Will Bill Hall ever make adjustments?

[kramnoj]

I am not sure that every/any time BF.net wants to discuss a slumping player, we need to ensure that all other "slumping threads" are up to date.

 

Why not? If people are talking about how bad Hall is because he has been terrible in his 59 PA against LHP, then it's legitimate to say the same thing about Hardy. If people aren't doing that, why aren't they doing that? If it's just a reaction to a bad couple of games, then it's a vent, which this forum specifically doesn't want.

 

The big difference is that Gamel is burning service time, Escobar is not -- If Escobar was rotting on our bench, I am sure people would be a little more anxious about Hardy's current struggles.

 

Gamel isn't rotting on the bench.

[Fatter than Joey]

If people aren't doing that, why aren't they doing that? If it's just a reaction to a bad couple of games, then it's a vent, which this forum specifically doesn't want.

 

That's quite a stretch and flimsy argument. Bill Hall in the last two years has seen about ~150 ABs against LHP -- He has already seen 59, that is a big chunk out of 150. If you think Bill Hall should get 100 more ABs against LHP going forward -- that certainly is a reasonable argument -- however, giving Gamel those ABs is an argument that has plenty of merit as well.

 

Gamel isn't rotting on the bench.

 

Exactly -- However, the fact remains, Escobar is in AAA, and Gamel is in MLB.

[kramnoj]

If you think Bill Hall should get 100 more ABs against LHP going forward -- that certainly is a reasonable argument -- however, giving Gamel those ABs is an argument that has plenty of merit as well.

 

It is true that Gamel has hit lefties better in his career so far, but is it reasonable to expect that going forward? I know the righty platoon advantage has been studied and it has been found that eventually if righty gets enough bats he will meet the level of historic RHB vs LHP split. What is the case with LHB vs RHP historically? Just going by what I see, Gamel has certainly handled himself well vs lefties.

 

If Hall is on the roster, he needs to play against LHP. If the Brewers don't think he can do that anymore, there's no benefit to benching him, just release him and move on. I figure Hall has another month plus to get some good games against LHP. If he keeps trending towards flatline, the Brewers could easily replace him with Heether as super sub and let Gamel play every day. I'm perfectly fine with that, as I was happy with Hall being gone in the offseason. I just don't think less than 60 ABs should change anyone's mind.

 

Edit. I made an obvious error with my platoon question. I meant to ask if there was anything to tell us that a lefty hitting lefties is a skill, or if Gamel has been "lucky" so far against southpaws to date.

 

But since I bring up the platoon split skill question, I guess it's fair to say that counting on Hall to be a lefty killer doesn't jive with what I understand the research to be.

[logan82]

Everybody loves to tout the fact that Bill Hall mashes lefties, and I will not deny that (minus this year). But looking at his numbers against lefties in a vacuum completely ignores the fact that he has gotten 117 at-bats against righties this season, which is more than double the amount of at-bats he has gotten against left-handed hitters.

 

What that should tell you is that Hall has been misused this season. I think the coaching staff needs to stop trying to make Hall an everyday player and accept the fact that he is the small half of a platoon and defensive replacement at best.

 

If Hall is on the roster, he needs to play against LHP.

 

I agree. I would rather it be at 2B though. I would rather see Gamel vs LHP than McGehee.

[joepepsi]

If Hall is on the roster, he needs to play against LHP.

 

I agree. I would rather it be at 2B though. I would rather see Gamel vs LHP than McGehee.

Ah, but I would rather see McGehee vs LHP than Hall.

[logan82]

I guess if you think Hall and McGehee are the players they have shown this year that makes sense as long as you ignore everything before this year.

[JonnyLungs]

What that should tell you is that Hall has been misused this season. I think the coaching staff needs to stop trying to make Hall an everyday player and accept the fact that he is the small half of a platoon and defensive replacement at best.

 

But therein still lies my problem. Start Bill Hall against LHP, sure. But that LHP isn't going to pitch the whole game. Do you immediately pull Hall from the game as soon as he is scheduled to step up to the plate against a RHP? In these days of 12 and sometimes even 13 man pitching staffs I don't like to blow my bench up just to cover for somebody's glaring weakness.

