Erstad to Houston

Canadian · Dec 27, 2007

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/Headlines.aspx?sport=MLB&hl=227862

They have been accumalating quite a bit of talent this offseason, and they could contend in the mediocre NL Central next year in my opinion

FITM · Dec 28, 2007

Darin Erstad's biggest accomplishment is getting his own thread in the baseball forum of TGG.

Canadian · Dec 28, 2007

FITM said: ↑

Darin Erstad's biggest accomplishment is getting his own thread in the baseball forum of TGG.
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Having 200 hits, hitting .355, winning a gold glove and being in the all-star game in 2000 is a close second though:smile:

FITM · Dec 28, 2007

YanksFan1992 said: ↑

Having 200 hits, hitting .355, winning a gold glove and being in the all-star game in 2000 is a close second though:smile:
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No doubt. :up:

Jetfanmack · Dec 28, 2007

Erstad has talent?

Theo Huxtable · Dec 28, 2007

had*

(filler)

AMJets · Dec 28, 2007

Darin Erstad's reason for being in baseball is to make guys like David Eckstein and Scott Podsednik say, "Hey, I may be frighteningly overrated... but atleast I'm not Darin Erstad!"

dubagedi · Dec 29, 2007

You guys are idiots. He is tough. He is scrappy. He played fucking college football for chrissakes!! Forget looking at the actual results of his career that would say that besides 1 year he's been average to bad, this man will do magic for the Astros.

I'd take him over A-Rod any day, and frankly I'd take him over any player not named David Eckstein because his good attitude magically makes the team better.

Learn To Swim · Dec 29, 2007

dubagedi said: ↑

You guys are idiots. He is tough. He is scrappy. He played fucking college football for chrissakes!! Forget looking at the actual results of his career that would say that besides 1 year he's been average to bad, this man will do magic for the Astros.

I'd take him over A-Rod any day, and frankly I'd take him over any player not named David Eckstein because his good attitude magically makes the team better.
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That post was Tremendous.

Exit 117 · Jan 2, 2008

dubagedi said: ↑

You guys are idiots. He is tough. He is scrappy. He played fucking college football for chrissakes!! Forget looking at the actual results of his career that would say that besides 1 year he's been average to bad, this man will do magic for the Astros.

I'd take him over A-Rod any day, and frankly I'd take him over any player not named David Eckstein because his good attitude magically makes the team better.
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Yeah, but he's not in the top 50 GRITTY players of all time.

SixFeetDeep · Jan 3, 2008

Exit 117 said: ↑

Yeah, but he's not in the top 50 GRITTY players of all time.
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yeah hes not on dustin pedroia's level, that guy is SO gritty.

dubagedi · Jan 3, 2008

http://www.flotsam-media.com/2007/12/flotsam-data-special-tangiblizing.html

After Tim McCarver’s month-long David Eckstein sploogefest that was October 2006, a serious investigation into 'grit' was long overdue. Despite the penchant of sportswriters and broadcasters to throw the term around willy-nilly, I was hard-pressed to locate a firm definition of grit in the baseball sense. Using lots of laptop science stuff, I think I’ve improved the definition, which isn’t really saying much, since there wasn’t one to begin with.

First, some definitions to help us focus in on what exactly this 'grit' stuff is.

Gritty
1. Containing, covered with, or resembling grit.
2. Showing resolution and fortitude; plucky: Biggio’s gritty 12-pitch at-bat ultimately resulted in a routine 6-3 groundout.

In keeping with those definitions I’m proposing a new composite statistic: General Requirements of Intangible Talent (GRIT). GRIT incorporates four basic components: dirt, determination, talent, and opportunity.

DATA
I used a modified version of the Sean Lahman dataset that includes player statistics from 1871-2006. My dataset includes player-seasons starting in 1955, the first year for which statistical data for intentional walks and GIDP was available. To chop the dataset down to a manageable size, I limited the number of eligible players to those who have at least 100 plate appearances and 81 games played. This removes pitchers from consideration, but also ensures that an adequate indication of a player’s abilities during each season is evident. Statistics for 2007 were compiled from ESPN.

The resulting dataset includes 13,249 player-seasons with 2,385 unique players represented.

HYPOTHESIS
I hold that gritty players are those who sincerely want to win or succeed at baseball (determination), but due to a lack of natural skill (talent), are forced to do so through the least efficient means possible, resulting in an excessive amount of dirt on their uniform.

DIRT
The most important factor in determining a player's GRIT is his uniform. A player who is "containing, covered with, or resembling grit" will show visible signs of his grittiness on his uniform. Dirty uniforms are good; bloody uniforms are better. A true team player, the gritty player is prepared to sacrifice his body at all costs. This is one of the few ways gritty players are efficient, since they probably aren’t as well compensated as their genuinely talented teammates.

The Dirt Formula

HBP: A hit batter produce minimal gains (one base) with relatively high costs in terms of potential bodily injury. The official colors of gritty players may well be black and blue. And red. And maybe some brown with a little purple and some yellow around the edges, depending on the severity of the bruising.

IBB: Next to home runs, intentional walks are probably the most anti-gritty statistic. Intentional walks are indicative that a player has so much talent that the pitcher would rather give him first base than risk an extra-base hit. Gritty players have to earn every base through hard-knocks, moxie, and a heaping helping of some good ol’ fashioned hustle.

CS/SB stuff (SBINEFF): This is a statistic I call Stolen Base Inefficiency (SBINEFF). This looks for players who like to attempt lots of steals but are largely unsuccessful. Stealing bases produces minimal gains (one base) but comes with greater potential costs by raising the likelihood of being thrown out. Base-stealers (successful or not) also have dirty uniforms from sliding.

