Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Dafatone: Or Scott Hairston!

Scott Hairston can be in if we add a roster spot solely for a "lefty mashing guy."

The Mets already have Scott Hairston, and all they talk about is adding a right-handed corner OF bat.

Meanwhile, we've got the 3rd most runs in the NL and the worst bullpen in baseball. But no, we need a right-handed corner OF bat.

Granted, lefties do kill us, but let's fix the part of our team that sucks. And we even have Jason Bay coming back someday, to be... a right-handed corner OF bat.

If only you had some overpaid closer who is probably good enough to be a set up man on a lesser team...

thecpt: Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Dafatone: Or Scott Hairston!

Scott Hairston can be in if we add a roster spot solely for a "lefty mashing guy."

The Mets already have Scott Hairston, and all they talk about is adding a right-handed corner OF bat.

Meanwhile, we've got the 3rd most runs in the NL and the worst bullpen in baseball. But no, we need a right-handed corner OF bat.

Granted, lefties do kill us, but let's fix the part of our team that sucks. And we even have Jason Bay coming back someday, to be... a right-handed corner OF bat.

If only you had some overpaid closer who is probably good enough to be a set up man on a lesser team...

That's the funny thing about Frank Francisco. Without the adrenaline he gets from closing, he'd be AWFUL, not just bad. The Mets would be best off, in my opinion, leaving him at closer and bringing in setup men.

Lots of setup men.

Dafatone: Thanks for ruining my month.

If the Mets could get some no-name guy who hits lefties, like say Reed Johnson from the Cubs, I'd be ok with it. But word is that they're gonna go after Carlos Quentin. Who can't stay healthy, is hitting 200 over the past month, and sucks against lefties for his career despite being right-handed.

Ugh this is Shawn Green all over again.

You know what's really funny about that picture? Here's where I found it when I GISed for it this time:

http://www.fark.com/comments/5901055/Former-Met-Jeff-Francoeur-says- Ci ti-Field-much-like-his-249-Mets-career-is-a-damn-joke#new

Anyway, I always say you can't make guarantees about baseball, but I feel pretty safe about this one: As much as I love Sandy Alderson, the Mets will make some retarded trade deadline decision. Take it to the bank.

Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

Dafatone: The Mets would be best off, in my opinion, leaving him at closer and bringing in setup men.

Tell him he's a super closer and only pitch him in 3run save situations.

DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

robsul82: DeWayne Mann: Hey, I know a right handed corner OF who is available! And I'm sure the people of New York would love him!

Hey, that's "The Natural" you're laughing at!

You know, I make fun of Frenchy for all sorts of things. That terrible swing, his loathing of OBP, the fact that his nickname is Frenchy, that terrible swing....

But NOTHING is funnier about Frenchy than this:

Jeff Francoeur's official blog for Delta Airlines

Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

Well, that's why I said "semi-luckily."

Plus, look on the bright side: I'm not sure they still have 3 major prospects!

Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

I don't get it. The Padres just weren't playing Quentin enough to make me believe they wanted to trade him. They sat him like every other game since he's been back and you cant say its injury really. Wouldn't they play him to get his numbers up and thus value?

DeWayne Mann: Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

Well, that's why I said "semi-luckily."

Plus, look on the bright side: I'm not sure they still have 3 major prospects!

Actually, the Mets' system is, for once, decently stocked. Thank god they've declared Harvey and Wheeler untouchable.

FreakinB: Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

Oh please no! In the name of all that is good and decent, no! Stay the course, Sandy!

I'm fine with trading for bullpen arms, or for a low-level righty that hits lefties. But Quentin is none of those things. He's an injury prone career 233 hitter against lefties.

DeWayne Mann: But NOTHING is funnier about Frenchy than this:

Jeff Francoeur's official blog for Delta Airlines

Say what you will, but his Value Over Replacement Blog is huge. Have you seen how bad the second-tier blogs are? At least Frenchy had a ghost writer write complete sentences.

