O-Dog (Orlando Hudson)

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Am I imagining things or haven't I been watching most of you talk about Hudson's superior offense and questionably better glove?  Five minutes of looking at the stats would seem to indicate the exact opposite to me, at least on the face of it.

You're looking at all the wrong stats.

[tomterp]

Yeah but Guz was below replacement value last year

nah, BP has him with VORP of +8.6.

[The Chief]

You're looking at all the wrong stats.

So why didn't you tell me which ones I should be looking at?

Dodgers were 4th in the NL offensively last season.  Nats were 9th, so it's not like Hudson was held back by a bad lineup.  Regardless of any other stats, I can't see how Hudson is going to produce significantly more runs than Guzman based on last year's numbers.

[Lintyfresh85]

Fat lot of good it did him.  127 runs produced in 149 games for Hudson, 120 runs produced in 135 games for Guzman.  If you have some additional insight, I welcome it, but the fact is that neither players' meaningful offensive contributions to their team last season differed much from the others'.

RBI's and Runs are things players can't control unless they're hitting a HR every time.

I absolutely would want the guy that's going to get on base .50 times more than the other. More times on base, the more chances to score. For example, every 100 at bats, Hudson is on base 5 more times than Guzman. Give each 600 at bats and Hudson is on base 30 more times. I'll gladly give this offense 30 more shots to pick up an RBI. Not only does Hudson get on base more... the type of contact he makes is more likely to put him in scoring position right away. Hudson's had 50 XBH last year compared to Guzman's 37. Slugging wise, Hudson put up a .417% and Guzman .390.

So not only does Hudson get on base more, he's also more likely to be in scoring position than Guzman is after his at bat.

You can't downgrade Hudson for his teammates not knocking him in.

[The Chief]

RBI's and Runs are things players can't control unless they're hitting a HR every time.

Well that's a convenient way of entirely dismissing the point.

Runs are all that ultimately matter.  Just sayin'.

And don't give me those excuses.  Look at Hudson's first half and second half last year.  You seriously going to tell me those splits are all his teammates' fault?

[tomterp]

Runs are all that ultimately matter.  Just sayin'.

Yes, but the credit for scoring them is more diffuse than simply attributing them to the guy scoring them.

[tomterp]

BP has O-Dog at +27.6 VORP, vs. Guzman +8.6.  A 19 run difference if you assume 2nd basemen = to SS's. 

[Lintyfresh85]

And don't give me those excuses.  Look at Hudson's first half and second half last year.  You seriously going to tell me those splits are all his teammates' fault?

Considering he was on base more in the second half of 2009 than he was in the first half... I think the question is definitely fair.

1st half - .283/.353/.426/.779
2nd half - .284/.363/.404/.767

[JMW IV]

BP has O-Dog at +27.6 VORP, vs. Guzman +8.6.  A 19 run difference if you assume 2nd basemen = to SS's. 

that's a very minimal difference. not very noticeable at all.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Well that's a convenient way of entirely dismissing the point.

Runs are all that ultimately matter.  Just sayin'.

And don't give me those excuses.  Look at Hudson's first half and second half last year.  You seriously going to tell me those splits are all his teammates' fault?

They could be.  You have no way of knowing without examining every situation wherein Hudson was on base.  He got on base at a pretty consistently decent rate throughout most of the season, so how can it be his fault that he wasn't scoring runs?  Unless you think he just magically got far worse at baserunning in the middle of one season, but that would be really rare for a player under 35.

wOBA is a decent stat.  Look at fangraphs for that.  It has a section that shows you where Hudson and Guzman were throughout the season via a line graph:

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=1307&position=2B&page=8&type=full

http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=728&position=SS&page=8&type=full

[tomterp]

that's a very minimal difference. not very noticeable at all.

Oh, sure it's noticable.  It places Hudson 9th among 2nd basemen, Guzman 22nd among SS's.

If you have a roster of top 1/3 guys you're going to have a much more potent offense than one composed of bottom 1/3 guys.

[Lintyfresh85]

I think it was sarcasm.

[PANatsFan]

nah, BP has him with VORP of +8.6.

Yeah I fixed it later. I got confused since Fangraphs is VOAP - value over average player.

[JMW IV]

I think it was sarcasm.

[tomterp]

I think it was sarcasm.

 

Next time somebody stop me before I do all that explaining BS.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

From baseball reference -

Hudson had 631 plate appearances last year.  Most were as a 2d (261), 3d (181), or 8th (101) hitter.  He was a lot more effective as a #2 hitter (.840 OPS) than as a #3 (.663) or #8 (.705) hitter.  Seems he hit better with one runners on first or on 2d rather than other on base states. 

