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In other Braves' news, Acuna is playing like the budding superstar he's billed as..

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Comments

  • stubbornthingstubbornthing Posts: 119 ✭✭✭ Junior

    Wrong place. Not every Dawg fan is a Braves fan. Please take this somewhere else.

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  • coastaldawgcoastaldawg Posts: 1,411 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Seems like he's gotten better at taking pitches that are out of the strike zone since he moved to lead off spot. Earlier in the season, he was swinging at too bad pitches, and then taking too many third strikes. He's locked in right now, not swinging at bad pitches, and not missing one's that are in his zone.

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  • KirbstomperKirbstomper Posts: 1,102 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @WCDawg said:

    @greshamdisco said:
    Acuna is leading the ratio APHRB / UAFB (attractiveness of the women who get your homerun balls / unattractiveness of the day guys who get your foul balls ratio). Seriously, I’m old enough when I remember it was runs scored, SB, HR and batting average you used to measure players. Now there are 197 metrics used to track players. On Acuna, cool that he set the Braves mark for games with consecutive HRs and also leading off a game with HR (three days in a row). If I were the Marlins, I’d open up the game by walking him.

    Some metrics make obvious sense, OPS being at the top, some like ''launch angle'' probably have value in projecting prospects and clearly do in training, but are completely incidental ( useless) in evaluating actual production.

    Hey this is actually true I think @WCDawg! Launch angle doesn’t affect any outcome dependent stats like OBP OPS or WRC+. But yeah teams look at it for training, like saying hey you need to elevate your batted balls more let’s make a swing adjustment.

    We agree on something!

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  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @MODawg said:

    @Kirbstomper said:

    @WCDawg said:

    @greshamdisco said:
    Acuna is leading the ratio APHRB / UAFB (attractiveness of the women who get your homerun balls / unattractiveness of the day guys who get your foul balls ratio). Seriously, I’m old enough when I remember it was runs scored, SB, HR and batting average you used to measure players. Now there are 197 metrics used to track players. On Acuna, cool that he set the Braves mark for games with consecutive HRs and also leading off a game with HR (three days in a row). If I were the Marlins, I’d open up the game by walking him.

    Some metrics make obvious sense, OPS being at the top, some like ''launch angle'' probably have value in projecting prospects and clearly do in training, but are completely incidental ( useless) in evaluating actual production.

    I’m glad you will never work in the Braves FO haha. There’s a reason organizations are embracing fly balls!

    Yea bc they keep building the parks smaller and smaller

    Also the ball is juiced, some of yesterday's fly ball outs are now home runs.
    Then you have PEDs, which will never be completely vanquished from MLB.The ''ha ha'' child doesn't understand the point anyway. My point is angle of trajectory is not a real stat anymore than when a player's front foot comes down is a stat. It can be a teaching tool, but when you have actual results from a player it's just background info.

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  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @stubbornthing said:
    Wrong place. Not every Dawg fan is a Braves fan. Please take this somewhere else.

    No thanks, we have a general topic option for a reason.

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  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @Kirbstomper said:

    @WCDawg said:

    @greshamdisco said:
    Acuna is leading the ratio APHRB / UAFB (attractiveness of the women who get your homerun balls / unattractiveness of the day guys who get your foul balls ratio). Seriously, I’m old enough when I remember it was runs scored, SB, HR and batting average you used to measure players. Now there are 197 metrics used to track players. On Acuna, cool that he set the Braves mark for games with consecutive HRs and also leading off a game with HR (three days in a row). If I were the Marlins, I’d open up the game by walking him.

    Some metrics make obvious sense, OPS being at the top, some like ''launch angle'' probably have value in projecting prospects and clearly do in training, but are completely incidental ( useless) in evaluating actual production.

    There’s a reason organizations are embracing fly balls!

    You seem truly dense.

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  • MODawgMODawg Posts: 479 ✭✭✭✭ Senior

    @WCDawg said:

    @MODawg said:

    @Kirbstomper said:

    @WCDawg said:

    @greshamdisco said:
    Acuna is leading the ratio APHRB / UAFB (attractiveness of the women who get your homerun balls / unattractiveness of the day guys who get your foul balls ratio). Seriously, I’m old enough when I remember it was runs scored, SB, HR and batting average you used to measure players. Now there are 197 metrics used to track players. On Acuna, cool that he set the Braves mark for games with consecutive HRs and also leading off a game with HR (three days in a row). If I were the Marlins, I’d open up the game by walking him.

    Some metrics make obvious sense, OPS being at the top, some like ''launch angle'' probably have value in projecting prospects and clearly do in training, but are completely incidental ( useless) in evaluating actual production.

