that strat sells it for (which I support and appreciate). But you could, in theory, do the same thing yourself with the same spreadsheet (purchased from strat). I understand that there are other run production model packages that you can buy. Send me a PM if you want. But like I said, this is my "not so secret" formula. The rest, as one person said to me once, is "brute force and ignorance".
-I don't try to calculate base stealing or base running. Fielding I just do calculations for "on the fly", except that I use a spread sheet that DeanTSC published once upon a time which gives you X chart probabilities - especially re errors.

I had Bruce on a Miller team and he did what I expected from him. 30 homers , .235 average. He does get his fair share of doubles as well and wont get hurt. I would take him again in a hitters yard. The D and arm do come in handy saving a few runs during a full season as well. I think he is worth the price in the right park and division.

After 144 games, here is Bruce on one of my teams:

.272 BA, .338 OBP, .600 SLUG, 39 HRs, 101 RBIs
Yes, he is playing in Coors. However, with those numbers and his defense, his $6.85 salary is reasonable.