It's not like he's on Breitbart or something. That kind of shame never washes clean.

chimp_ninja: DeWayne Mann: But NOTHING is funnier about Frenchy than this:

Jeff Francoeur's official blog for Delta Airlines

Say what you will, but his Value Over Replacement Blog is huge. Have you seen how bad the second-tier blogs are? At least Frenchy had a ghost writer write complete sentences.

It's not like he's on Breitbart or something. That kind of shame never washes clean.

Woah woah woah, wait a second. I'm pretty sure that in the blogging world, getting ghostwritten is like getting pinch hit for. He doesn't get credit for that!

Dafatone: I'm fine with trading for bullpen arms, or for a low-level righty that hits lefties. But Quentin is none of those things. He's an injury prone career 233 hitter against lefties.

They can bring him in for a pinch-HBP. Strategery.

chimp_ninja: Dafatone: I'm fine with trading for bullpen arms, or for a low-level righty that hits lefties. But Quentin is none of those things. He's an injury prone career 233 hitter against lefties.

They can bring him in for a pinch-HBP. Strategery.

Or they can flip him to the White Sox for a power hitting first base prospect.

Hey, it already worked once, and Quentain was coming off a season with a 63 OPS+ that time!

You want to know why Lincecum is bad? It's because Barry Zito disease has infected him. Farking science, biatches.

FreakinB: Dafatone: FreakinB: Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: Semi-luckily for you, it looks like their big mistake this year will be going after Ramon Hernandez. Because what you want is a guy hitting .215/.260/.398 ... in Colorado.

At least we'd only have to give up a small amount of prospects for him. It'd be a complete waste.

But for Quentin, I could see the Mets getting all "we went out and made a big splash and gave up 3 major prospects!"

Oh please no! In the name of all that is good and decent, no! Stay the course, Sandy!

I'm fine with trading for bullpen arms, or for a low-level righty that hits lefties. But Quentin is none of those things. He's an injury prone career 233 hitter against lefties.

Oh I'm more than fine with a bullpen guy or a non-name-but-decent bat. But I hate the idea of getting in on Quentin.

Of course if it happens I'll try to convince myself that it's ok.

For all we know, he'll be great for the Mets. I just don't see that happening, and I see him costing WAY too much.

It's not been a good stretch for Mets RFers. Beltran was great for half a season. I like Duda but his bat has not been worth his glove so far. Behind that, there's Frenchy, Ryan Church, Shawn Green...

Screw Lint-suck-cum, and screw the giants.

/oblig

get a haircut and quit smoking dope, hippy

DeWayne Mann: Yanks_RSJ: Because his walk rate suggests that his control isn't as good as it has been in the past, which in turn suggests that his pitches within the strikezone aren't where he wants them to be.

Comparing solely to last year:

He's throwing roughly the same amount of pitches in the zone.

He's getting more swinging strikes (similarly, when players swing, they're less likely to make contact).

He's getting more first pitch strikes.

Batters are swinging more often, particularly at pitches in the zone (outside the zone, it's roughly the same).

Batters swing and miss at balls significantly more often.

Batters MAY be making more contact with balls in the zone, or maybe it's roughly the same amount. There's some disagreement on this point.

All pitchers should be so bad.

Dafatone: Really, the conclusion is that it's pretty hard to prove that this is or is not luck.

This is, more than anything else, the most frustrating thing about sabermetrics. Luck is EVERYWHERE in the game. But we were all raised to think that there was only a little luck involved, and it all evens out, and blah blah blah. Tough to reconcile those things.

Dafatone: I can understand being frustrated with a 228 average and 12 homers after last season.

Hey! NO STATS.

Actually a more telling statistic is that hitters are missing balls out of the zone about 14% (o-contact went from 58.3% to 50.0%) more often. This is probably because of a deterioration in his slider. Contact out of the zone results in more outs. This explains a lot of why his BABIP is up and his K/9 is also up.

\Less than five minutes on fangraphs is all you need to figure out why he's gone from great to average.

scandalrag: Actually a more telling statistic is that hitters are missing balls out of the zone about 14% (o-contact went from 58.3% to 50.0%) more often. This is probably because of a deterioration in his slider. Contact out of the zone results in more outs. This explains a lot of why his BABIP is up and his K/9 is also up.

