A.J. Ellis is a fine player. I hope he's the Dodger starting catcher next year. He's not an All-Star catcher, he's not a great hitter but he's smart and can work the count when the pitchers aren't coming right after him with good stuff. And he's a fantastic handler of the pitching staff.
In the last 10 games Ellis has struck out 14 times and walked just 3 times. If he weren't a stat boy favorite he'd be in the midst of a regression. But because he's a favored son he's just in a little slump.
Neither is true. The pitchers have adjusted to Ellis' way of hitting. He can no longer sit back and let a pitcher walk him. He'll never lose that ability to walk because he's really smart but now he's got to adjust his strategy. And as he's not a great hitter it won't be that easy to do. The outcome will not be determined by stats in any way, shape or form.
OBP is a fine stat. I think it's universally recognized as one of the better indicators. But it over weights walks. A hit is better than a walk in many instances. Fortunately Don Baseball doesn't subscribe to the ridiculous stat boy notion that because A.J. has a high OBP that makes him an obvious lead off hitter. He'll have a lot better chance to work on his adjustments in the not-so-pressure packed part of the lineup.
Rob Neyer, the super sabre pro, says that no one can predict what a player will do on a year-to-year basis. His excellence is that he understands baseball and can see the whole playing field not just the black and white of baseball numbers.
The world does not exist in black and white. The Stat boys exist there all by themselves. They apparently lost the gray spectrum early in life. They may find it again when they get older and more experienced. The gray spectrum is where the real world lives.
News Flash Mark Ellis Now A Stat Boy Favorite
I can remember when the Stat Boys were calling the other Ellis an over-the-hill relic that can probably still play a little defense. Another Ned travesty. But now Mark Ellis suddenly is a major league hitter according to the Boys. And none of them ever mention the word regression when it comes to him. I'm sure Mark Ellis is relieved.
Sure Glad Pressure Doesn't Play A Role In Baseball
Everyone needs to remember that Kenley Jansen hasn't been pitching very long. In many ways he's still learning. And there are certainly tons of things he hasn't seen or experienced. When one of those one-off things happens it can make someone look bad out of proportion to the actual event.
Kenley made an innocent inexperienced mistake. He didn't call timeout because it didn't occur to him that he needed to. The Padre runner made a courageous decision and in doing so put extreme pressure on the Dodgers. Jansen reacted poorly an threw high. A.J. Ellis can not be tagging a runner without the ball. His first job is to catch the ball. Pressure. The umpire jumped in an overlooked the fact that Ellis didn't have the ball slowing Jansen's reaction. The umpire missed the ball because everything was happening so fast. Pressure.
This is an extreme example of what the stat boys are missing in the game of baseball on an everyday basis. On many plays during the course of a game something situational affects the play. Very few times is it as dramatic as the Kenley play. A core strategy in baseball is to find ways to put pressure on the opposition. In fact this is true in almost every sport. Different kinds of pressure evoke different reactions. And every reaction is different because every player is a human and can react differently.
This is not a myth. This is not some crap that traditional baseball people make up. This is the nature of sport.
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