DID YOU KNOW: Harold Reynolds holds the single-season record for SBINEFF with a stunning 13.385? Harold’s 1988 season saw him tally 35 steals while being caught 29 times. He broke the record set by Will Clark (13.304) during the previous season when Mr. Eyeblack went 5 for 22 on steal attempts. WOW!

DETERMINATION
Gritty players want to succeed. They just happen to not have the talent to actually do so. This results in inefficient baseball plays. For example, Jerry Hairston is gritty. He slides head-first into first base. A true sign of someone gritty enough to want to get to first base, but shitty enough to actually get there efficiently.

The Determination Formula

(Outs – SO): As short in stature as they are on talent, gritty players are determined to put the ball in play at all costs. Additionally, the ball looks gigantic to their tiny, elfin eyes and thus they’re less prone to striking out.

(BB+SH+SF): With their microscopic strike zones, gritty players generate walks (the unintentional ones) at a superhuman rate. Sacrificing oneself is an inefficient (read: gritty) method of moving runners along.

GIDP: Double plays are produced by well-struck balls that are able to cut through the infield grass. Aside from a bottle of hard liquor (eh, Mr. Furcal?) gritty players rarely hit anything well.

DID YOU KNOW: 2007 NL MVP Jimmy Rollins produced the sixth-highest season total of outs since 1955? He probably owes a fair share of his award to a trail-blazing fellow Phillie middle-infielder who set a precedent. Juan Samuel, in 1984, produced the second highest number of outs on his way to earning a tie for 21st place in the MVP voting and 2nd in the NL ROY. HOOCHIEMAMA!

DID YOU ALSO KNOW: Pete Rose has only the second highest season total of determination. The real "Charlie Hustle" is actually a "Dick." Dick Howser, that is. Howser’s 1964 season slightly edges out Pete’s numbers from 1974. CRACKER JACK!

WHATCHUKNOWABOUTTHISHERE: Dick Howser’s phone listing reads as "Howser, Dick." This tidbit is worth a few laughs given the right delivery, set-up, and audience. SHABANG!

Talent – It is my contention that "grittiness" is a subset of talent that cannot translate well statistically. Two players may very well have the same raw amount of grit, but one player may have more tangible talent, making him appear less gritty because the grit is too diluted. Gritty players are those who have the largest concentration of grit. As such, too find the grittiest players, we should look for players who have as little tangible talent as possible.

The Talent Formula

XBH: Extra base hits are ber-efficient ways of getting multiple bases.

RBI: Gritty players move runners over, but aren’t talented enough to drive them in.

TB: Total bases is an additional means of counting the overall ability of a player.

(OMS*1000): OMS (OBP minus SLG) is a proprietary statistic I developed for use in GRIT. It rewards players who reach base, but deprecates players who have the talent to get extra bases.

OPPORTUNITY
In order for a player to become gritty, they first need to be on the field. In the words of Ted Williams, "Nobody ever became a .400 hitter without taking the bat off their shoulder." To apply the quote more appropriately here, one might attribute it to Willams' quasi-gritty teammate, Milt Bolling, and change it to read "Nobody ever became a .250 hitter by getting splinters in their ass.” We simply use plate appearances as a representation of opportunity.

After calculating the four GRIT component values for each player-season, the resulting values are then plugged in to this equation:

(Dirt + Determination – Talent) / Opportunity

However, each component has a different scale relative to the others, so I experimented with normalizing the values. This can be accomplished by calculating an average and a standard deviation for the dirt, determination, talent, and opportunity scores of all the player-years.

Basic Normalization Formula

This was applied for each of the basic components across all player-seasons. The rationale for normalizing this data is to remove as much bias as possible from the process. As each of the four basic components creates a different range of values, some sort of weighting would be necessary to produce a meaningful list. Normalization automatically weights the components by determining how far a given player-season is above or below the average of all player-seasons.

RESULTS
Across 13,249 player-seasons, the data appears to have a relatively normal distribution. The data shows a range of about -50 to +50 with one outlier at -90.011 (see below), and a mean and median extremely close to 0. These numbers are promising for the prospects of GRIT as a statistic, as they suggest that the average player is neither extremely gritty, nor extremely talented. The tails in the extreme positive end of the distribution should show the grittiest payers, while talented players should appear in the negative tail.

Craig Biggio and David Eckstein are real damned gritty. Jason Kendall is so gritty that he just might stab a couple dozen Californians. And none of them match the original gritster: Ron "the Runt" Hunt.

On the other end of the spectrum, Barry Bonds is so extremely non-gritty that his numbers are a borderline statistical anomaly (insert your favorite joke here). Ryan Howard’s poised to become the new anti-grit. When Manny’s being Manny, he’s not gritty. When Rickey did what Rickey needed to do for the sake of Rickey, he was pretty gritty.

And there are a few thousand players somewhere in the middle who I completely neglected.

Armed with this knowledge, go forth and spread GRIT to all men. Or something.
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They also made a huge data table of the results that I omitted for size. See, grit is real!

Erstad to Houston

Canadian New Member

FITM 2006 TGG.com Best Photoshop Artist Award Winner

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FITM 2006 TGG.com Best Photoshop Artist Award Winner

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Erstad to Houston

Canadian New Member

FITM 2006 TGG.com Best Photoshop Artist Award Winner

Canadian New Member

FITM 2006 TGG.com Best Photoshop Artist Award Winner

Jetfanmack haz chilens?

Theo Huxtable New Member

AMJets Well-Known Member

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Learn To Swim 2008 Nightowltom "Best Non-Jets Poster" Award Winn

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