\Less than five minutes on fangraphs is all you need to figure out why he's gone from great to average.

Man, I'd love to see your research, because that theory is amazing. Also, it appears to be incredibly wrong.

Here's the average BABIP of the 10 starters with the HIGHEST O-contacts this season:

.2989

Here's the average BABIP of the 10 starters with the LOWEST O-contacts this season:

.2954

(Also, a quick 5 minute perusal of both lists suggests that the pitchers with low o-contacts are overwhelmingly better pitchers than those with high ones).

But, hey, I'm glad you were able to solve a complex question with a theory you pulled out of no where.

DeWayne Mann: Man, I'd love to see your research, because that theory is amazing. Also, it appears to be incredibly wrong.

I have found a small piece of research that suggests your theory is wrong for batters, and that O-contact has no noticeable effect on BABIP. Haven't found one for pitchers, but I find it very, very unlikely it would be true for pitchers and NOT hitters.

But, again, if you've got data backing you up, I'd love to read it.

So now I'm curious. Looking for pitchers with a decent amount of strikeouts but a much higher BABIP than the previous year.

2010 James Shields had a much higher BABIP than 2009 Shields. He also had a higher O-contact.

Same year, same story with Brandon Morrow.

I like 2011 Dempster, who had a much higher BABIP and an O-contact 10 points higher.

No, no, wait. 2010 Gallardo, 11 points higher.

At this point, I'm becoming convinced your theory is not only wrong, but actually the exact opposite of real life. So I'm dumb until you produce some research. Because what I'm finding...well....

DeWayne Mann: So I'm dumb

Haha, I really am dumb.

I'm also DONE.

DeWayne Mann: DeWayne Mann: So I'm dumb

Haha, I really am dumb.

I'm also DONE.

This is the first of you're statements I don't disagree with. You have no idea about statistical theory, using outliers to try to predict average behavior. You don't notice that your examples all had higher z-contact and o-swing percentages to go along with the changes in o-contact, unlike Lincecum which makes them poor comparables. And mostly, you're an idiot because you missed the big article on why Tim Lincecum is in large part responsible for the rise in BABIP, because his slider command is off and it's getting hit both in and out of the zone by Dave Cameron. Link

scandalrag: This is the first of you're statements I don't disagree with. You have no idea about statistical theory, using outliers to try to predict average behavior. You don't notice that your examples all had higher z-contact and o-swing percentages to go along with the changes in o-contact, unlike Lincecum which makes them poor comparables. And mostly, you're an idiot because you missed the big article on why Tim Lincecum is in large part responsible for the rise in BABIP, because his slider command is off and it's getting hit both in and out of the zone by Dave Cameron. Link

Oh, I see. Now your 5 minutes on fangraphs has turned into a much longer amount of time, because you have to control for movement in every other piece of plate discipline.

And the sample size of your study is, what...2? Seriously, how many guys have the exact same changes as Lincecum?

Furthermore, I read the Dave Cameron article the day it came up. But I'm not sure if you've read it, since it's barely talking about BABIP. He's mainly talking about HR/FB (which is important, as DC tends to be more of an xFIP supporter).

More importantly, read the comment from AF. It starts "This article is logically flawed." He points out where Cameron's analysis falls short, better than I could.

Again, give me your data. Shouldn't be hard, right?

scandalrag: Actually a more telling statistic is that hitters are missing balls out of the zone about 14% (o-contact went from 58.3% to 50.0%) more often. This is probably because of a deterioration in his slider. Contact out of the zone results in more outs. This explains a lot of why his BABIP is up and his K/9 is also up.

\Less than five minutes on fangraphs is all you need to figure out why he's gone from great to average.

Let's assume for a minute this is all true.

Losing your slider somewhat is a problem. The next question would be, what is causing that problem. It could be mechanical. It could be mental. He could be breaking down or getting older. It could be something that can be corrected by a pitching coach, or rest. Or not resting. Or surgery. Or nothing.

Or, the issue is in pitch selection and approach. Or he pitches worse from the stretch.

There are lots of causes. It's not like the conversation ends at "his slider is worse."

