The Myth of Offense
For the last few games, the Dibster and his dim-witted sidekick, Carp, have been praising the team's offense. They're talking about how this team never gives up, even when down by 10. Nevermind the fact that they didn't end up particularly close in either game.
At some point tonight, Carp praised the number of hits this team has had in the last two games. I'm still amazed at Carp's utter inability -- despite a lifetime within the game -- to understand why that's flawed. Hits != Runs. It's really not hard. Teams have won games with zero hits. Teams have lost games with twenty hits. But I'm pretty damn sure (caution: have not consulted restrosheet.org) that no team in major league baseball history has lost a game where they've had more runs than their opponent.
Here's the thing. The team isn't THAT good offensively. It's 6th or 7th in runs, depending on the ultimate outcome of today's game. That's better than being last, but c'mon. This isn't a juggernaut.
The problem is that while they've had a lot of hits these last two games, a lot of 'em have been singles. This isn't a team with a ton of power. And the power they do have coughdunncough hasn't been very powerful. One of the team's leaders in slugging (Pudge) has hit a few doubles, but mostly a bunch of singles.
And outside of Dunn and Willingham, this isn't a team that's walking a hell of a lot. They may be seeing a lot of pitches, but it's not resulting in anything. They're not walking, and they're not hitting for much power.
So we've got a low-walk, singles-hitting team. We're Ichiro's spastic cousin.
That's not a last-place offense. But to hear Carpenter tell it, we're close to the Babe than that.
Here's what you need to know: the team's biggest output is 8 runs. EIGHT runs. Is that the mark of an elite offense?
Case in point: Johnny and Ray just talked about the impressive multi-hit innings and the twelve (or whatever) hits they had tonight. Total runs scored: 4.
Carpenter: "This is an offense hitting on all cylinders. Over the last few games we're averaging 12-14 hits."
That's 8-7-5-4 runs. Seriously, Bob. Are you watching the games?
This one too.
At some point tonight, Carp praised the number of hits this team has had in the last two games. I'm still amazed at Carp's utter inability -- despite a lifetime within the game -- to understand why that's flawed. Hits != Runs. It's really not hard. Teams have won games with zero hits. Teams have lost games with twenty hits. But I'm pretty damn sure (caution: have not consulted restrosheet.org) that no team in major league baseball history has lost a game where they've had more runs than their opponent.
Here's the thing. The team isn't THAT good offensively. It's 6th or 7th in runs, depending on the ultimate outcome of today's game. That's better than being last, but c'mon. This isn't a juggernaut.
The problem is that while they've had a lot of hits these last two games, a lot of 'em have been singles. This isn't a team with a ton of power. And the power they do have coughdunncough hasn't been very powerful. One of the team's leaders in slugging (Pudge) has hit a few doubles, but mostly a bunch of singles.
And outside of Dunn and Willingham, this isn't a team that's walking a hell of a lot. They may be seeing a lot of pitches, but it's not resulting in anything. They're not walking, and they're not hitting for much power.
So we've got a low-walk, singles-hitting team. We're Ichiro's spastic cousin.
That's not a last-place offense. But to hear Carpenter tell it, we're close to the Babe than that.
Here's what you need to know: the team's biggest output is 8 runs. EIGHT runs. Is that the mark of an elite offense?
That's 8-7-5-4 runs. Seriously, Bob. Are you watching the games?
posted by Chris Needham at
10:35 PM
28 Comments:
This reminded me a bit of an article Posnanski wrote this spring about the winning percentage of teams that do various things, like get more hits than their opponents. It's worth a read for anyone who hasn't seen it.
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/03/15/johnny-damon-detroit/
By
cass, at 4/20/2010 10:49 PM
Sept 30, 1971.
Senators score 7, Yankees score 5.
Yankees win on forfit.
Kind of a memorable night in Washington baseball history Chris.
Stuart
By
Anonymous, at 4/20/2010 10:59 PM
Let's face it, the MASN announcers are employees of the team and a big part of their job is to encourage people who watch them to come out to the park and spend money. They aren't journalists and they aren't baseball analysts. All of them look for any silver lining in the darkest cloud and play that up because to say that the team sucks would not be a good way to do their duty, even in the middle of a 10-4 loss. I only hope that Ben G. resists the forces that have turned the broadcast bunch into a running joke. So far it seems like he has.
The thing is, I think that most people who tune in to the broadcasts are smarter than Carp and Dibble think they are. It's mostly the diehards who watch, and we're turned off by their act. I wonder if MASN cares what we think.
By
Section 222, at 4/20/2010 11:13 PM
Stuart -- Nice try!
Final score: 9-0.
By
Chris Needham, at 4/20/2010 11:18 PM
Lipstick on a pig there Needham.