 

Like I said, even treading water against RHP would make me feel better, but even facing one RHP is one too many with Bill Hall and if you can't even be trusted a few at-bats against the type of pitcher that the majority of pitchers are, that tells me that you are not a big league baseball player.

[logan82]

I don't understand why you would want to give up production for 3 at bats per game because you are worried about an at bat that may or may not mean anything. It is very easy to bring in a pinch hitter late in games if the situation dictates.

[naivin]

Playing Bill Hall as anything but a late inning replacement is just plain stupid at this point. He has absolutely no place in the Brewers future, and is doing nothing to help them this year...LHP or not. Gamel is here, and he is staying here. He is a big part of the Brewers future plans. There is no reason not to get him out there at every opportunity. You want to give him a few extra days off to try to limit late season fatigue, fine, but his being anything but the 'everyday' third baseman is nothing short of insanity.

[brewmann04]

I agree Gamel is here to saty and left him get his ab aganist both RHP and LHP and we already see what Bill hall can't do.

[JonnyLungs]

I don't understand why you would want to give up production for 3 at bats per game because you are worried about an at bat that may or may not mean anything. It is very easy to bring in a pinch hitter late in games if the situation dictates.

Where in the heck did I say I want to give up production for the first three at-bats? Now you're just putting words in my mouth. My argument is that when a player is so horrible against RHP (like Bill Hall) they can't be an effective major league player, much less a platoon mate.

 

I'm fine with platoons. But my point is that if the short end of the platoon is horrible against RHP, then you are ultimately defeating the purpose. The nature of the beast is that there are a lot more RHP in the major leagues than LHP. Are there any examples out there of a hitter facing more LHP over the course of a season than RHP in the National League? I can see it working in the AL not needing to pinch hit for the pitcher, but it's an honest question that I am too lazy to investigate but am willing to be proven wrong. Lefthanded hitters in a platoon can be hidden much easier than righthanded hitters.

[TooLiveBrew]

I think there is no question Hall is a 'big league baseball player'. I just think he got a fat contract & isn't living up to it, so fans are more disappointed in him than someone like Kendall (just an example... hope that can of worms stays closed here).

 

 

Gamel isn't rotting on the bench

 

Hall's been struggling so much lately that it feels like any time he's playing, Gamel is rotting on the bench. I've really started to feel bad for Hall. Watching his body language esp. last night... he just looks like he wants to let our a primal scream. He's already tried changing up his swing, so maybe his recent frustrations will lead to more willingness to work on a complete overhaul. Hang in there, Bill. The Brewers need you.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

It is true that Gamel has hit lefties better in his career so far, but is it reasonable to expect that going forward? I know the righty platoon advantage has been studied and it has been found that eventually if righty gets enough bats he will meet the level of historic RHB vs LHP split. What is the case with LHB vs RHP historically? Just going by what I see, Gamel has certainly handled himself well vs lefties.

 

....

 

Edit. I made an obvious error with my platoon question. I meant to ask if there was anything to tell us that a lefty hitting lefties is a skill, or if Gamel has been "lucky" so far against southpaws to date.

 

But since I bring up the platoon split skill question, I guess it's fair to say that counting on Hall to be a lefty killer doesn't jive with what I understand the research to be.

Actually, both RHB and LHB can have persistent platoon splits as an individual trait that are wider or narrower than the league average, and even sometimes in the opposite direction. The problem is that the statistical noise in this data is so very large that an absurd quantity of PA are required before an individual hitter's personal platoon split becomes more reliable than simply assuming a league average platoon differential going forward.

 

The Book gives the required number of PA against LHP before this occurs as 2000 for RHB and 1000 for LHB. In his entire major league career, Bill Hall has so far amassed just 841 PA against LHP. So Hall is not yet even halfway to having faced enough LHP that we can assume (statistically speaking) that his so far observed wider-than-normal platoon splits are a persistent attribute of Bill Hall as a hitter.

 

To give an idea of just how long it takes before a RHB amasses enough PA against LHP for his individual platoon split to be trustworthy, Derek Jeter just got there last year. Albert Pujols should arrive sometime late in the 2011 season if he stays healthy.