Ok, I've looked around a bit more. Explain 2009 Javier Vazquez to me.

O-swing went up 1.2 points from 2008. Z-contact went down 1.9 points. O-contact went down 7.4.

BABIP was down .033.

How about Brandon Webb 2008? O-swing went down 2 points from 2007, Z-contact went down 1.1 points, O-contact went down 3.3. BABIP rose...by .003.

Well, I'm convinced. Those .003 points of BABIP are surely significant, right?

Now, Pitch F/X only goes back to 2007, so we have to switch to the other system on fangraphs to go further. How about Bedard, 2007?

O-swing went down .5 points from 2006 (again, in the other system). Z-contact went down 3.3 points. O-contact went down 5.8 points.

BABIP was down 0.26.

Do I need to continue? I can. Burnett 2007 is next up.

Are there a few guys with O-contact drops & BABIP spikes? Yeah. But for a theory that only required you to look at fangraphs for 5 minutes, I'm seeing a lot of holes.

Though I'm sure you'll have no problem moving the goalposts again.

Dafatone: scandalrag: Actually a more telling statistic is that hitters are missing balls out of the zone about 14% (o-contact went from 58.3% to 50.0%) more often. This is probably because of a deterioration in his slider. Contact out of the zone results in more outs. This explains a lot of why his BABIP is up and his K/9 is also up.

\Less than five minutes on fangraphs is all you need to figure out why he's gone from great to average.

Let's assume for a minute this is all true.

Losing your slider somewhat is a problem. The next question would be, what is causing that problem. It could be mechanical. It could be mental. He could be breaking down or getting older. It could be something that can be corrected by a pitching coach, or rest. Or not resting. Or surgery. Or nothing.

Or, the issue is in pitch selection and approach. Or he pitches worse from the stretch.

There are lots of causes. It's not like the conversation ends at "his slider is worse."

Well, it's not the catching. While he's been completely awful with Sanchez, he's still 6th in the rotation spot starter/long mopup material with Posey.

Then again, his best years were with Bengie Molina, and that's not a coincidence.

Highly interesting read, but I fear if respond I point-by-point, I'll just create a(nother?) wall-o-text no one cares about.

Exec Summary: Thanks to all for the interesting work, particularly DeWayne Mann for taking the time to respond, with facts and backup, to my idiot ramblings.

DeWayne Mann: IF Sanchez can make Zito pitch better, ok. But I doubt that

This one I give a lot of legitimacy to, though, as I keep coming back to "Zito likes him. Zito asked for him. Zito is doing things that make me *stop* thinking things like, 'oh, man, Zito again?'." I think there's a whooooole lot to the mental side of things / subtle factors that we may not capture with statistics and technical observation.

I would bet even just *thinking*, "you know, I pitch better with Sanchez behind the plate" causally leads to better pitching.

DeWayne Mann: Just blame Aubrey Huff. Don't even remember if he played in that game, but it's usually his fault.

Heh. LOL. I feel bad for the guy, and am proud of him for acknowledging publicly his anxiety / depression / head-case issues -- that must have taken a lot of courage -- but "I'm getting old, and young cubs are coming to eat me" isn't unusual in sports. Or anything else, for that matter.

Dafatone: Losing your slider somewhat is a problem. The next question would be, what is causing that problem. It could be mechanical. It could be mental. He could be breaking down or getting older. It could be something that can be corrected by a pitching coach, or rest. Or not resting. Or surgery. Or nothing.

Or, the issue is in pitch selection and approach. Or he pitches worse from the stretch.

There are lots of causes. It's not like the conversation ends at "his slider is worse."

That is *exactly* what I find fascinating about the situation. There's -so- much going on, and we have zero visibility into it. I wouldn't even know where to begin, but I'd sure like to be able to observe the meetings, eavesdrop on the conversations, etc.

Interestingly, regarding one of your specific points, they had him pitch entire games from the stretch earlier in the season because they thought it helped. Now we're hearing, "he has trouble in the stretch." I fear they're treading close to the "farking with it too much, creating more problems than they solve" problem.

Fascinating. All of it.

bhcompy: Then again, his best years were with Bengie Molina, and that's not a coincidence.