By
MikeinDC, at 4/21/2010 12:11 AM
Carpenter: "This is an offense hitting on all cylinders. Over the last few games we're averaging 12-14 hits."
That's 8-7-5-4 runs. Seriously, Bob. Are you watching the games?
He said hitting there, bozo, not scoring. Averaging 12-14 hits over the course of several games is a hell of a lot better than averaging 3-4 hits. In fact, it's pretty good. That's all Carpenter is saying.
Seriously, dude, do you ever even engage any of your admittedly limited supply of brain cells before you start spewing your knee-jerk hatred? Learn to listen, listen to learn. It's really not all that hard.
By
Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 8:43 AM
The Nationals converted 12 hits into 4 runs. That's not hitting on all cylinders. But it is the same kind of stupid dumbass crap that leads idiots like Carpenter to declare that a team's ranking in league batting average is the team's ranking in "offense."
By
Not as Dumb as Previous Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 8:57 AM
Hitting/BA is a measure of offense, as is scoring. So for a baseball announcer to use hitting rather than scoring as a parameter to rate a team's offense relative to other teams is basically equivalent to a football announcer using total yardage rather than points scored to compare offenses. Nothing wrong with that, indeed it may be better that way because hits are truly a measure of offense alone, while runs scored can include defensive lapses on the other team's part in addition to offense.
You guys have preconceived negative notions about Carpenter/Dibble and are blatantly bending over backwards to twist whatever words they say to fit your preconceived notions. It's not surprising that you are the ones who come off looking dumb in that exchange, not Carpenter and Dibble.
By
Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 9:42 AM
Yes, there is something wrong with that. And the football announcers who use raw yards (or per g) are just as wrong as Carp is.
Sure. Hits are a part of offense. But they're just a small part. To focus on small successes there well ignoring everything else that goes into a successful offense, especially while said offense is NOT lighting up the scoreboard means that Carp either is just spinning (ie he's a hack) or that he has no idea how runs actually are scored.
Also, one note: you say that runs are biased because of defense. But then you imply that hits ate pure? Really? Never seen a hometown scorer? Or a grounder past Vidro or Guzzie that was a hit?
By
Chris Needham, at 4/21/2010 10:04 AM
He's spinning and he's a hack. I don't know if the anonymous poster who claims that when Carp says the offense is hitting on all cylinders he is simply stating a fact because they are actually getting a lot of hits is a hack, but he's definitely spinning too.
By
Section 222, at 4/21/2010 10:12 AM
Also, one note: you say that runs are biased because of defense. But then you imply that hits ate pure? Really? Never seen a hometown scorer? Or a grounder past Vidro or Guzzie that was a hit?
Hits are a measure of offense, as are runs scored. Neither one is perfectly isolatable to offense, though, so neither one can lay claim to being the measure of an offense. And Carpenter in the quotes you cite is never saying that the team's hitting well is the perfect measure of their offensive prowess, he's just saying that when measured by their hitting stats their offense looks pretty good. Which it does. Really, could you just back off from your irrational hatred of Carpenter long enough to take his statements at face value and consider them logically? Otherwise, why don't you just rename your blog Fire Bob Carpenter?
By
Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 10:20 AM
I don't think it's fair to call my criticism of Carp as irrational. For one, as this post does, I lay out reasons why I don't like him. For two, there are plenty of other people who have the same issue.
As far as whether runs or hits are a better measure for offense, oy.
By
Chris Needham, at 4/21/2010 10:25 AM
There is something to be said for the consistency of the offense though. They've only scored less than 4 runs twice. So they've given their pitching staff a fair chance at winning like 90% of these games (ok - A RANDOM pitching staff).
For the announcers... well they have to credit something for the better record and they aren't about to just say it's luck. It's clearly not the pitching so all the praise has to be heaped on the competant offense. I guess if you're really not happy you can send them an email saying that they should be praising the maanagement of Riggleman or the veteraness of Pudge more. Get them going on a different played-out theme.
By
Harper, at 4/21/2010 10:41 AM
That's a fair point. But that's a far different point than the one they've harped on the last few games.
By
Chris Needham, at 4/21/2010 10:44 AM
I don't think it's fair to call my criticism of Carp as irrational.
Of course it's irrational. You cherry-pick a couple of sentences out of a 3-1/2 hour broadcast and claim that they represent Carpenter "harping" on some theme. You imply that he's saying that they're some offensive juggernaut and then use the fact that they're sixth or maybe seventh in runs scored to counter that they totally suck offensively. Um, last time I looked 6th or 7th is top half of the league, verging on top third. That doesn't suck. In fact, it indicates that offense may not be the thing keeping your record at .500.