 

Hall isn't going to get there, ever, in all likelihood. This is part of the problem with studying this issue -- if you are a RHB that cannot really hit RHP, you will tend to play your way out of the majors at some point, no matter how thoroughly you crush LHP. Note that I'm not even saying that Hall can't hit RHP -- only that if he continues to fail at it on the scale he has the last few years, he'll never be given the opportunity to attain a large enough sample size that we can be confident that his failure to hit RHP was actually a persistent phenomena rather than a transient one.

 

Oddly, partly because there is simply a greater spread in LHB ability to hit LHP, if we're willing to use minor league data in place of MLB data (not necessarily safe, and I'm not sure it's been studied), it's probably a safer bet that Gamel will have a narrower-than-usual platoon split than that Hall will continue to have a wider-than-normal one. Gamel has over 500 PA against LHP in the minors, more than halfway to reliability.

[kramnoj]

Thanks for the response Brawndo. I first became aware of the league average platoon split a few years ago when MGL brought it up over at BTF. As MGL sometimes does, he overstated his case by saying that no player ever hits better than the league average platoon split. Some people brought up Frank Thomas, but MGL just dismissed it at the time. But as you pointed out with Jeter, Thomas had 2445 PA over his career, so he didn't cross the certainty line until late in his career.

[JonnyLungs]

I think there is no question Hall is a 'big league baseball player'. I just think he got a fat contract & isn't living up to it, so fans are more disappointed in him than someone like Kendall (just an example... hope that can of worms stays closed here).

I should have prefaced "big league baseball player" with effective, and on a decent club. I'm sure Billy could play for a lower echelon team and maybe even figure things out. And I'm sure that would've happened by now had he not had the contract he has. And I'm not putting all the blame on Billy, either. I don't think all that moving around has necessary helped, but we'll never know.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Thanks for the response Brawndo. I first became aware of the league average platoon split a few years ago when MGL brought it up over at BTF. As MGL sometimes does, he overstated his case by saying that no player ever hits better than the league average platoon split. Some people brought up Frank Thomas, but MGL just dismissed it at the time. But as you pointed out with Jeter, Thomas had 2445 PA over his career, so he didn't cross the certainty line until late in his career.

Depending on how long ago that discussion occurred, it may have been that MGL's comments reflected the prevailing opinion among hardcore stat geeks at the time. Bill James was the originator of the idea that batters have no individual tendency toward unique platoon splits in his 1988 Baseball Abstract. By 2005, James had concluded that he had been wrong. The linked SABR article is really good -- if anybody even remotely interested in sabermetrics hasn't read it, I highly recommend it. Essentially, James is reminding us that absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, and that just because something is extraordinarily difficult to detect doesn't necessarily mean it does not exist.

 

I'm not sure how long the sea change on this question took, but I doubt that MGL would still maintain that no player ever has a true talent platoon differential that is wider than the league average.

 

I'd also just like to note that it really isn't possible to arrive at a hard and fast "certainty line" in terms of how big a sample is needed for something like this. The best you can do is say that you do better assuming league average results in projecting future performance (regressing 100% to the mean, as it were) than using prior statistics until you get a sample that is around x PA, or IP, or whatever. That's probably obvious, but I wanted to make sure no one mistakenly read the contention as if 2000 and 1000 PA were some sort of bright line division between uncertainty and certainty. When you have a smaller sample, typically what you want to do in order to estimate true talent is regress part of the way to the league average. The more information you have, the less the need to regress.

[logan82]

The Book gives the required number of PA against LHP before this occurs as 2000 for RHB and 1000 for LHB. In his entire major league career, Bill Hall has so far amassed just 841 PA against LHP. So Hall is not yet even halfway to having faced enough LHP that we can assume (statistically speaking) that his so far observed wider-than-normal platoon splits are a persistent attribute of Bill Hall as a hitter.

 

I thought the Book said that you need to regress the platoon split of an individual player with 1000 or 2000 PA of league average platoon splits.

