Burnitz Outperforming Sosa
Submitted by cubsnet on Tue, 2005-06-28 23:30.
Last season, Sammy Sosa
volunteered to be dropped a few slots in the batting order and then
complained at the end of the year that the drop was a sign of
disrespect. He has now been dropped for a second straight
year. "Sammy Sosa was dropped to sixth in the Baltimore
Orioles' batting order Tuesday, a move designed to take some pressure
off the slumping slugger," reports
the AP.
In his first
game in that slot, Sosa went 0-4.
Speaking of slugging veteran rightfielders, which one would you rather have on your team right now:
*Numbers are through games of June 27.
**Current league average for rightfielders: .272
The Cubs had a choice at the end of the 2004 season. So far, as long as they are willing to live with all the money they are paying Baltimore to have Sosa, they appear to have made the right one. On a totals basis, Burnitz has been about one win better than Sosa at the plate. And in the field, according to Baseball Prospectus, Burnitz has been about a half of a win better than Sosa.
Speaking of slugging veteran rightfielders, which one would you rather have on your team right now:
| Player | PA | BA | OBA | SLG | EqA** | EQR |
| Burnitz, Jeromy | 309 | .275 | .330 | .475 | .272 | 40.1 |
| Sosa, Sammy | 246 | .239 | .310 | .414 | .269 | 31.8 |
*Numbers are through games of June 27.
**Current league average for rightfielders: .272
The Cubs had a choice at the end of the 2004 season. So far, as long as they are willing to live with all the money they are paying Baltimore to have Sosa, they appear to have made the right one. On a totals basis, Burnitz has been about one win better than Sosa at the plate. And in the field, according to Baseball Prospectus, Burnitz has been about a half of a win better than Sosa.
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First off, there is no real w
First off, there is no real way to determine how many more "wins" that a player contributes to a team than another player. This is all about statistics and you know what Mark Twain said about them.
What your analysis fails to include is the effect that Burnitz & Sosa have in the clubhouse. Sosa has a firecracker impact on a clubhouse and his upbeat personality has been able to keep his team from flagging too much. His presence in the Orioles clubhouse is doubtless a factor in that club's surge from worst in 2004 to near first in 2005. Burnitz, however, does not seem to have much personality and is not helping matters in the leaderless Cubs clubhouse.
This fits a pattern in GM Hendry's moves: his failure to include morale as a factor in his moves. Last year, he relieved the Red Sox of the Nomar Cancer and as a result, the BoSox surged to the World Championship while the Cubs wilted on the vine. This year, with the threat that Nomar may return to the team by August, the Cubs are basically going nowhere with winning streaks being immediately followed by losing streaks.
Sosa's presence
First off, there is no real way to determine how many more "wins" that a player contributes to a team than another player.
I'm not sure what you mean by "real way", but we can take a good stab at how many wins one player is worth over and above another player. We do this by 1) determining how many runs a player contributes to his team (or prevents the other team from scoring); 2) how many runs created or prevented equal a win, and 3) concluding about how many wins a player is worth.
This is all about statistics and you know what Mark Twain said about them.
Twain was clearly wrong. You just need to be able to differentiate between valueable statistics and meaningless statistics.
Sosa has a firecracker impact on a clubhouse and his upbeat personality has been able to keep his team from flagging too much.
This is interesting. Most people who talk about Sosa's clubhouse presence consider him to be more of a hindrance than a help. In any event, if what you say is true, how do you explain the Cubs' flagging in 2004, and the Orioles current flagging?
As for leadership on the Cubs, I don't consider them leaderless at all.
Sosa
Sosa has a firecracker impact on a clubhouse and his upbeat personality has been able to keep his team from flagging too much.
With all due respect, I don't see how you could possibly know this. Do you spend a lot of time in the Cubs' clubhouse? Most, if not all, of the media reports out of the Cubs' clubhouse said exactly the opposite of what you're saying, so I'm wondering, what is your basis to make this assertion?
EDIT: Obviously, this is meant as a reply to Charles. Sorry for misplacing it.