Or, you know, that could be exactly a coincidence, what with Molina's time _coinciding_ with Lincecum's peak of youthful physical ability. Time is a cruel biatch, and often an overlooked covariate in casual analysis.

Which is *not* a slight on Molina. He deserves his great reputation... and his Giants World Series ring (that the Rangers couldn't get him snarksnarksnark)!

SFSailor: This one I give a lot of legitimacy to, though, as I keep coming back to "Zito likes him. Zito asked for him. Zito is doing things that make me *stop* thinking things like, 'oh, man, Zito again?'." I think there's a whooooole lot to the mental side of things / subtle factors that we may not capture with statistics and technical observation.

I would bet even just *thinking*, "you know, I pitch better with Sanchez behind the plate" causally leads to better pitching.

Well, there have been a lot of research looking into how pitchers perform with different catchers. Essentially, the following has been found:

Some catchers can frame pitches better, turning balls into strikes (this is, for instance, most likely why the Rays signed Jose Molina).

Catchers with better arms can control the running game better. In addition to the obvious benefit (throwing guys out), they may keep them from taking large leads, meaning, for instance, a runner on second may not score on a single.

But that's about it. And both of those things should generally work for all pitchers. There's no evidence that a catcher will do anything that will help one pitcher but not another.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that some catchers don't work better with pitchers; there's just no evidence. There's a tendency in the sabermetric community to take "there's no evidence for X, therefore X doesn't exist." It's something I've even been guilty of, but it's not the right way to look at it.

The better way to look at it is this: there may be a catcher effect...but it's drowned out by every other factor imaginable, like every other 'intangible.' So maybe Sanchez makes Zito better (I don't really think he does, but that's a different issue), but his bat definitely makes the offense worse. If I'm running a team, I'm probably going to take the known benefit (the offense) over the unknown one.

As for if Sanchez makes him better...there's more evidence that he makes him worse, though, again, I don't really think either one is a major issue. Zito has his second worst FIP (after last year), his worst xFIP, and his worst SIERA. Shoot, even if you hate all of those stats, it's his 4th worst ERA-. Zito has generally had lower BABIPs & HR/FBs than we'd expect (career .267 & 8.7%, respectively), so I'm not even sure we could try and award his .257 BABIP this year to Sanchez...and his HR/FB is actually higher than his career, so that's certainly not something Sanchez has helped. I'm just not seeing it.

SFSailor: Heh. LOL. I feel bad for the guy, and am proud of him for acknowledging publicly his anxiety / depression / head-case issues -- that must have taken a lot of courage -- but "I'm getting old, and young cubs are coming to eat me" isn't unusual in sports. Or anything else, for that matter.

Oh, I agree on the anxiety stuff. I suffer from anxiety myself, so I know how it feels.

But dude shouldn't be on the team, and the fact that he spent most of the early part of the year blocking Belt is just embarrassing.

SFSailor: I fear they're treading close to the "farking with it too much, creating more problems than they solve" problem.

Again, that's what I'd fear the most if I'm a Giants fan. Let's compare Lincecum to a couple of other guys having terrible seasons: Daniel Bard and Ricky Romero.

In general, pitchers can control three things: strikeouts, walks, home runs. Daniel Bard has not a lot of the first and a lot of the second. That's an obvious thing to fix. It's not obvious HOW to fix it, but you know you need him to stop walking everyone. So they've sent him down to AAA, and that's what they're working on. Will they fix it? I dunno. But we have a general idea of what "fixed" will look like.

Romero is a slightly trickier case. His strikeouts are down and the walks are up, but not nearly to the extent that Bard is. But his HRs have gone insane. Now, we don't know a ton about how Home Runs work. But they can certainly try and look for patterns in the HRs he has allowed (sort of like what Dave Cameron did in the above linked article). And there's almost certainly some bad luck there, too. But there's an obvious problem, and, again, we have a general idea of what "fixed" will look like.

While Lincecum's walks & HRs aren't "TIM LINCECUM", they're still good enough that he should be average. And so a "fixed" Tim Lincecum looks...well, kinda like he does now, but with a few less walks & HRs. Which is true of everyone.

