Starlin Castro has been ripped pretty hard lately, and it's understandable, as a Cubs fan, why we'd be so angry. Castro was a very good player (never great) when he broke into the league, and stayed that way for a few years. Last year, he took a step back, but signs were good that Castro could be a productive player for the next 15 years.
That's still possible, but not as likely as it once was. Castro has been horrid this year, both defensively and offensively. He's actually worth -0.7 bWAR at the moment, and it'd be hard to argue that number is wrong. We've been documenting why this might be in our comments sections, but suffice it to say there are a multitude of reasons both on and off the diamond as to why it might be the case. Whatever the reason, it's certain that Starlin Castro has been awful this year.
But at least he's not Pete Kozma.
Good ole' Pete has been worth a whole win, theoretically, on glove alone. Perhaps he's great defensively (I haven't seen it in my admittedly limited watchings of Cardinals games), and with a line like his, he needs to be. Kozma is the "proud" owner of a .221/.271/.279 slash this year. .221/.271/.279! That's incredible! Only 19 people since integration have qualified for a batting title with an OBP and SLG under .280 (Hal Lanier did this three times). And with the exception of Mark Belanger, every single one of those players struck out less often than Pete.
It wasn't always like this. In 2012, Kozma hit the cover of the ball in limited time, mashing .333/.383/.569. He was awesome in the NLDS, too. It fell apart for him in the Conference Championship, but he'd made a name for himself and was the starting SS for the Cardinals this year. Since then he's had 1 HR (hit on the second game of the season) and 18 (1 this month) 2B. That one win he was worth defensively? Well, he's worth -1 win with the stick. If you look back since 2008, only Cezar Izturis has had a lower OPS than Kozma (.550 to .545). This month, he's hit .081/.171/.108.
When you really look at shortstops this year, Castro's situation isn't quite as terrible as you might think. Kozma has had a worse year, as has Alcides Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria, and Zack Cosart. I'm not about to say that you should feel good at the expense of others (though that's usually fun), I'm just saying that it could be worse!
Starlin may have already had 2450 PA to show us what he is, but he's still 23 years old. He's younger than Anthony Rizzo, who Julie has pointed out isn't facing nearly as much pressure. If Starlin and Sveum aren't on the same page, that's on Sveum. It's his job to manage the players on his team, and get the best from them. For whatever reason, that just hasn't happened with Starlin, and he's in the worse slump of his whole life.
But at least he's not Pete Kozma.
Comments
Lineup today
Castro
Rizzo
Lake
Schierholtz
Murphy
Bogusevic
Barney
Castilo
Arrieta
We got a “it just might work” from Yellon out of this (dying laughing).
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Myles:
the classifications on fangraphs are from mlbam are automated based on velocity and movement. if sk’s two-seamer is very different, it won’t be classified as a two-seamer.
yty changes in classification have to be taken into consideration, of course.
GWQuote Reply
That’s almost worse, though. Does a hanging curve just become a changeup? Does it automate based on the player, specifically? How about Garza’s slider (85mph, 1.9 h-movement, 1.1 v-movement) versus Darvish’s slider (81.5 mph, 8.8 h-movement, -2.0 v-movement)? When you say fangraphs classifications, I’m taking that to believe that that’s NOT the pitchf/x data (they have 2 sets on a pitcher’s player card), and that Pitch f/x is actually from brooks baseball or somewhere else. I always use the pitch f/x one instead, because the numbers make more sense to me.
I think this all gets to a different issue, and that’s that batters probably don’t care so much about what grip is on a pitch, they just care how fast and how it moves (and what else the pitcher could potentially throw). The term “slider” to a batter is basically useless, because Garza and Darvish both throw one that couldn’t be more different.
MylesQuote Reply
This stuff is really interesting to me, because on TV my eyes have acclimated enough where I can tell a slider from a curve from a two-seamer from a change, but all sliders look the same to my eye. I know this contributes nothing to the conversation, but I’m bored and can’t leave work for five more minutes.
sitrickQuote Reply
As a Cardinal fan I can say honestly the Cardinals are better off with Kozma then they would be with Starlin. Starlin makes too many errors, and he is just too stupid. In addition to about 20-30 errors a year (which cannot happen up the middle), he just doesn’t know what he is doing out there half the time, his mental mistakes letting base runners advance to scoring position or if you caught that last cards series you will see how lightly he takes a game. Sure he can hit, well maybe last 2 years significant drop offs from a guys who is going to be your corner stone for a long time. I would move him to 3rd or OF as quickly as possible. Baseball is won up the middle!
JIMQuote Reply
i’m with myles on this — the important thing is that Castro is getting more of the hard stuff and doing less with it than ever before. that’s a major failing in a big league hitter.
and i agree about the pre-pitch movement and quieting the motion — but what’s disturbing about that is Castro doesn’t have a lot of movement now. reasonable stride with a little hitch, but he’s pretty quiet already. so what’s to be done?
gaius mariusQuote Reply
Why you guys gotta be like that?