Guzman had 555 plate appearances.  For all the noise about the experiment with him batting 6th, he only had 30 plate appearances back there, which did coincide with a slump.  Almost all of his plate appearances were as #1 (232) or #2 (266) in the order.  He was more effective as a leadoff hitter, which I would think coincided with the pre-Nyjer, first half of the year.  As a leadoff hitter, his OBP was .325 and his SLG was .427.  As a #2 hitter, he was .310 / .393.  Guz was better with men on (.321 / .410) and RISP (.312 / .396) than with bases empty (.296 / .377), which is weird given his numbers when he batted #1 in the order. 

The Dodgers as a team were less efficient at scoring runs runs per plate appearance in the 2d half (1:8.50 PAs) than they were in the first (1:7.95 PAs). While Hudson got on at a slightly higher rate, his run scoring fell off along with the whole team.  Guz pretty much had the good fortune of a healthy RZ and Dunn behind him the whole year and a healthy Nick through July.  His run scoring benefited from his place in the order more than Hudson.  Guz certainly was better at taking advantage of his RBI opportunities last year, but those numbers do not match Hudson's career.  Cashing in on RBI opportunities bounces around quite a bit year to year.  IOW, the runs and RBI numbers Dunnkey pointed to are accurate, but don't really establish much about the offensive abilities now and going forward. Other numbers have better predictive value.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

By the way, I'm actually not on the Guz is a disaster bandwagon. I think as long as we keep him healthy, his first half and 2008 are more representative of his offensive ability than the 2d half of last year.  I tend to buy the higher projections than the low ones.  I also was intrigued with a shift to 2d for him.  I think he would be as good as Hudson there. 

Having said that, I'm much more comfortable with a SS Guz / 2d Hudson combo for a year than a SS Desmond/ 2d Guz combo.  I like the extra depth, and I think Desmond would benefit from at least a few months more in AAA.  My preference of preferences would have been to bring in a defensive SS, like Everett or Gonzalez, to go with Guz at 2d.  That way, Desmond could have displaced him more easily than either Hudson or Guzman if Desmond won the job.

[tomterp]

Guzman had 555 plate appearances.  For all the noise about the experiment with him batting 6th, he only had 30 plate appearances back there, which did coincide with a slump.  Almost all of his plate appearances were as #1 (232) or #2 (266) in the order.  He was more effective as a leadoff hitter, which I would think coincided with the pre-Nyjer, first half of the year.  As a leadoff hitter, his OBP was .325 and his SLG was .427.  As a #2 hitter, he was .310 / .393.  Guz was better with men on (.321 / .410) and RISP (.312 / .396) than with bases empty (.296 / .377), which is weird given his numbers when he batted #1 in the order.  

Guzman was moved to 6th BECAUSE he was slumping, not slumping because he was moved to 6th.  Gotta be careful about the cause/effect here.

EDIT:  Not implying you are endorsing any particular view here, thanks though for presenting the data.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Guzman was moved to 6th BECAUSE he was slumping, not slumping because he was moved to 6th.  Gotta be careful about the cause/effect here.

EDIT:  Not implying you are endorsing any particular view here, thanks though for presenting the data.

I honestly thought it was the other way around. I thought the idea was to have him use his contact to drive in runs, as long as he was not walking.  Maybe he had already started to tail. I do remember he sulked about it.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Guzman was moved to 6th BECAUSE he was slumping, not slumping because he was moved to 6th.  Gotta be careful about the cause/effect here.

EDIT:  Not implying you are endorsing any particular view here, thanks though for presenting the data.

Right you are.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.cgi?n1=guzmacr01&t=b&year=2009&share=1.21#1211-1230-sum:batting_gamelogs

[tomterp]

I honestly thought it was the other way around. I thought the idea was to have him use his contact to drive in runs, as long as he was not walking.  Maybe he had already started to tail. I do remember he sulked about it.

If we could find that first time he batted 6th, that would probably give us the break point.  But I definitely recall that he was fading fast before being moved down, and yes he sulked and whined but just continued the slump.

At least, those are the facts in my mind.   

[PatsNats28]

I'm not trying to defend Guzman but a lot of you guys seem to think Hudson isn't really much of a defensive upgrade over Guzman at any position, while attributing a lot of value to his bat.  But is that really fair?

Guz had 74 runs and 52 RBIs in 135 games.
Hudson had 74 runs and 62 RBIs in 149 games.

Guz had 41 runs in the first half, 33 in the second
Hudson had 53 runs in the first half, 21 in the second

Guz had 24 RBIs in the first half, 28 in the second
Hudson had 48 RBIs in the first half, 14 in the second

And so on and so forth...