On the big issues with baseball is when people confuse results and process, or, rather, assuming that the value of a process lies in what the result is. You see this all the time: "Oh, Billy Beane is a bad GM because the team came in last this year." "Oh, Ron Washington is a great manager because when he bunted, it led to a run!" Lincecum's process is, as far as any of us can tell, ok. Not great, but not terrible either. His results ARE terrible. It's worth keeping the two separate.

SFSailor: Or, you know, that could be exactly a coincidence, what with Molina's time _coinciding_ with Lincecum's peak of youthful physical ability. Time is a cruel biatch, and often an overlooked covariate in casual analysis.

Which is *not* a slight on Molina. He deserves his great reputation... and his Giants World Series ring (that the Rangers couldn't get him snarksnarksnark)!

Note that, again, Lincecum was also really good with Chris Stewart, who has since become Sabathia's personal catcher. And Sabathia, while still really good, does not appear to have been helped by Stewart (keeping in mind what I said earlier). So, yeah, it's much more likely that Lincecum would've been roughly as good even with Pablo catching him.

DeWayne Mann: In general, pitchers can control three things: strikeouts, walks, home runs. Daniel Bard has not a lot of the first and a lot of the second. That's an obvious thing to fix. It's not obvious HOW to fix it, but you know you need him to stop walking everyone. So they've sent him down to AAA, and that's what they're working on. Will they fix it? I dunno. But we have a general idea of what "fixed" will look like.

Romero is a slightly trickier case. His strikeouts are down and the walks are up, but not nearly to the extent that Bard is. But his HRs have gone insane. Now, we don't know a ton about how Home Runs work. But they can certainly try and look for patterns in the HRs he has allowed (sort of like what Dave Cameron did in the above linked article). And there's almost certainly some bad luck there, too. But there's an obvious problem, and, again, we have a general idea of what "fixed" will look like.

Here's a good question for this nearly dead thread.

Who's to say pitchers can control home runs? If they (to some degree) can't control hits because where the ball winds up has a large luck component, as does fielding, why not home runs? Obviously there's no fielding component, but the same principle of semi-random placement applies. If a liner to the gap for a double is the same as a liner up the middle for a single or a liner to an OF for an out, what's the difference between a fly ball that goes to the track and a fly ball that goes 10 feet over?

Most home runs don't clear the fence by all that much, anyway.

Dafatone: Here's a good question for this nearly dead thread.

Who's to say pitchers can control home runs? If they (to some degree) can't control hits because where the ball winds up has a large luck component, as does fielding, why not home runs? Obviously there's no fielding component, but the same principle of semi-random placement applies. If a liner to the gap for a double is the same as a liner up the middle for a single or a liner to an OF for an out, what's the difference between a fly ball that goes to the track and a fly ball that goes 10 feet over?

Most home runs don't clear the fence by all that much, anyway.

Well, that's essentially the open question about pitching. xFIP essentially says that every time they allow a fly ball, there's a 12% chance it's a home run, end of story. FIP essentially says "hey, it's a home run? PITCHER'S FAULT."

Obviously, neither is true, partially from your examples. So the question is where the truth lies in the middle. I tend to lean more towards the FIP viewpoint, though.

The easiest way I can see to figure it out would be to look at the HR/FB rate of NON major league pitchers IN the major leagues: position players, guys brought in from the low minors for a spot start, etc. We know, for instance, that when hitters pitch, they typically have a BABIP of, shockingly, .295 or so, which is somewhat more evidence of why BABIP doesn't really depend on the pitcher. We also know they have very high HR/9...but we don't know their HR/FB rate, because we don't have enough batted ball data.

If their HR/FB rate is around 12, then xFIP is "more" correct. If, as I expect, it's up in the 15-20 range (or higher), then FIP would seem to rule the day.

But we really don't know.

