SB Nation Pittsburgh Editor's Pick
Hunter Pence vs. Jose Tabata: Why Pence is not worth it.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 14, 2011 2:37 AM EDT
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With the trade deadline looming, much speculation has gone on regarding potential moves for the Pirates. One oft mentioned name is the seemingly beloved Hunter Pence. I will be comparing Pence to Jose Tabata, as it has been brought up that it may take Tabata to bring Pence to Pittsburgh. I would also mention Garrett Jones and Alex Presley in the other corner outfield slot, but since Presley's play of late has muddled that situation, and the sample size is far too small to evaluate him, I will stick with Tabata. One thing to bear in mind is that Pence is under control through 2013, while Tabata is under control through 2016. Another factor is Tabata's age, which at 22 makes him a more likely candidate for future improvement. Another (seemingly obvious) factor is how much Pence will cost, which appears to be substantial to say the least. But enough of that, let's get to the fun and look at the numbers.
First up, Pence. Pence is in the midst of a fantastic season for the Astros. At the all star break he has provided 2.7 WAR, putting him on pace for roughly 5 WAR this season, provided he sustains his current .323/.364/.496 line. He has also been a solid player throughout his career providing from 3.3 to 4.1 WAR in each of his four seasons.
At a glance, this season would seem to simply show improvement from Pence, but further examination does not agree. If you look at his numbers, he has a of .389, which is quite high. Obviously, that should regress. But how far? Pence has a lifetime BABIP of .328, but that includes two outlier seasons of .377, and .389 (this season). In his other seasons, his BABIP has been .301, .304, and .308. Since Pence does not hit line drives at a high rate, and does not have plus speed, his BABIP should be somewhere in the neighborhood of the baseline .300.
With his strikeout rate a not very good 20.8%, if you normalize Pence's line for say a, .310 BABIP, he is projected to have about 92.53 hits, we'll round him to 93. That's a far cry from the 117 hit he has so far this season. That would drop his average all the way to .263, which would be the worst of his career. And since Pence's good line has been mainly due to his average, that would give him a terrible season. Let's look at why.
Pence has a poor BB% at 6.1, but that isn't out of line for him (career 6.7). His K% is up this season, to a career high 20.8% (career 18.2). His isolated power is at a career low .173 (career .191). This is despite a LD% that is actually well above career norms at 17.8% (15.7 career). His low line drive percentage actually mean his BABIP should be below the .300 norm, let alone the generous .310 that I gave him above.
Pence simply isn't making contact very well this season. He has not improved, he has actually performed worse than usual, and just gotten extremely lucky. That certainly doesn't seem like someone worth a boatload of prospects, especially since Fangraphs fielding usually gives him very high ratings, but he is at -2.5 so far this season.
Now, as for our comparison of Tabata. Tabata is difficult to project due to a limited sample size, but he has provided approximately 3 WAR over his first 162 games as a professional, and 1.2 thus far this season.
Some people have been disappointed with Tabata's year thus far, with a .265/.351/.354 line. His BABIP so far is .305, as opposed to .339 last season. And this is where using .300 as a baseline can get you into trouble. As Luis Castillo showed for years, your BABIP can be influenced if you have plus speed, which Tabata does. The general rule of thumb I came across is to add .02 of BABIP for each percentage point a plus runner's GB% is abouve 45%. And Tabata is hitting ground balls 61% of the time this season. That would give him a BABIP of around .332, much closer to his .339 of last season. This demonstrates that Tabata seems to be getting unlucky this year.
If we normalize Tabata's line with a .332 BABIP, we find out he should have about 72.72 hits this season, or 73, which is an improvement over the 68 he does have.This would give him an average of .284, which with his greatly improved walk rate would make him a fantastic leadoff hitter.
Tabata's walks are way up (11.1% as compared to 6.3%), his strikeouts are also slightly up (14.8% as compared to 12.9%), his isolated power is down (.089 as compared to .101), and his LD% is slightly down (15% as compared to 16.1%).