Look, Carpenter's not perfect by any means. He's hokey and he's probably too much of a homer at times. But he's nowhere near the idiot you make him out to be.
By
Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 11:04 AM
While I may have cited a few sentences, anyone who watched these two games should've seen how much they've praised the offense and its success. I may have picked one or two sentenes to illustrate it, but those are consistent with the views he and the MASN team have used. Using those sentenes IS fair and IS consistent with the overall themes he's brought up.
And don't misrepresent what I'm saying. I'm not saying that this is a terrible offensive team. Don't distort what I say. This is a good, not great, offense. But to hear the spin on the broadcast, we're among the best. That's not true.
By
Chris Needham, at 4/21/2010 11:08 AM
Odd, I've watched all the broadcasts - except for the three times I've actually been at the game - and I don't detect any overall theme from the broadcasters that this team is some sort of outstanding offensive machine. Maybe that's because I don't sit down in front of the TV with my mind already made up, like you and your ilk do. The team is doing pretty well offensively this year (4 or more runs in 12 of the 14 games so far) and they have mentioned that, but not excessively. They've surely spent much more time talking about the lousy pitching. They've also called out players who are not hitting well, e.g. Dunn.
The only one who's spinning anything here is you, with your constant Carpenter/Dibble hate.
By
Anonymous, at 4/21/2010 11:39 AM
1. The post is grounded in much more than a scintilla of fact and logic. Pretty good, as rants go.
2. Carpenter is impressed by high hit totals, whether individually (usually with respect to Guzman) or team-wide. Doesn't make him History's Greatest Monster, this tendency does sometimes conspire with his tendency to blabber without employing the old logic filter.
3. Oh well, it happens. But that's what blogs are for.
4. Well, that and pictures of kittens.
By
Basil, at 4/21/2010 11:42 AM
If the blogger's point was to argue that the team's high hit totals provide a misleading picture of how well they're doing offensively, that point could have been exhaustively argued without ever mentioning the announcers. Which says to me that that was not the blogger's point here.
By
TBC, at 4/21/2010 12:38 PM
From Joe Posnanski's blog:
"Washington lost 24 times in 2009 when the Nationals had more men on base. I cannot tell if this is hopeful sign or a discouraging sign. There are a lot of things I can’t tell about the Nationals. I can also tell you that the Nationals lost a game to Atlanta when they got 23 men on base, a very difficult thing to do. What’s even more amazing … they lost the game 6-5. To score five runs with 23 men on base is a pretty tough trick — teams will, on average, score a run for every three or four runners they get on."
By
traderkirk, at 4/21/2010 3:00 PM
Please feel free to hate on Carpenter and especially Dibble, but at least on this topic, they're right.
The problem is that while they've had a lot of hits these last two games, a lot of 'em have been singles. This isn't a team with a ton of power. And the power they do have coughdunncough hasn't been very powerful. One of the team's leaders in slugging (Pudge) has hit a few doubles, but mostly a bunch of singles.
That's not true. They've had 125 hits this season, 39.2% of which have been extra base hits. Comparatively, only 33.6% of all hits were for extra bases in the NL last season. They're 6th in the NL in slugging (10th overall), and third in OPS. Put it all together, and you have a pretty fantastic offense.
And outside of Dunn and Willingham, this isn't a team that's walking a hell of a lot. They may be seeing a lot of pitches, but it's not resulting in anything. They're not walking, and they're not hitting for much power.
This also isn't true. Zimmerman might not be taking walks but that's where your point ends. Even taking Dunn and Willingham out of the picture, which doesn't make much sense because they are almost a quarter of the team, you have four more starters whose BB% is above 10% (Harris, Morgan, Desmond and Kennedy). All in all, we have the 3rd highest OBP in the NL.
So we've got a low-walk, singles-hitting team. We're Ichiro's spastic cousin.
And this is a bad thing in what way?! A team of 9 Ichiro's would be the best team in the league. Only three teams in the past four years have posted a team wOBA better than Ichiro's career .356 (and they were the '06, '07 and '09 Yankees).
Did you even bother looking at the numbers or had you already made up your mind when you wrote this post?
What happened to the thoughtful analysis you put into your posts in the past? I came here for reasoned criticism, and all you spout out anymore in whiny posts about how the Nats suck. And now you've gotten to the point where your points aren't even valid. If you're going down that route, please omit the "sometimes-analytical" from the blog's description.
By
Will, at 4/21/2010 3:23 PM
Will, fair points.
On the first one, I stand by that this isn't a team with a lot of power. That was a general point, more than anything, even if this team has slugged a little bit. You're right. It's not quite a singles-hitting team, but there are really only three power threats on the team: Dunn, Wham and Zim.