    I’m glad you will never work in the Braves FO haha. There’s a reason organizations are embracing fly balls!

    Yea bc they keep building the parks smaller and smaller

    Also the ball is juiced, some of yesterday's fly ball outs are now home runs.
    Then you have PEDs, which will never be completely vanquished from MLB.The ''ha ha'' child doesn't understand the point anyway. My point is angle of trajectory is not a real stat anymore than when a player's front foot comes down is a stat. It can be a teaching tool, but when you have actual results from a player it's just background info.

    They have to be teaching that to middle and high school kids. It's an interesting teaching tool to have the "perfect" launch angle for a home run. But me personally I would rather have 8 line drive hitters. I don't want this year's Yankees as my team. I'm sure Judge and Stanton have perfect launch angles but when the angle is off, they usually hit a fly ball if they touch it at all. I'm actually kind of worried about baseball and it's ever growing reliance on the long ball. A lot of players are home run or strike out. Who wants to watch a team of Adam Dunns?

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  • KirbstomperKirbstomper Posts: 1,102 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited August 2018

    2014 stats league wide.

    Ground Balls: BA = .239 wOBA = .220
    Line Drives : BA = .685 wOBA = .684
    Fly Balls : BA = .207 wOBA = .335

    The wOBA for fly balls being so much higher than wOBA on ground balls is why teams are embracing fly balls. Of course line drives are and always will be preferred, but it is better to hit a hard fly ball than a hard ground ball.

    They have to be teaching that to middle and high school kids. It's an interesting teaching tool to have the "perfect" launch angle for a home run. But me personally I would rather have 8 line drive hitters. I don't want this year's Yankees as my team. I'm sure Judge and Stanton have perfect launch angles but when the angle is off, they usually hit a fly ball if they touch it at all. I'm actually kind of worried about baseball and it's ever growing reliance on the long ball. A lot of players are home run or strike out. Who wants to watch a team of Adam Dunns?

    They don't teach "perfect launch angle for home runs" because there isn't one. They teach that it is better to elevate the ball than hit low line drives and grounders. This is a fact observed from stats similar to what I put above. Stanton and Judge actually hit a ton of fly balls that end up as doubles or homers because they play in a small park and have a ton of power. You're right that guys who hit a lot of line drives are good though, if we could grab a few more Freeman/Yelich types that would be ideal.

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  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @MODawg said:

    @WCDawg said:

    @MODawg said:

    @Kirbstomper said:

    @WCDawg said:

    @greshamdisco said:
    Acuna is leading the ratio APHRB / UAFB (attractiveness of the women who get your homerun balls / unattractiveness of the day guys who get your foul balls ratio). Seriously, I’m old enough when I remember it was runs scored, SB, HR and batting average you used to measure players. Now there are 197 metrics used to track players. On Acuna, cool that he set the Braves mark for games with consecutive HRs and also leading off a game with HR (three days in a row). If I were the Marlins, I’d open up the game by walking him.

    Some metrics make obvious sense, OPS being at the top, some like ''launch angle'' probably have value in projecting prospects and clearly do in training, but are completely incidental ( useless) in evaluating actual production.

    I’m glad you will never work in the Braves FO haha. There’s a reason organizations are embracing fly balls!

    Yea bc they keep building the parks smaller and smaller

    Also the ball is juiced, some of yesterday's fly ball outs are now home runs.
    Then you have PEDs, which will never be completely vanquished from MLB.The ''ha ha'' child doesn't understand the point anyway. My point is angle of trajectory is not a real stat anymore than when a player's front foot comes down is a stat. It can be a teaching tool, but when you have actual results from a player it's just background info.

    They have to be teaching that to middle and high school kids. It's an interesting teaching tool to have the "perfect" launch angle for a home run. But me personally I would rather have 8 line drive hitters. I don't want this year's Yankees as my team. I'm sure Judge and Stanton have perfect launch angles but when the angle is off, they usually hit a fly ball if they touch it at all. I'm actually kind of worried about baseball and it's ever growing reliance on the long ball. A lot of players are home run or strike out. Who wants to watch a team of Adam Dunns?

    It's debatable whether teaching players to loft the ball is best.
    What isn't debatable, except to ''ha ha'' types is, launch angle isn't a result, he seems to think a .205 hitter with good launch angle is better than a .205 hitter with a flatter swing, it's brain dead logic.