I guess the effect of the catcher really depends on if the manager calls the game from the dugout. Mike Scioscia calls the pitches in Anaheim(or at least dictates and controls the way the game is called), which is what boggles my mind when they went with Jeff Mathis over Napoli given Mathis' complete lack of offense because of Mathis' supposed game calling qualities and defense. Does Bochy call the game in SF or does the catcher have the freedom to do that?

bhcompy: which is what boggles my mind when they went with Jeff Mathis over Napoli given Mathis' complete lack of offense because of Mathis' supposed game calling qualities and defense.

Amusingly, what data we DO have on catcher defense suggests Napoli might have been better than Mathis there, too.

DeWayne Mann: The easiest way I can see to figure it out would be to look at the HR/FB rate of NON major league pitchers IN the major leagues: position players, guys brought in from the low minors for a spot start, etc. We know, for instance, that when hitters pitch, they typically have a BABIP of, shockingly, .295 or so, which is somewhat more evidence of why BABIP doesn't really depend on the pitcher. We also know they have very high HR/9...but we don't know their HR/FB rate, because we don't have enough batted ball data.

Todd Zeile came into a game at the end of his career and threw a knuckleball.

Take that, SABRmetrics.

Dafatone: DeWayne Mann: The easiest way I can see to figure it out would be to look at the HR/FB rate of NON major league pitchers IN the major leagues: position players, guys brought in from the low minors for a spot start, etc. We know, for instance, that when hitters pitch, they typically have a BABIP of, shockingly, .295 or so, which is somewhat more evidence of why BABIP doesn't really depend on the pitcher. We also know they have very high HR/9...but we don't know their HR/FB rate, because we don't have enough batted ball data.

Todd Zeile came into a game at the end of his career and threw a knuckleball.

Take that, SABRmetrics.

Dang it, you just ruined decades of research.

DeWayne Mann: Ok, I've looked around a bit more. Explain 2009 Javier Vazquez to me.

O-swing went up 1.2 points from 2008. Z-contact went down 1.9 points. O-contact went down 7.4.

BABIP was down .033.

How about Brandon Webb 2008? O-swing went down 2 points from 2007, Z-contact went down 1.1 points, O-contact went down 3.3. BABIP rose...by .003.

Well, I'm convinced. Those .003 points of BABIP are surely significant, right?

Now, Pitch F/X only goes back to 2007, so we have to switch to the other system on fangraphs to go further. How about Bedard, 2007?

O-swing went down .5 points from 2006 (again, in the other system). Z-contact went down 3.3 points. O-contact went down 5.8 points.

BABIP was down 0.26.

Do I need to continue? I can. Burnett 2007 is next up.

Are there a few guys with O-contact drops & BABIP spikes? Yeah. But for a theory that only required you to look at fangraphs for 5 minutes, I'm seeing a lot of holes.

Though I'm sure you'll have no problem moving the goalposts again.

The article where he points to his slider staying in the zone resulting in better contact and less contact on his slider outside the zone was all I was meaning to point out. Are you telling me that the ratio of o-contact to z-contact has no effect on how hard the balls are hit and the resulting rise in BABIP? Mike Fast has proven that the velocity of the ball coming off the bat is probably the best factor to determine BABIP for both pitchers and batters. Could I have stated that better and used more data? Yes, i could have. Could you be a more condescending asshole? No.

Now I'd like to point you to a better article on Baseball Prospectus as to why you are wrong about your approach and should probably eat that extra bowl of dicks you've been saving for a special occasion. Link

scandalrag: The article where he points to his slider staying in the zone resulting in better contact and less contact on his slider outside the zone was all I was meaning to point out. Are you telling me that the ratio of o-contact to z-contact has no effect on how hard the balls are hit and the resulting rise in BABIP? Mike Fast has proven that the velocity of the ball coming off the bat is probably the best factor to determine BABIP for both pitchers and batters. Could I have stated that better and used more data? Yes, i could have. Could you be a more condescending asshole? No.

Now I'd like to point you to a better article on Baseball Prospectus as to why you are wrong about your approach and should probably eat that extra bowl of dicks you've been saving for a special occasion. Link

First: Wow, still no data/research. Shocking.

Second: No, what Mike Fast found was the following:

Horizontal ball velocity plays a moderate role in BABIP. I want to say it was something like 40%? Apparently we no longer need to provide data for our claims, so I won't bother going back to check. In any case, it is not the "best" factor to determine BABIP.