Tabata has performed slightly worse this season, but his greatly improved walk rate should make up for the slight regression. He also has a positive fielding rating at 0.6 (1.6 last season).
The final normalized lines (provided BB% and ISO stay the same) come to:
Pence: .263/.304/.436, for an OPS of .740 with poor defense this season.
Tabata: .284/.370/.373, for an OPS of .743 with slightly above average defense this season.
The point of all this is to show that Pence has been getting lucky this season. He has not greatly improved, he is not worth a bunch of prospects, he is only marginally better than Tabata, if at all, and certainly isn't worth Tabata. And he also comes with fewer years of control, and less hope of improvement. Is Pence likely better than what the Pirates will get in right field? Yes. But he isn't worth trading for right now. You never want to trade for a player at their peak value, especially when that peak is an artificially induced one.
(All stats courtesy of Fangraphs and this was a wonderful article about normalizing BABIP for players.)
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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Thank you for the analysis.
The love for Pence has seemed excessive to me. He’s a good player, but is a better fantasy guy than real-life guy. In fact, i zelected him fir my fantasy team fir that reason. The only years his OPS has been above upper 700s to low 800s have been the season and a half with extremely high BABIP. As you point out, he doesn’t walk. He gives you something of everything and if you could grownguys like him, you’d be delighted. He’s just nit worth paying a ransom for. Im also not sure he’s as goodnin PNC for 81 games. Give me Tabata at 22. Despite the time missed and the inconsistencies in his game this year, he’s already valuable and will become only moreso, particularly given maturation in his game that he has already shown.
by Horace Clarke on Jul 14, 2011 6:47 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
Love this
I am a huge Jose Tabata fan (unless he is secretly 34 years old or something) and could not believe how quickly people were turning on him this season. As Cutch has started to develop more power this year, it seems like he might be better suited for a middle of the lineup spot. This has left a hole in the leadoff spot which I think Tabata has filled nicely. His OBP-outside of a 3 week slump at the end of April-is about .380 and with his speed, this really gives him a lot of value. Very well done!
I'm as big a Tabata fan as anybody
. . . but let’s not go crazy with cherry-picking stats.
Three weeks is a pretty significant amount of time to just ignore. I bet Pence’s OBP (or any player’s OBP) looks a lot better when you take out his worst three weeks too.
The only reason I pointed out those 3 weeks
And it’s totally possible that I just have selective memory, is that it was right around when he pulled a muscle earlier in the season. I remember hearing several people suggesting that Tabata wasn’t totally healthy at the time. Also, his improved play over the past 2 months indicates he is trending up and his slash line should continue to improve as the season wears on. In any case, the OP’s support of Tabata is far more convincing than mine and he clearly put more time into it, I was just trying to call attention to the hot streak (or warm streak depending on your level of concern over his power numbers) he has been on.
by KentuckyPirate on Jul 14, 2011 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions
yeah, I figured that was your intention
Hope you didn’t think I was being a prick, Kentucky. I think it’s likely that the injury did contribute to the poor numbers.
I just think that kind of stuff bears pointing out sometimes, cause people are always saying, “Well, if we disregard the month of May, Player X’s numbers are awesome!” And sometimes there’s pretty legit reasons to do that, but sometimes it’s kind of disingenuous, unless they’re also going to disregard Player X’s best month as well.
Anyway, let’s hope that those weeks were just injury-plagued, because the team’s way more fun to watch when he hits like he did in April and June/July.
Nice analysis
Good read and interesting read on 1.) normalizing BABIP, and 2.) applying it to your example.
I need to go on record as saying I’m not a fan of labeling anything “luck” — there is far more to it than that, but understand that some things are not easily quantifiable.
Good read, cheese!
I'm with you on "luck."