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  • PeachCoDawgPeachCoDawg Posts: 489 ✭✭✭✭ Senior

    You are 100% correct and man, is he a joy to watch or what? Great swing. Great player. So happy he's far exceeded my expectations in the League. I'm happy seeing him leading off. He really gets everything in the sweet spot. If you leave one high, or hang one, he's gonna make you pay. I haven't been this excited about a farm system player since Andruw

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  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited August 2018

    @PeachCoDawg said:
    You are 100% correct and man, is he a joy to watch or what? Great swing. Great player. So happy he's far exceeded my expectations in the League. I'm happy seeing him leading off. He really gets everything in the sweet spot. If you leave one high, or hang one, he's gonna make you pay. I haven't been this excited about a farm system player since Andruw

    He got off to a slow start, but if he keeps it up another 6 weeks, he'll be a ROTY candidate.
    Long term is what's exciting, He's not quite Andruw Jones in the field, A.J was the best ever in center, but he can be a far more complete hitter than Andruw was.

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  • PeachCoDawgPeachCoDawg Posts: 489 ✭✭✭✭ Senior
    edited August 2018

    @WCDawg said:

    @PeachCoDawg said:
    You are 100% correct and man, is he a joy to watch or what? Great swing. Great player. So happy he's far exceeded my expectations in the League. I'm happy seeing him leading off. He really gets everything in the sweet spot. If you leave one high, or hang one, he's gonna make you pay. I haven't been this excited about a farm system player since Andruw

    He got off to a slow start, but if he keeps it up another 6 weeks, he'll be a ROTY candidate.
    Long term is what's exciting, He's not quite Andruw Jones in the field, A.J was the best ever in center, but he can be a far more complete hitter than Andruw was.

    Spot on man. I think he will be a ROTY candidate. He's really in a groove now, but you're right, it's his future that's got me so excited. Andruw was the best center fielder for years. His bat never got to where I thought it would and his low avg was always aggravating. I always took Andruw as a "lazy" type player. Maybe just because he made CF look so effortless but his demeanor was always just.... slow lol. Great Brave though. How many gold gloves he have? Close to 10 I would think. I'll just have to check his stats.

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  • MarkBoknechtMarkBoknecht Posts: 1,645 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    @donm said:

    @MarkBoknecht said:
    I love the fact that he was moved to the lead-off spot. His hitting just took off after that change. And with the success with guys in the lower part of the batting order like Camargo and Swanson, it gives the power hitting Acuna numerous RBI opportunities.

    I'm wondering what it is about hitting leadoff that led to this offensive explosion? Or maybe it had nothing to do with it and he was just ready to get hot? Where is the advanced metric to explain that?

    I can think of a few factors. When he was hitting 7th, pitchers could afford to pitch around him with the 8th and 9th hitters behind him. Statistically, he may not have had more walks, but it seems like he was seeing more off speed and curve balls in that spot. At leadoff, it seems like pitchers want to get you out and will go with the higher percentage strike which is the fast
    ball. And Acuna has said that he likes fast balls, as would every hitter in my estimation.

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  • MODawgMODawg Posts: 479 ✭✭✭✭ Senior

    @Kirbstomper said:
    2014 stats league wide.

    Ground Balls: BA = .239 wOBA = .220
    Line Drives : BA = .685 wOBA = .684
    Fly Balls : BA = .207 wOBA = .335

    The wOBA for fly balls being so much higher than wOBA on ground balls is why teams are embracing fly balls. Of course line drives are and always will be preferred, but it is better to hit a hard fly ball than a hard ground ball.

    They have to be teaching that to middle and high school kids. It's an interesting teaching tool to have the "perfect" launch angle for a home run. But me personally I would rather have 8 line drive hitters. I don't want this year's Yankees as my team. I'm sure Judge and Stanton have perfect launch angles but when the angle is off, they usually hit a fly ball if they touch it at all. I'm actually kind of worried about baseball and it's ever growing reliance on the long ball. A lot of players are home run or strike out. Who wants to watch a team of Adam Dunns?

    They don't teach "perfect launch angle for home runs" because there isn't one. They teach that it is better to elevate the ball than hit low line drives and grounders. This is a fact observed from stats similar to what I put above. Stanton and Judge actually hit a ton of fly balls that end up as doubles or homers because they play in a small park and have a ton of power. You're right that guys who hit a lot of line drives are good though, if we could grab a few more Freeman/Yelich types that would be ideal.

    I see what you're saying but with a lot of those fly ball guys the k rate is awful. I would rather guys hit hard grounders than miss a curve in the dirt by 2 1/2 feet. Put in play and make the defense do their job. And I'm sure in the not too distant future there will be a "perfect" launch angle for each individual swing especially with all the technology and specialized coaching that these kids get from a young age

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