Pete KozmaQuote Reply
@ Pete Kozma:
You suck. You jackass.
joshQuote Reply
@ JIM:
Thanks for the unbiased opinion.
JonKneeVQuote Reply
JonKneeV wrote:
Aisle424Quote Reply
Myles wrote:
hmm… it’s almost as if you have made up your mind without knowing what you are talking about…
Myles wrote:
you could find extreme examples of differences on every pitch, but the fact of the matter is that when you average across a population of pitchers, sliders are going to be more similar to themselves than fastballs, two-seamers vs four seamers, etc…
GWQuote Reply
mlbam is just the initial classification on Gameday. Brooks and Pavlidis have done fantastic work classifying pitches and I think you lose out not looking at those. Sure, there are some errors, but that’s true with any advanced stat. I actually think their classifications probably have fewer errors than your average WAR calculation.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
classifying pitches is much more straightforward than judging the difficulty of an attempted putout. not that it’s easy, just that a whole bunch of technology and brainpower has been dumped into it.
GWQuote Reply
I even feel confident using Brooks data on a game by game level. Can’t say that for any other advanced stat.
dmick89Quote Reply
Are you sure this is a Cubs site? I’m a white middle infielder! I grind! You people should be lined up around the block for my shirzy!
Pete KozmaQuote Reply
I don’t think there’s any comparison between Castro and Rizzo. Castro has been terrible at the plate, terrible on defense and below average on the bases. He’s sucked at every single thing he’s done this year and, IMO, has not been benched enough over the years simply because he was hitting .300. Rizzo has disappointed for sure, but he’s been average at the plate. There is such a huge difference between a 102 wRC+ and 66 wRC+ that, to be honest, I’m surprised anyone would even mention the two at the same time.
Rizzo’s walk rate is about 4 times that of Castro and Castro even has a higher strikeout rate though he has significantly less power.
I don’t know. It’s OK to say that Starlin has sucked ass and it’s definitely OK for a manager to criticize him when he’s among the worst hitters in the league.
dmick89Quote Reply
Myles wrote:
When you say fangraphs classifications, I’m taking that to believe that that’s NOT the pitchf/x data (they have 2 sets on a pitcher’s player card),
GW wrote:
hmm… it’s almost as if you have made up your mind without knowing what you are talking about…
Myles wrote:
hmm…it’s almost as if you’re a huge asshole for no reason. I was trying to clarify that you meant the actual pitch f/x data on a player card. If you look at fangraphs, there are two separate tabs for (Plate Discipline and Pitch f/x Plate Discipline). I can admit that I definitely don’t know the intricacies of how each system is gathered, which of course isn’t really relevant to my argument. I should have said hitter instead of pitcher, but lo and behold, even pitchers have both sets of data.
Myles wrote:
How about Garza’s slider (85mph, 1.9 h-movement, 1.1 v-movement) versus Darvish’s slider (81.5 mph, 8.8 h-movement, -2.0 v-movement)
GW:
you could find extreme examples of differences on every pitch, but the fact of the matter is that when you average across a population of pitchers, sliders are going to be more similar to themselves than fastballs, two-seamers vs four seamers, etc…
Myles wrote:
Yeah, and I’m telling you that I don’t think that fact is all that important. Sure, sliders are more similar to other sliders. Is Garza’s at all similar to Darvish’s? No. Is a 2-seamer the same pitch when thrown by a lefty and a righty? No. Are most sliders even that similar to EACH OTHER? No, not really. It’s like taking a box of 64 crayons and separating them into “reds,” “greens,” “blues,” “browns,” “yellows,” and “knuckleballs”. Sure, the reds are closer to themselves than to greens, but you’ve still got a shitload of variation so the difference isn’t especially meaningful.
Pitch f/x has a ton of uses, and from what little I know about it, it’s really cool. It’s awesome looking at pitchers with it, and even with hitters at most level. However, it’s not all that useful (in my opinion) when saying “Starlin Castro can’t hit 2-seamers as well this year”, because that’s just parsing an already not-high sample size of the fastballs he’s been thrown this year into an even smaller, irregular sample size. I don’t think it’s more useful than saying “Starlin Castro can’t hit fastballs this year.” That’s all I’m saying, and I’m sorry you’re so butthurt about harrypav and brooksbaseball’s baby.
MylesQuote Reply
I guess let me walk back the hyperbole and say that it’s probably slightly slightly more useful than just fastball data.
MylesQuote Reply
Plate Discipline is just data from BIS (pretty sure it’s BIS). It’s stringers marking the pitches as far as I know. Pitch F/X on Fangraphs uses the Gameday classifications, which is OK, but inferior to what Brooks and Havlidis have done.