I’ve kind of come to a detente with what that’s supposed to mean in baseball terms — just the idea that things even out over time, the balls that don’t fall in this year will fall in next year, and that real talent, or the lack of it, will show up eventually — but my point is always this: Strange how you can buy “luck” if you have enough money. Otherwise, you have to conclude that the Yankees and Red Sox just get really really lucky, year after year after year after year after …
I wouldn't say that they buy luck
they buy the best players, which often bring the best results.
by Wizard of Woz on Jul 14, 2011 10:14 AM EDT up reply actions
You kind of make my point for me.
I think luck, good or bad, is somewhat indistinguishable from the talent of the players you have. The better the players, the “luckier” you get (which means the less luck has anything to do with it), and the worse the players, the “unluckier” you get.
I think too often “bad luck” is a crutch for “We’re really just not very good.”
If you could afford to sign Superman, Flash and Spiderman and put them in your outfield, no fly ball would ever touch the ground. Did your team just become sensationally lucky or did you simply put the best possible fielding talent you could find out there?
That’s what I mean by “You can buy luck.” Luck is supposedly this force of nature, this unquantifiable thing, something you can’t do anything about (Shi* happens"). Except you can. You can collect better players, and play them, and watch your “luck” improve.
well, yes and no
To tweak your analogy just a bit, let’s imagine a good-but-still-mortal outfield of Cutch, Michael Bourne, and . . . . I dunno, Rajai Davis. They’re about the best defensive outfielders you can buy, and they’re going to get to just about everything that’s catchable, right?
But of course a certain number of hits are going to drop in anyway. And because our dynamic trio has no control over where the ball is hit to, the amount of hits they allow in a given season will always fluctuate, even if, magically, the amount of balls hit to the outfield remained exactly constant.
So yes, talent is a much bigger factor, but there’s always going to be games won and lost by a certain amount of luck. Think about a smoked line drive that gets snagged by the third baseman, followed by a weakly hit ball just flare over his head. There’s definitely a component of luck, or random chance, or whatever you want to call it. And thank God, because otherwise we could just run the season as a computer simulation.
That smoked line drive
could have been snagged by the third baseman because they had studied your tendencies and had you played perfectly. One team’s “bad luck” is another team’s heads-up play.
I’m not going to go so far as to say there’s no such thing as bad luck. Injuries can result from bad luck. Steve Bartman was bad luck. Weather can be bad luck. And it can be your bad luck that your G.M. lets an Easter Island statue manage your team for three years. I just think there’s a lot less of it than people think.
Did you watch the entire series against the Mets? Where they hit a bunch of weakly hit ground balls that happened to find the perfect spot. How is that not luck? They didn’t aim those weakly hit ground balls perfectly in the gap, they just made poor contact and that’s where it ended up.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 15, 2011 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions
I'm not convinced
that the “Easter Island Statue” wasn’t a good stratagy from a GM and future of the team point of view. I can remember (but won’t try to find) a post or two from a while back defending Russell as the near perfect fill in manager until the talent started to come of age. Given the results so far this year that thought process may be correct.
you wouldn't need all three
superman could conceivably get to all balls. Flash could only get them if they weren’t a HR and Spidey would probably work best with a domed field.
by BlindSquirrel on Jul 14, 2011 8:26 PM EDT up reply actions
Spidey
could totally get to any ball, either by catching it with a web, or swinging from a light tower (though you’re right – optimally, a domed stadium…).
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 14, 2011 9:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Are YOU gonna tell him?
heh.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 15, 2011 8:36 AM EDT up reply actions
The Flash is hands down the best choice of the three
His speed is absolutely unreal. Though he may be at a slight defensive disadvantage because he can’t catch home runs (well, he probably can’t anyway. He’s a resourceful guy and I wouldn’t bet against him finding a way to get to any ball put in play), think of how much better he’d be on offense.