I'm not saying Guz is better or even equal, or that I necessarily want to see another full season of him, but I question how much of an offensive difference signing Hudson really makes, especially when we're already on the hook for Guzman's salary and most seem to want Desmond to play.

Guzman had 20 errors in 117 games in 2009.  Hudson had 8 in 145 games

Am I imagining things or haven't I been watching most of you talk about Hudson's superior offense and questionably better glove?  Five minutes of looking at the stats would seem to indicate the exact opposite to me, at least on the face of it.

My counter argument:

Guzman wOBA - .301!!!! (that's pitiful)
Hudson wOBA - .342 (above league average, not by a lot though)

Guz wRC (runs created from wOBA) - 54.0
Hudson wRC - 82.7

and the important one for hitting here

Guz wRAA - -12.5
Hudson wRAA - 5.9

Guzman was considerably below average in producing runs... the average MLB (not replacement!) player provided 12.5 more runs than Guzman over the course of a season. Hudson was above average, not outstanding, but solid.

Now on to fielding.

Guz - -2.6 UZR/150 last year vs. -0.8 over career
Hudson - -3.7 UZR/150 last year vs. 2.6 over career

Numbers say Guz had a better year last year, Hudson has had a better career. Overall, both were below average, with Guzman performing better according to UZR.

Now on to WAR (the accumulation of batting and fielding):

Guzman WAR - 0.9
Hudson WAR - 2.9

Hudson is worth approximately 2 more wins that Guzman. A few notes here... Guzman got a positional adjustment of 7.5 vs. Hudson's of 2.5, an assessment I disagree with (IMO there are better hitting shortstops than second basemen overall, or at least equal). In any case, Hudson's RAR was about 20 runs more than Guzman's.

[Evolution33]

My counter argument:

Guzman wOBA - .301!!!! (that's pitiful)
Hudson wOBA - .342 (above league average, not by a lot though)

Guz wRC (runs created from wOBA) - 54.0
Hudson wRC - 82.7

and the important one for hitting here

Guz wRAA - -12.5
Hudson wRAA - 5.9

Guzman was considerably below average in producing runs... the average MLB (not replacement!) player provided 12.5 more runs than Guzman over the course of a season. Hudson was above average, not outstanding, but solid.

Now on to fielding.

Guz - -2.6 UZR/150 last year vs. -0.8 over career
Hudson - -3.7 UZR/150 last year vs. 2.6 over career

Numbers say Guz had a better year last year, Hudson has had a better career. Overall, both were below average, with Guzman performing better according to UZR.

Now on to WAR (the accumulation of batting and fielding):

Guzman WAR - 0.9
Hudson WAR - 2.9

Hudson is worth approximately 2 more wins that Guzman. A few notes here... Guzman got a positional adjustment of 7.5 vs. Hudson's of 2.5, an assessment I disagree with (IMO there are better hitting shortstops than second basemen overall, or at least equal). In any case, Hudson's RAR was about 20 runs more than Guzman's.

Come on man you are just making up stats now. Just when I think I got all the new ones figured out they invent 5 more. I know what UZR, wOBA, and WAR are, but what in the green freaking hell are wRC and wRAA. And seriously if someone can't tell hudson is better than guzman by just looking at BA/SP/OBP then they need to take the pencil out of their eye.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Evol - I may have to change my signature line.  It looks like I've been beat at my own game.  The kid is getting real good. 

PatsNats - I have a couple of quibbles when you quote career stats for Hudson's defense and you look at last year whole year stats for Guzman's offense.  Those same stat sources for Hudson's defense show a 4 year decline in UZR roughly coinciding with moving from toronto to AZ.  Some say he's winning his golden gloves on reputation and not performance.  No question his supporters (Boz, several of the Nats) don't buy it, but it is at least a yellow flag. 

As for Guz, his numbers showed a big decline after May or so.  some of it was due to his unusually good BABIP in April, but MAy and June looked normal and afterwards his BABIP droppped off a cliff.  We know he was playing hurt, too.  With Guz, you have to accept that he seems to be a bit injury prone since he has gotten here, but, post-Lasik, his offense has been much better than his career averages when healthy.  I believe his Marcel projection (.293 / .328 / .414, wOBA .323)  more than his Bill James projection (.282 / .313 / .385, wOBA .305), if he is healthy.  All of the projections are from his Fangraphs page, while the BABIP #s by month can be found on B-R.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=728&position=SS
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=guzmacr01&year=2009&t=b

[blue911]

Why not compare their numbers that lead to being a successful 2^nd place hitter?