The JD Martinez Performance Thread

[jung]

JD's OPS is .892

 

His career OPS is .887

 

He's 31, nearly 32.

 

Expectations probably were raised to an unrealistic level last year. (Sounds like something Harmony would say, I know.)

 

In a way this is good because it reduces the chances of him opting out.

 

Maybe next year Manfred will actually put booster rockets on the rocket ship baseball just as a favor to JD. Don't want that OPS to slide too far.

[Bellhorn04]

Maybe next year Manfred will actually put booster rockets on the rocket ship baseball just as a favor to JD. Don't want that OPS to slide too far.

 

I understand cynicism very well. You really take your cynicism about the state of baseball to the next level.

[Kimmi]

I think Cora is right. When looking at Martinez he doesn't show any back issues at all and my dad watches some games with me. He has a lot of knowledge with the back as he has had 2 surgeries on his back and has studied a ton on back injuries and long term impact it has on the body. Even he says he doesn't see anything showing that Martinez is still hurt from his back. I think it's just in his head right now and a slump. He will hopefully climb out of it.....

 

As long as JD is healthy, he will hit. He's in a mini slump right now, which all hitters go through. He will be fine.

[Kimmi]

The overstatement in this thread is hilarious. If you didn't look at the actual numbers you'd think JD was in a flailing slump for weeks.

 

If you do look at the numbers you see this:

 

April OPS 895

May OPS 884

June OPS 896

 

Not the otherworldly numbers of last year, but solid and consistent at least.

 

It's the recency effect. Over a 10-game span, not including that last game, JD's numbers are really bad.

 

.174/.255/.261/.518, partly fueled by a .233 BABIP.

[notin]

It's the recency effect. Over a 10-game span, not including that last game, JD's numbers are really bad.

 

.174/.255/.261/.518, partly fueled by a .233 BABIP.

 

 

If you count the most recent game, his OPS over the last 10 is .579. But over the last 20 games, it’s .907.

 

This is just the ebb and flow of the season. Mini-slump is the harshest term I’d use to describe it...

[Kimmi]

If you count the most recent game, his OPS over the last 10 is .579. But over the last 20 games, it’s .907.

 

This is just the ebb and flow of the season. Mini-slump is the harshest term I’d use to describe it...

 

Agree completely.

[jung]

I understand cynicism very well. You really take your cynicism about the state of baseball to the next level.

 

Just laying it out there. Manfred and the MLB have made it impossible to rate a player based on his own career stats v a specific year because they keep changing the baseball. Now we are going to have to go to rankings by year for all players in a league. For OPS, JD was ranked 3rd last year.....13th this year. For BA, 2nd last year....23rd so far this year.

 

As I stated earlier, I think he has worked himself into a rut. But pitchers ARE NOT going to stop pitching him this way and he is going to have to respond. They are not going to stop pitching Mookie the way they are pitching him either. I am less sure Mookie works it out.

Edited June 28, 2019 by jung

[Bellhorn04]

Just laying it out there. Manfred and the MLB have made it impossible to rate a player based on his own career stats v a specific year because they keep changing the baseball.

 

It's not really impossible. Adjusted stats like OPS+ measure the player against the rest of MLB.

[Bellhorn04]

As far as run-scoring across baseball is concerned, it's up about 7.5% from last year. From 4.45 per game to 4.78 per game. That is a significant increase.

[notin]

As far as run-scoring across baseball is concerned, it's up about 7.5% from last year. From 4.45 per game to 4.78 per game. That is a significant increase.

 

 

But only half a season wirth of data vs a whole season from last year...

[dgalehouse]

As far as run-scoring across baseball is concerned, it's up about 7.5% from last year. From 4.45 per game to 4.78 per game. That is a significant increase.

 

The Mets announcers , arguably one of the best if not the best crew in the business, were talking about how tough it is for them to judge long fly balls , what with the way the ball is carrying this year .

[Bellhorn04]

But only half a season wirth of data vs a whole season from last year...

 

True, but half a season of data is a pretty large mass of data.

[notin]

True, but half a season of data is a pretty large mass of data.

 

 

I do expect a drop in the second half, as the selling/tanking teams move some of their starters and replace them with minor leaguers.

 

It probably won’t drop the full 7.5%, though..

[vegasbob]

The Mets announcers , arguably one of the best if not the best crew in the business, were talking about how tough it is for them to judge long fly balls , what with the way the ball is carrying this year .

 

This was well noted by Terry Smith and Mark Langston of the Angels radio team as well recently.