Superman and Spiderman have no idea how to swing a bat. Superman was never allowed to play sports as a kid because of he was too strong for other kids and thus he obviously does not have a major league ready swing. Peter Parker never really played sports before he got his powers, and he’s been too busy fighting crime since to work on his skills. The Flash, however, doesn’t need to know how to swing a bat because HE CAN BUNT FOR INSIDE THE PARK HOME RUNS. If no one is on base, he’s scoring. He’s that fast. Think of the implications. As a leadoff guy, he’s good for AT LEAST 162 HRs a year and plus-plus defense. If he gets walked, he’s stealing home. He’s good for a run literally every single time he goes up to bat. It’s just not even fair.
Not to mention the fact that with his speed, he’s essentially playing all positions on the field, and thus every other spot in the lineup can be filled with guys who would typically be DHs. He’s worth, conservatively speaking, a billion WAR over the course of a season AND allows you to go after bat only guys and create a monstrously good juggernaut of a lineup.
It’s the Flash. All the way.
Superman has "no idea" how to swing a bat?
Since WHEN?!?
.
Superman was never allowed to play sports as a kidHere’s Superboy:
Nice try, though.
.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 15, 2011 8:27 AM EDT up reply actions
are you saying that Jesus Christ couldn't hit a curve ball
Players who should be in the Hall of Fame: Pat TIllman, Dwight White, Donnie Shell, L.C. Greenwood, Ray Guy, Steve Tasker, Jack Butler, Greg Lloyd, Andy Russell, Cris Carter, Kevin Greene, Curtis Martin, Willie Roaf, Andre Reed and Jerry Kramer
Remember that long road once more, then kiss it...kiss it goodbye
Canal Street Chronicles resident Steelers Fan
by WVPiratesfan on Jul 15, 2011 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Darn.
Wikipedia lied to me :(
Fine, sign Superman…
Heh.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 15, 2011 5:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Finally
a player for whom Dusty Baker’s line about not wanting guys who clog up the basepaths makes at least some sense.
Think of the Brewers: “No, no, Prince, just take the damn third strike, you idjit. You cost us a run with that walk.”
by bucdaddy on Jul 15, 2011 11:49 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Al Oliver
Do you guys remember Al Oliver? Talk about unlucky! He hit more line drives (some deep) RIGHT AT outfielders than anyone I ever saw. Every season. Never averaged out for him because he only hit line dirves. He should have been Hall of Fame type instead of just a real good player. Luck mattered with him.
by pittsburghdad6 on Jul 15, 2011 4:18 PM EDT up reply actions
"Never averaged out"?
Al hit .303/.344/.451 and had 2,743 hits lifetime.
I’d say things averaged out for him SOMEwhere.
You’re right, though, that it seemed like he AKWAYS hit the ball hard.
Do we remember Al Oliver
Yeah, from the beginning of his career until the end of it. Know how to distinguish between those who think he belongs in the Hall of Fame from those who don’t? The first category either played with or against him for most of his and their career. The second didn’t. And yeah, if anybody hit more balls right on the screws that were caught by somebody, I want to meet him. Never seen anything like it.
"Throw strikes, but don't give him anything good to hit."
by RichieHebner on Jul 16, 2011 2:09 PM EDT up reply actions
Wait
so you don’t want him in the HOF, or are you a former MLB player? I don’t get it. Only former baseball players want Al Oliver in the HOF?
by Wizard of Woz on Jul 18, 2011 4:51 PM EDT up reply actions
Y'known,
I like Al as much as the next Pirates fan, but shouldn’t a condition of being in the Hall of Fame be that the person in question was, well, famous? Al could hit some, yes. Was he famous? No.
He would have been famous had he played in places other than Pittsburgh, Dallas and Montreal
Everybody I know who played with him thinks he should be in the Hall.
"Throw strikes, but don't give him anything good to hit."
by RichieHebner on Jul 20, 2011 3:05 AM EDT up reply actions
No
I was being clever. Most of those ho oppose admitting him never had to pitch to him or were able to play with him. Nearly all of those I have met who played with or against him think he should be there.