And, again, I'm not saying this is a bad offensive team. I'm just saying that this isn't a juggernaut, which is the impression you'd get from listening to the team's announcers.
Harper's point is likely right. It's not, perhaps, that they think that the offense is amazing, but that with as shitty as so many other things have been, it's about all they can praise right now.
By
Chris Needham, at 4/21/2010 3:50 PM
Chris, you're right and these anonymous posters defending Carp and Crap are wrong. This is a singles-hitting team (Goozie, Dunn, et al). Willingham and Zimm are the exceptions. Pudge has had a few doubles, but his power days are long gone. Desmond and Maxy show potential every now and then, but mostly it's K's and singles. But the biggest flaw is lack of hitting in the clutch. I haven't seen the RISP with two out stats, but I'd venture to say we're doing about .210 in that department. Until Dunn starts hitting -- and this slump now encompasses two months, if you count September of '09 -- it's a lineup lacking in longball except for two guys, Zimm and Willingham.
But, thank god, it's also a lineup lack in Austin Kearns.
By
Sunshine_Bobby_Carpenter_Is_Too_Pessimistic_for_Me, at 4/21/2010 4:14 PM
TBC = Bob Carpenter
Also, i like how he refers to you as "the blogger". Really Bob?
By
MikeinDC, at 4/21/2010 4:59 PM
Also, i'm guessing that "Anonymous" is Dibble. Or Dibble's publicist. There's no way he writes that well.
By
MikeinDC, at 4/21/2010 5:01 PM
This is a singles-hitting team (Goozie, Dunn, et al). Willingham and Zimm are the exceptions. Pudge has had a few doubles, but his power days are long gone. Desmond and Maxy show potential every now and then, but mostly it's K's and singles. But the biggest flaw is lack of hitting in the clutch. I haven't seen the RISP with two out stats, but I'd venture to say we're doing about .210 in that department.
Sunshine, there are several things wrong with what you've said here.
1. Adam Dunn is anything but a "singles-hitter". I shouldn't have to justify just how stupid this claim is, but I will. Dunn is well known for being a "three true outcomes" player- one of the outcome options is not a single. Do you remember that stat I used earlier, where 33.6% of all hits in 2009 were extra base hits? Well Adam Dunn has a career XBH/Hit average of 50.3%. I don't have the data, but I guarantee that it one of the top 10 highest rates in baseball over the past decade. Adam Dunn is the opposite of a singles hitter.
2. Ian Desmond and Justin Maxwell do not have mostly singles, whatever way you look at it. Together, the two have 13 hits, 6 (46%) of which were not singles.
3. The Nationals are not batting .210 with RISP. They're batting .283 (.014 higher than their average). Moreover, they have a .792 OPS with RISP, coincidentally the exact same as their regular season team OPS.
Can we stop making assumptions when there is information readily available to counter these wrongly-held beliefs?
By
Will, at 4/21/2010 8:30 PM
Chris,
Yes. Final score 9-0. but Senators scored 7 runs. They count in the team and individual totals. The mythical 9 runs don't.
Nice try yourself.
Stuart
By
Stuart, at 4/21/2010 8:40 PM
I detest the amateurish, 'homer' aspect of both Dibble and Carp. But I think Needham is wrong to call Carp on this one.
I'm no fan of the TV duo. I especially don't like how Dibble repeats himself endlessly. Unlike with Sutton, I learn nothing at all about the game from Dibble. And his boorish grunts when the Nationals play well utterly spoils the pleasure of the good play. I feel like I'm at the ballpark and sitting next to a vulgarian choking on his 6th beer.
To be fair, they can be critical of the players and the play. Their vulgarity lies in their unintelligent and relentless, 'root, root, root for the home team' shtick.
When I watch games live, I ALWAYS listen to the radio.
But I think you're unfair in this criticism. Maybe I'm such a negative person that I over-compensate for Carpenter/Dibble. But I took their comments on offense 'hitting on all cylinders' to mean: a) the offense is better and more balanced than the boring, hopeless offense we had last year; b) a negative comment on our starting pitching; c) offense doesn't seem to give up, even when we're way behind.
At the most basic level, the games are much more fun to watch this year, because we do have a balanced offense, even when the starting pitching sucks. If we are sixth in the league, that's a huge improvement, and better than average.
We have some speed, bunts, small ball, fewer base running mistakes, hitting, walks, and extra base hits. A bit short on HRs, yes, due to Dunn;s slump and Zimm being out.
I don't like Dibble at all, for the reasons above. Carp is a competent, but colorless, mediocrity. I'm not a fan of either of them. But I think your critique is wide of the mark here.
By
nasher, at 4/21/2010 10:25 PM
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