Can someone help me out on Carlos Gomez?

[Hate those Rodents]

I think most all of us will need to watch Gomez as a Brewer before we make too many absolute conclusions on the youngster. Sure, there might be a few posters that have seen him play 30 times or so, but most of us are looking simply at the underwhelming stats of an extremely talented and very young center fielder.

[logan82]

Cameron in April: 20 G .333/.430/.667

Rest of season: 129 G .237/.328/.419

 

Not exactly a black hole still better than Gomez's career marks but nothing special.

 

If you look further into the splits you could just as easily say Cameron was fantastic except for June. I don't think it makes any sense to selectively include some months and not others.

[topper09er]

I did not exclude any months, I gave 1 month and then the rest of the season, but here you go:

 

April .333 .430 .667 MVP caliber

May .247 .339 .464 average

June .153 .301 .235 below replacement

July .306 .390 .506 all-star caliber

August .262 .345 .456 average

Sept/Oct .216 .270 .422 terrible/replacement level ish

 

and if you combine April with June you get: 48 G .235/.358/.433 which is slightly above average.

You definetly cannot say he was fantastic except for June, but if you did then you would infact be selectively including some months and not others.

without June he was:

.268/.350/.512 which is very good but the OBP is still nothing special, but then you are excluding months which doesnt make any sense like you said.

[TooLiveBrew]

In 2008, Gomez hit .258, stole 33 bases, scored 79 runs and knocked in 59. Forget his OBP, if he can duplicate those numbers, he'll be an offensive contributor.

 

Forget his OBP? All the counting stats you listed, along with AVG, are very, very dependent upon getting on base.

[sheethead]

I would imagine in the dome it will get much worse.

 

Good thing for Hardy the Twins don't play in the Humpty Dump anymore.

[1992casey]

His range factor on his career is below average

 

The problem with Range Factor is that it's so dependent on the pitching staff and the players surrounding a given defender. It might be useful under a very narrow set of circumstances, but for the most part, I think it's better to work with other defensive metrics.

[Funketown]

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face but there is nothing in Escobar's minor league record that indicates he won't hit.

I'm much more optimistic about Escobar than many on this site, but I think there are many reasons to be worried that Escobar won't hit. I, for one, am confident that he'll be able to put up an average of .280+, but that will likely be supplemented by a 4%-5% walk rate and an ISO around .100. His minor league track record is solid, but there is always a legitimate concern that players like Escobar, who have yielded hits on 35% of balls in play in the minors, will not continue to do so in the majors with the higher level of defending.

 

Besides, if Escobar is the defensive wizard we're all hoping he is, he'll be quite a good player hitting even a modest .290/.330/.410/.740 down the road.

 

The same holds true for Gomez. From everything I've heard, he's a phenomenal center fielder, and UZR certainly seems to agree. Also, as has been pointed out, there is reason to believe Gomez is significantly better than his numbers last year show. From 2008, where Gomez hit .258/.296//.360/.657 to 2009, where he hit a Kendall-esque .229/.287/.337/.623, he saw his line drive and ground ball rate increase, his fly ball rate decrease, his BB% increase, and his K% decrease. If Gomez can swing the bat like he did last year, I don't think a line like .265/.315/.385/.700 is unreasonable to expect.

[marty22]

Also, as has been pointed out, there is reason to believe Gomez is significantly better than his numbers last year show. From 2008, where Gomez hit .258/.296//.360/.657 to 2009, where he hit a Kendall-esque .229/.287/.337/.623, he saw his line drive and ground ball rate increase, his fly ball rate decrease, his BB% increase, and his K% decrease. If Gomez can swing the bat like he did last year, I don't think a line like .265/.315/.385/.700 is unreasonable to expect.

Very interesting points Dr. Funke, I didn't realize he'd improved all of his underlying hitting stats.

[topper09er]

I would imagine in the dome it will get much worse.

 

Good thing for Hardy the Twins don't play in the Humpty Dump anymore.

Oops, well he should be glad he wasnt traded to Toronto then

[dlk9s]

My 3-year old daughter picked out her JJ Hardy t-shirt to wear today. Made me a little sad. She is wearing it backwards because she wanted to see the 7.

[rluzinski]

I did not exclude any months, I gave 1 month and then the rest of the season, but here you go:

 

April .333 .430 .667 MVP caliber

May .247 .339 .464 average

June .153 .301 .235 below replacement

July .306 .390 .506 all-star caliber

August .262 .345 .456 average

Sept/Oct .216 .270 .422 terrible/replacement level ish

 

and if you combine April with June you get: 48 G .235/.358/.433 which is slightly above average.

You definetly cannot say he was fantastic except for June, but if you did then you would infact be selectively including some months and not others.

without June he was:

.268/.350/.512 which is very good but the OBP is still nothing special, but then you are excluding months which doesnt make any sense like you said.

It seems like the people who think Cam isn't very good also thinks that CFers average an .800 OPS. Shouldn't you take the 5 seconds to look up what an average major league CF hits for before doing something like this?

 

This kind of stuff is just a waste of time anyway. The goal is to win games. It doesn't matter how offensive production is distributed over a season.

[Ennder]

The pattern of a players stats within a season sometimes can have some meaning, especially an older guy like Cameron or with a player who got hurt like Dave Bush. There is no pattern in those stats though, that is typical hot/cold streaks like almost every player in baseball goes though. Now if he was hot in April/May and fell off a cliff the rest of the season or something I'd be more worried about him.

[logan82]

Average SS 2009

AL 0.274/0.329/0.391/0.720

NL 0.268/0.327/0.396/0.723

MLB 0.271/0.328/0.394/0.721

 

Averge CF 2009

AL 0.265/0.330/0.404/0.734

NL 0.268/0.339/0.424/0.763

MLB 0.267/0.335/0.414/0.749

[Funketown]

It doesn't matter how offensive production is distributed over a season.

Thank you.

 

As long as a player doesn't collect all his homers in four HR games, it really doesn't matter how performance is distributed.

[logan82]

You mean like Kevin Mench?

[razzzorsharp]

It doesn't matter how offensive production is distributed over a season.

Thank you.

 

As long as a player doesn't collect all his homers in four HR games, it really doesn't matter how performance is distributed.

Doesn't even matter then.

[Funketown]

As long as a player doesn't collect all his homers in four HR games, it really doesn't matter how performance is distributed.

Doesn't even matter then.

I think it does. If you think about a baseball game, the home run that will add the most to the odds of winning the game would be the first. The second would increase the odds further, but not as far as the first (aggregated over a huge sample of games). The third will yield and even smaller change in +WPA (or whatever metric is used to represent change in % chance of winning the game), and the fourth even less. Heck, by the time a player hits his fourth homer, the team most likely already has 5-6 runs, so adding another couple isn't really all that valuable.

 

That said, there are no players who hit all of their HR's in bursts of four consecutive AB's, so this is more hypothetical than anything.