"Throw strikes, but don't give him anything good to hit."
by RichieHebner on Jul 20, 2011 3:03 AM EDT up reply actions
This is great work
The grass always seems greener when it comes to players on other teams, especially when it’s one of their better players. However, when you take the time to peel back the layers of the onion, like you have done here, we can really see exactly what type of player Hunter Pence is. That isn’t to say he’s bad, not by any stretch, but what the Pirates have in Tabata is worth more to them (and their ongoing goal of building a consistent winner) than Pence would be.
Good stuff
I like Pence because he makes me feel better about my athletic awkwardness. All knees & elbows, but gets the job done. However, I wouldn’t want to trade Tabata for him, nor would I want to the Bucs to give up a substantial package. If they could hoodwink ol’ Eddie Wade, then I’d be on board.
Presley is the key
This is a really good analysis of Tabata and Pence but I truly don’t believe Tabata would be the one who would be replaced. As noted, the sample size is too small for Elvis but finding out what type of player he really is going to be is the key. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to know that until a full season.
Love it, best trade deadline post yet!!!!!
Recd.
And you haven’t even factored in that Pence plays half of his games in a little league park and maxes out at 25 HR’s per season. Pence is smoke and mirrors. Giving up Tabata for him would be foolish. Excellent post!
#AllTheBuntsAreBad!
nice post
This tells me that the eye test on Tabata and Pence is correct.
Tabata has a good approach that could evolve into a great approach. He has big power to right center (good for PNC) that he is just starting to trust. If he can learn to stop rolling over inside pitches for grounders to SS he will become a real productive player. And I really like his fit in LF at PNC.
Pence is a little league coaches worst nightmare. He gets by with good hand-eye coordination and does seem to find a way to make doing it wrong work. He seems like the kind of player that pull off a Dan Uggla type season at any time.
by ballparkfranks on Jul 14, 2011 10:31 AM EDT reply actions
Pence isn't terrible defensively...
but not great, either. He DOES lead NL outfielders in assists with 9…Cutch is 2nd with 8…but we know Cutch has a long way to improve defensively. Pence has been above average in the past.
Assists for outfielders are misleading statistics, however. Three of the top 5 outfielders in assists in the major leagues…are the 3 Kansas City outfielders…Cabrera, Gordon and Francouer.
If Cutch could throw the ball worth damn,
he’d have another 4 Assists, easily, IMO.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 14, 2011 8:24 PM EDT up reply actions
Great work, and I agree with your analysis of Pence, but
here is a breakdown of Tabata’s “greatly improved” walk rate this year: April 11.3%, May 18.2%, June 4.3%. He was much more aggressive in June, more in line with last year’s approach. The results for the month were 4 walks, a .330 OBP and a .671 OPS, and that was with a BABIP of .342. That’s not what I want from my leadoff hitter, or a corner OF, or any hitter, really.
By no means am I saying we give up on him, but he has not established a consistent level of performance, and he may be considerably older than 22. I am a bit more guarded in my enthusiasm.
There is no evidence, other than rampant speculation, that says Tabata is any age other than 22. As such, there is not reason to believe he is lying about his age right now. If further evidence becomes available, that’s a different story, but for now there is no reason not to believe his age.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 14, 2011 6:36 PM EDT up reply actions
Agree, I've never thought highly of Pence
What he has done so far this year is an important clue as to what we can expect him to do the rest of the year, but so are the past few years. Although not as important, they can’t be ignored.
Your thinking is in the right place in regressing the babip, etc. My Oliver projections at THT predict Pence at 292/341/470, 351 wOBA the rest of the year. Pence has good power when he pulls the ball, but he has one of the higher rates of hitting the ball to rf.