[jung]

It's not really impossible. Adjusted stats like OPS+ measure the player against the rest of MLB.

 

Correct but even measuring a player against the rest of MLB across separate years is out the window because Manfred keeps f***ing with the baseball. Historically stats have always been important in baseball....OUT THE WINDOW NOW.

 

Are we going to remember that the 2016 baseball was hotter than the 2015 and that the 2018 ball was hotter than the 2017 ball and that the 2019 ball is actually the hottest of all of them so far? Worse, Home Run Derby balls are hotter than any official MLB ball for any given year. So Manfred can go farther than this is he wishes and who is to stop him.

 

The point is, we are left now to value a given year independently and as an exception to every other year because of this nonsense. All we can do is rate the player against other players in that given year playing with the exact official MLB baseball used in that given year. It does not matter what the hitting stat is, OPS, OPS+, whatever.....they now stand alone year by year and comparing career stats to the individual season stats for a given player is now out the window.

 

In other words, we can look at how a player stacked up against his peers and where he rated against his peers one year to the next but how his individual season stood up v his career is now a thing of the past. Ask yourself how many times we compare a player's season stats to his career stats and you see the problem.

Edited June 28, 2019 by jung

[oldtimer]

Correct but even measuring a player against the rest of MLB across separate years is out the window because Manfred keeps f***ing with the baseball. Historically stats have always been important in baseball....OUT THE WINDOW NOW.

 

Are we going to remember that the 2016 baseball was hotter than the 2015 and that the 2018 ball was hotter than the 2017 ball and that the 2019 ball is actually the hottest of all of them so far? Worse, Home Run Derby balls are hotter than any official MLB ball for any given year. So Manfred can go farther than this is he wishes and who is to stop him.

 

The point is, we are left now to value a given year independently and as an exception to every other year because of this nonsense. All we can do is rate the player against other players in that given year playing with the exact official MLB baseball used in that given year. It does not matter what the hitting stat is, OPS, OPS+, whatever.....they now stand alone year by year and comparing career stats to the individual season stats for a given player is now out the window.

 

In other words, we can look at how a player stacked up against his peers and where he rated against his peers one year to the next but how his individual season stood up v his career is now a thing of the past. Ask yourself how many times we compare a player's season stats to his career stats and you see the problem.

 

I wonder? Does anyone remember when baseballs began to be toosed out of games every time they hit the dirt? I have been around since the 1940's but sadly don't remember when that occurred. I believe we still have a 90 year old poster who might comment on that.

[OH FOY]

As far as run-scoring across baseball is concerned, it's up about 7.5% from last year. From 4.45 per game to 4.78 per game. That is a significant increase.

 

Sure is. With the real warm weather coming, Pitchers tiring out, Promotions, it should even go up a little more.

[OH FOY]

Were looking at the wrong guy here folks, its Mookie Betts that has underperformed more then anybody in this line-up, this year. His numbers have dropped significantly from last year at this point.

Through 81 games last year at this point Mookie had a .355 BA, with a 1.121 OPS for the OPS folks, a .444 OBP. with 23 HRS with 51 RBI's batting from the lead-off spot.

Last year Mookie hit .368 against Lefties, this year he is hitting .215 against Lefties this year.

He needs to get hot, real hot.

Edited June 29, 2019 by OH FOY!

[jung]

I wonder? Does anyone remember when baseballs began to be toosed out of games every time they hit the dirt? I have been around since the 1940's but sadly don't remember when that occurred. I believe we still have a 90 year old poster who might comment on that.

 

We were not uniformly throwing them out in the 70's. Umps were still at that time giving them a little rub and tossing them back in their ball bag though I do think the 70's saw real ball scrutiny during the post season. That IMO was actually the genesis for uniformly tossing them out in the regular season.

 

The other element that drove uniformly tossing balls out of games is that pitchers really began scrutinizing balls in the 1980's and you would regularly see the ump toss a different ball out to a complaining pitcher only to have said pitcher toss it right back to him. I remember seeing that exercise go on for as many as four baseballs before the pitcher finally gave in and was satisfied with the ball he got. Then of course batters would complain because they would see a scuff or something else on the ball and it would be tossed for that reason.

 

I was a season ticket holder several years in the 70's and we were not then uniformly tossing them during the regular season. I believe we started uniformly tossing them out of regular season games in the 1980's though I could not give you the exact year. It might have even been in the early 1990's.