Batters play a much, much bigger role in horizontal ball velocity than pitchers do. This makes sense: we know that batters control BABIP better than pitchers.

Vertical angle off the bat plays a smaller role in BABIP than horizontal ball velocity.

Batters play a larger role in vertical angle off the bat than pitchers do, though the gap is not as big as with horizontal ball velocity. This is why we have groundball & fly ball pitchers. There may even be "line drive" pitchers, but the likelihood of them making the majors is quite low.

The two together (h-velocity and v-angle) combined are the "best" non-luck based factor in determining whether or not a given batted ball will turn into a hit. From a pitcher's standpoint, the best he can hope for is to control the vertical angle, which is a fact we knew 10 years ago (flyballers tend to have lower BABIPs than groundballers). The second best thing he can do is to be a strikeout pitcher in general: they tend to have lower horizontal velocities than other pitchers (though I do remember Lincecum being a slight outlier in his study.)

Finally, WITH ALL OF THAT IN MIND, Fast found that, again, pitchers should stay in a fairly tight range for their BABIPs. He expanded it slightly: the original assumption was that most pitchers will have a "true" BABIP of .280 to .300. Fast expanded that range slightly, to, if I recall correctly, .275 to .310 or so. Again, this shows that Lincecum's high BABIP is, to a large degree, based on bad luck, EVEN IF HIS PITCHES ARE GETTING HIT HARDER.

Third: Moving along, you have, yet again, managed to completely misunderstand an article. CONGRATS! PizzaCutter's main point was two fold. I'll even quote the two most important parts so you can read them (possibly for the first time):

there are things that are generally publicly held as sabermetric doctrine-in some cases, crucial underlying assumptions-that are demonstrably false. Statistical models are wonderful things, but they are only as good as the data that power them and the understanding of the programmer who defines them.
...
ultimately, a simple model assumes a simple reality, and baseball, as I found, is not a simple game.

Neither of those should be particularly shocking. Obviously, assumptions should be tested; that's how we ended up with DIPS in the first place. Obviously, simple models don't do a fantastic job of explaining a game played by a bunch of complex people.

It seems rather plain that that article points out why you're in the wrong. You've made an assumption that Lincecum's O-contact is the problem, yet have completely failed to supply any data backing that assumption up. Again, if you're so sure you're right, it should be pretty easy to prove, right? 5 minutes on fangraphs, and all?

DeWayne Mann: By the way, while looking at something else entirely, I came across this:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17535

The "answers" should be posted later today.

The answers were posted:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17605

Oh, forgot something earlier:

scandalrag: Are you telling me that the ratio of o-contact to z-contact has no effect on how hard the balls are hit and the resulting rise in BABIP?

I'm telling you that I DON'T KNOW, but I don't see anything that backs it up.

Why, again, is why some fricken data would be nice.

Because I'm bored waiting for the ASG and this is really amusing to me:

Let's look at the ratio of o-contact to z-contact. Presumably, you're saying that the higher Z/O is, the higher the BABIP should be (that actually contradicts something you said earlier, but then again all you do is contradict yourself). So, again, using the BIS system (because it goes back further than pitch f/x), here are some pitchers, their Z/O ratios in a particular year, and their BABIPs for said year:

Matt Clement 2002, 3.10 Z/O, .270 BABIP
Randy Johnson 2002, 2.90, .289 BABIP
Kerry Wood, 2003, 2.69, .269
... couple of hundred pitcher seasons later...
Cole Hamels 2007, 1.56, .279
Edison Volquez, 2012, 1.53, .269
Tim Lincecum, 2012, 1.52, .333
Cole Hamels 2010, 1.52, .289
...couple of hundred pitcher seasons later...
Doug Fister, 2010, 1.12, .302
Mike Pelfrey, 2011, 1.11, .301
Kevin Correa, 2012, 1.07, .252

Did I check everyone? Obviously, no. But I see two guys that "like" your ratio theory (Lincecum & Correa), and everyone is just kinda staring at you like grew a second head.

I'll give you some time to move the goal posts again.