Oliver also does not like Pence’s fielding. His raw catch rate on flies is above average, but when compared to how everyone else did in the same ballparks with Pence’s given ratios of LHB/RHB, LD/FB etc, plus how many extra bases he allows on both ground and fly ball hits, he comes out consistently bad. -8, -7, -11 and -5 the past four years.
With the poor defense, Oliver credits Pence with 1.3 WAR so far, 0.4 expected in the 2nd half.
Tabata is only projected to have a 320 wOBA but with a +5 glove the rest of the year, having +7 and +9 fielding runs the past two seasons
by Brian Cartwright on Jul 14, 2011 6:24 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Out of curiosity, does Oliver project a BABIP for Pence? If so, what is it?
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 14, 2011 6:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Interesting. It seems to me like Tabata should consistently have a higher BABIP than Pence.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 14, 2011 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Sure he’s faster but he’s also a right handed hitter who hits a lot of groundballs or weak flyballs…not a lot of play there to get him to that .330 area like thecheeseisblue seems to be hoping for.
http://bleedblackandgold.com/
by Say Hey Johnny Ray on Jul 15, 2011 7:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Hey, Luis Castillo made a career out of doing just that.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 15, 2011 7:11 PM EDT up reply actions
And as a result had one of the highest sustained BABIPs in the history of baseball.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 15, 2011 7:12 PM EDT up reply actions
another way is to avoid popups
Derek Jeter has one of the 2 or 3 lowest popup rates, and one of the highest sustained babip’s. Neil Walker as a RHB has one of the highest popup rates, and a bad babip. Old guys who used to hit HRs (Griffey, AJones, Giambi) hit lots of flies that don’t go out any more and are easy outs, they have the lowest. Castillo was like Ichiro – be a very fast LHB who hits a lot of GB to SS
by Brian Cartwright on Jul 15, 2011 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions
And Tabata certainly does have a low percentage of popups, in addition to a fairly high infield hit percentage. I mean, sure being left handed would help him out, but .330 is certainly a reasonable BABIP estimate for Tabata. That’s right around the career BABIPs of right handed batters B.J. Upton and Drew Stubbs, though they hit more line drives than Tabata, he hits fewer popups and more ground balls.
I’m not saying anything about your projections, I’m just defending my tossing out a BABIP of .330 for Tabata. It certainly is not an unrealistic number.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 15, 2011 9:44 PM EDT up reply actions
we're only talking 15 points
not like I said .300 and you said .350
You did a back of the envelope while I ran a rule based system…same neighborhood
by Brian Cartwright on Jul 15, 2011 10:49 PM EDT up reply actions
True. I was just trying to say that I was responding more to the person above who seemed to be saying .330 was unrealistic.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 15, 2011 10:57 PM EDT up reply actions
thank you blue cheese!
This is exactly right, great article. While i really like the type of player pence is, TABATA is the man. And you broke down exactly why tabata is more valuable in the long run, and how your still getting alot out of him at this point. I’ve said this before and will say it again, Write it down tabata will be a 20hr guy in 3 or 4 years to go with his skill set.
age of last winning season: 5
Call me crazy
I wouldn’t trade Jose even for Reyes.
"It's magic, it's tragic, it's a loss, it's a win"
by Elektrostal_Kid on Jul 14, 2011 9:37 PM EDT reply actions
ur crazy…if we cannot sign reyes long term tho then you return back to being sane
by nagihcimwolves50 on Jul 15, 2011 12:48 AM EDT up reply actions
interesting on the normalizing BABIP's
But if Pence has two full seasons of .375+ BABIP and is on pace for a third, versus three seasons of .300 – .310 BABIP, what’s the fluky outlier? Yes it’s clearly unusual when considering all players for one to have a BABIP that high, but when he’s done it in two of five MLB seasons, I find it a little harder to just brush off what he’s doing this year. Maybe there’s another reason Hunter Pence’s grounders and bloops find so many holes.
Maybe…Hunter Pence is blessed.