[notin]

We were not uniformly throwing them out in the 70's. Umps were still at that time giving them a little rub and tossing them back in their ball bag though I do think the 70's saw real ball scrutiny during the post season. That IMO was actually the genesis for uniformly tossing them out in the regular season.

 

The other element that drove uniformly tossing balls out of games is that pitchers really began scrutinizing balls in the 1980's and you would regularly see the ump toss a different ball out to a complaining pitcher only to have said pitcher toss it right back to him. I remember seeing that exercise go on for as many as four baseballs before the pitcher finally gave in and was satisfied with the ball he got. Then of course batters would complain because they would see a scuff or something else on the ball and it would be tossed for that reason.

 

I was a season ticket holder several years in the 70's and we were not then uniformly tossing them during the regular season. I believe we started uniformly tossing them out of regular season games in the 1980's though I could not give you the exact year. It might have even been in the early 1990's.

 

 

Jim Palmer was notorious for that behavior...

[S5Dewey]

The Mets announcers , arguably one of the best if not the best crew in the business, were talking about how tough it is for them to judge long fly balls , what with the way the ball is carrying this year .

 

Does anyone know what's happened to the average exit velocity of baseballs this year in comparison to past years?

 

In all the discussion about the juiced ball I've been wondering if MLB hasn't gone to what the NCAA has done. The NCAA has gone to a ball with tighter (lower) stitches in an effort to not affect the total flight of the ball while controlling the "exit velocity" on balls hit back at the pitcher. The lower stitches create less wind resistance on the ball making it carry farther while not increasing the exit velocity off the bat.

[jung]

Jim Palmer was notorious for that behavior...

 

I remember one instance that saw the pitcher look at 3 baseballs before being sated by the ball in his hand, throw one pitch, decide he did not like that and look at 3 more before being sated again. So he had looked at 6 baseballs having thrown 1 pitch. The batter looked like he was at Center Court in Forest Hills watching a tennis match just following the flight of ball after ball going out to the mound and back to the ump. Of course the batter wanted to try to catch a glance of the ball going to the mound to see if HE wanted to complain about it.

 

I can't remember the pitcher's name. If you asked me to try I would have to say his name was "you frigging jackass" because that is all I remember saying from my seat.

[notin]

I remember one instance that saw the pitcher look at 3 baseballs before being sated by the ball in his hand, throw one pitch, decide he did not like that and look at 3 more before being sated again. So he had looked at 6 baseballs having thrown 1 pitch. The batter looked like he was at Center Court in Forest Hills watching a tennis match just following the flight of ball after ball going out to the mound and back to the ump. Of course the batter wanted to try to catch a glance of the ball going to the mound to see if HE wanted to complain about it.

 

I can't remember the pitcher's name. If you asked me to try I would have to say his name was "you frigging jackass" because that is all I remember saying from my seat.

 

 

That sounds like Palmer...

[redsoxrules]

Jd is ranked 5th in AL OPS.

[YastrzemskI]

Jd is ranked 5th in AL OPS.

 

That isn't that great for HIM. I am eager to see him go on like a month long tear some time after the break. He is fully capable of it as we all know.

Pound for pound he's the best hitter on the team.

[devildavid]

Taking into account his back issues, JD is doing just fine.

[redsoxrules]

He's been dog s*** to chalk it up nicely. I think it's a slump and he will get out of it... Or it's rust. Not sure which, but our stars have no performed and he is a big one that has been a let down. I honestly think we would be first by a mile if this offense was anything like it was from last year even with the dreadful start our starting rotation had.

 

Yeah he's been dog s*** eh?

And btw the Sox offense is just as good as last year. Its solely on the pitching that they've s*** the bed this year.

[oldtimer]

JD could hit close to 40 this year if he remains hot. That with his rbi total and 300 avg might tempt him to opt out. Still, how many teams in thee American league are looking to add a $25+ mil DH to their roster.

[a700hitter]

I hope JD opts out so we can save all that money and get a draft choice that we can use to draft the next Lars Anderson.

 

You would have to be a complete knucklehead to hope that JF and his wrecking ball of a bat would opt out.

[S5Dewey]

I hope JD opts out so we can save all that money and get a draft choice that we can use to draft the next Lars Anderson.

 

You would have to be a complete knucklehead to hope that JF and his wrecking ball of a bat would opt out.

 

Absolutely true. The only way one should hope that JDM opts out is if you're willing to reset in 2020, do a complete reset below the first LT limit and have the Red Sox become Baltimore. That qualifies as knucklehead.