 

Where in the heck did I say I want to give up production for the first three at-bats? Now you're just putting words in my mouth. My argument is that when a player is so horrible against RHP (like Bill Hall) they can't be an effective major league player, much less a platoon mate

 

You just said he can't be a platoon mate. Earlier you said he can't be a MLB player. Every scenario you bring up seems to point to you thinking that Hall can't be a good platoon mate.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

I thought the Book said that you need to regress the platoon split of an individual player with 1000 or 2000 PA of league average platoon splits.

Right, I think -- hence, when a player crosses the 1000 / 2000 actual PA line, their actual results begin to inform your true talent estimate more than the league average split does. I guess I may have made it sound like you can stop regressing once the 1000 / 2000 line is crossed, which isn't true. It's just that for anybody with less than 1000 / 2000, knowing their actual results is less valuable than merely knowing the normal platoon split. For anybody with more than 1000 / 2000, knowing their actual results is more valuable than knowing the normal platoon split.

[logan82]

But my point is that if the short end of the platoon is horrible against RHP, then you are ultimately defeating the purpose.

 

I thought the whole purpose of a platoon was to play guys with bad platoon slits against favorable pitching matchups.

[JonnyLungs]

But my point is that if the short end of the platoon is horrible against RHP, then you are ultimately defeating the purpose.

 

I thought the whole purpose of a platoon was to play guys with bad platoon slits against favorable pitching matchups.

Bill Schroeder and Doug Melvin brought up the point last night that I've been trying to make that strict platoons are extremely rare in this day and age with such large pitching staffs. The short side of the platoon will still get too many at-bats against RHP. A manager can't burn through his bench in the 6th inning when a righthanded reliever is brought into the game.

 

Like I posted earlier, and would love to be proven wrong, a righthanded hitting member of a platoon needs to at least tread water against RHP in order to be effective. Bill Hall hasn't come close to treading water against RHP for some time now.

 

That said, I'd be happy if Bill Hall can somehow even become a more versatile Wes Helms. A pinch hitter brought in to face lefties and given a start here and there. They both even have the overpriced contracts.

[sheethead]

Bill Hall is barely treading water against LHP. But why discard him and bring up a minor league player to super sub when Bill Hall himself can super sub. At least that way you are getting a minor return on the investment in such an impaired asset. Regardless of Bill Hall's splits against LHP this year, last year, the year before, yadda yadda, he can play adequate defense at multiple positions and could be spelling players when needed. I would throw out the splits at this juncture, realizing he is inept at the plate against any handed pitcher, and just have him be the highly paid super sub he is.

[kramnoj]

But why discard him and bring up a minor league player to super sub when Bill Hall himself can super sub.

 

Hall complained when he was demoted into a platoon. I don't think we should expect him to react well to being completely benched.

 

Besides, I don't think it makes sense to carry Hall only to play defense. His offense has severely declined. At least with Counsell we could get a decentish OBP with great defense.

 

At this point I'm hoping that Hall gets dumped in a trade for a pitcher where we have to get a bigger contract than we would normally want, but can afford because they are absorbing Hall.

[afeter]

I'm probably in the minority here but i think bill hall will be productive when he leaves the brewers. I believe a huge part of his problem is confidence. Right now, no one believes in him, not the media, not the fans, not bill hall and probably not even Vergie. Its such a head game for him. The constant media and fan attention has worn him out We constantly fret about gamel's psyche, why hot halls? I know the answer is because he was established, but come on this guy is not done.

[joepepsi]

I agree Hall would probably play a little better on another team. Oftentimes that's a temporary thing. Also, he may be more willing to accept a reduced role on another team with a fresh start, then on the Brewers. There's a certain amount of pride and psychology involved. If my boss asks me to take a pay cut I may be upset and quit, then accept another job for less pay.

[TooLiveBrew]

Hall complained when he was demoted into a platoon. I don't think we should expect him to react well to being completely benched

 

Although I realize your point was not to state (necessarily) that Hall should not be benched more, I could care less what Bill Hall has to say about being benched more. He makes a ton of money, and at this point is replaceable off the waiver wire in terms of production. If he doesn't like it, he can pout, or not. The important thing is putting players on the field that give the team the best chance to win. Hall is not one of them right now.