Both of the two seasons of a very high BABIP are partial seasons thus far. The combined 194 games of a high BABIP is a much smaller sample than the 472 of a lower one. The larger sample size, plus the fact that the rest of his skills indicate he should have an average to below average BABIP, lead me to believe that is a more true reflection of his abilities.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 14, 2011 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions
THIS just arrived in the mail:
.
HELLZ yes! Complete with Tanner patch!
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
I'll take Pence any day on the Bucs.
How can Pence’s season be considered lucky when he has proven himself for years now? Yet Tabata is having a mediocre season so it must be that he is unlucky? You aren’t giving Pence nearly enough credit especially considering the poor lineup he is in. I’ll look at the stats that matter and so far Pence is having a nice year while Tabata is hurt once again with leg issues. Don’t get me wrong I think Tabata is going to be a star as long as he can stay healthy.
If the Pirates could get an OF of Tabata, Cutch, and Pence then I don’t see how anyone would be against that. He is only 28 and to say you don’t trade for players at their peak value makes little sense especially when their peak is better than anything you have at that position.
Proud fan of Pittsburgh's professional sports teams and the Pirates too.
by Black&GoldTrain on Jul 17, 2011 3:08 AM EDT reply actions
PENCE is the much better player right now
anyone who wants to try and spin every number in Tabata’s favor is full of it w/ respect of claiming Tabata’s the more productive player.
End of story, not even close
by jackiegleason on Jul 17, 2011 8:27 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I never said Tabata was better than Pence. I used Tabata as a point of comparison to demonstrate that Pence was performing worse than people think, and certainly isn’t worth the asking price. Pence is better right now, but not significantly so, and he costs a ton.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 17, 2011 12:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah -
you might as well bang your head against a brick wall here.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Jul 17, 2011 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
That's not what his post said
I’m sorry, but you can’t go through this drawn out exercise of “normalizing” both players statistics to develop specific numbers such as the ones above that place Tabata’s season above Pence’s and then back down from your claim when challenged.
You suggest that Tabata has a higher normalized OPS and a higher batting average than Pence, despite Pence’s real average being 50 points higher than Tabata’s. You’re making a very bold claim that Pence and Tabata are even close, let alone Tabata possibly being better. At least stand by it.
I assume this was directed at me. Yes, I think they’re close. That why I said
Pence is better right now, but not significantly so
Nobody is backing away from anything.
by thecheeseisblue on Jul 20, 2011 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions
Can Pence play first?
Pedro can play third and with an outfield with Cutch, Tabata, Presley,and Paul nothing will ever hit the turf. Of course Overpayed and Diaz will have to go. Doumit and Pearce also on the bench.
Why not both?
I like Pence and I also like Tabata. Why cant we use both. I say take a run at someone now without giving up too much of the future by take some risk. Sure the future looks good now but if some don’t pan out we may not be in the same position we are now.
Than being said, tale of caution.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/11/12/bp.hollidaytrade/
Why are you comparing Pence to Tabata?
Tabata should be off the table. If anything, Presley should be the bait because he was never viewed by the FO as a major building block. IMHO, he was groomed as trade bait, and he has not dissapointed at the major league level to enhance his value. Tabata, McCutchen, Pence is one hell of a defensive outfiled and the top end of your offensive lineup.
This post only makes sense in the fact that you are arguing a trade of Pence for Tabata or discussing playing time where Pence takes ABs away from Tabata. Ed Wade may overvalue his piece, but as we saw with Jason Bay, what we give up for a Pence type player may not even materialize for Astros……
Brandon Moss never materialized?
news to me.
Unless Houston is
different than anyone else trying to build a team they will want pitching.
Tom Specht
Houston fans want Pedro
lololololololololololol
Saying that talks don’t start without Pedro. lololololololololol.
Astros fans are in for a HUGE shock. And they also think that Pence being an All-Star proves something. Lol, Correia is also an All-Star. I’d say he’s worth a hitter like Alvarez. hahaha
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