Plate Discipline is like a person marking where each pitch was thrown, similar to marking where each batted ball goes. It’s not all that accurate. Pitch F/X on Gameday has a lot of errors, but it’s still superior to Plate Discipline. Brooks and Havlidis have created their own formulas for pitch classification using the pitch f/x data and is the best.
So yeah, when talking about only Plate Discipline stats on Fangraphs, those are fairly useless, especially since we have Pitch F/X data.
dmick89Quote Reply
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/tabs.php?player=477132&time=month&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=08/21/2013&s_type=2
http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pc_splash.php
dmick89Quote Reply
The more I think about it, the less I’m liking my position.
MylesQuote Reply
I just am not thrilled with the buckets pitches are in, because they use something fairly arbitrary.
MylesQuote Reply
And let me reiterate that I’m only talking about hitters here. Pitch f/x is cooler when talking about pitchers, because pitchers obviously control what they throw, and the sample size is way more robust.
MylesQuote Reply
Also, I have no problem at all saying that Starlin Castro is worse at hitting fastballs this year than in the past. I’ve been saying it for at least 2 months now, if not longer. Nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind. He’s also seeing them more frequently.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Myles:
Sample size is always an issue, but for a regular every day player, we’re talking well over a thousand pitches. Castro has seen 9000 pitches in his career.
Considering how accurate pitch f/x is with location, I assume they’re nearly as accurate with movement and velocity. You’re right that not all sliders are the same, but with pitch f/x, it’s far less an issue even for smaller samples than fielding stats. You need about 3 years of that to even equal one year of batting stats. I’m not entirely sure what it is with pitch f/x, but over the years I’ve been looking at it, it becomes more reliable far sooner than other stats. It’s why I don’t even have a problem looking at it each game and drawing conclusions (for a pitcher).
dmick89Quote Reply
As for the little spat here, I think it was a misunderstanding. GW was talking pitch f/x and presumably already knew that the stats under Plate Discipline were not pitch f/x stats. At least that’s how I took his comment. I don’t want to get involved, but it seems like there’s really nothing to this but a little misunderstanding on everyone’s part.
/butting-in
dmick89Quote Reply
Myles wrote:
I never made that claim. in fact, i urged caution to another commenter looking at that raw data. i’m just somewhere between there and where you are. i think there is definitely value in the classifications and if done carefully, you can find some useful info in the way that pitchers are attacking batters and how they are responding.
GWQuote Reply
@ Myles:
and a word of advice: harry runs the internet, so tread lightly.
GWQuote Reply
he had 10 people whacked in under 2 minutes
GWQuote Reply
GW wrote:
He’s at social media night right now, so hopefully watching the Cubs causes him to drink so much tonight that he blacks out and forgets to erase me
MylesQuote Reply
Can’t hit fastballs and doing more poorly are two different things. GW, are you saying you’d be cautious to draw a conclusion that he’s hit them worse than in the past? I would think, if anything, an eyeball test after seeing the data might make a person less cautious.
I sent an email to Berselius about 2 months ago about this and though I don’t watch every game, I’m more confident now than I was then. I also urged caution in the email, but the sample was smaller then.
Am I confident enough to say that it is the fastball itself causing problems? No. There could be a number of reasons that cause performance against them to drop that don’t really have anything to do with suddenly being able to not hit them.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
i think that’s clear enough. i’m less sure that he’s being pitched all that differently because of it.
GWQuote Reply
I don’t think Castro will be run out of town at his lowest value in his career.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Yes, we can still get him lower before we trade him.
Jim HendryQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
It’s happened before. I’m thinking Carl Crawford.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
It would have to be unprecedented, given his age and the recent contract. I couldn’t honestly imagine them trading him at this point.
joshQuote Reply
@ Jim Hendry:
This is where you guys are supposed to start leaking stories about his personal habits and relationship with the rest of the team, right?
uncle daveQuote Reply
I’m going to set up an OV Kickstarter to help SK pay his medical bills.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/fork-in-penis_n_3779392.html
GBTSQuote Reply
JIM wrote:
When did we install a macro that adds punctuation and removes misspellings and racial epithets?
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
Still (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
damn
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2013_08_21_tenaax_biraax_1&t=g_box&sid=l111
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
No walks = BUST
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ GW:
I know. Jackson went 2-4. Crazy.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
Impressive that SK convinced the Drs. he was only 70
SVBQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Hey, I was trying something.
And thanks.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Baez went 4-4 with 2 HRs and a SF. I think his AA OPS is over 1.000
JonKneeV2Quote Reply
I turned the game off as Hairston was coming to bat last night and Pat was talking about how he had power. I’m kind of glad it worked out that way. Got to enjoy the evening.
joshQuote Reply
Is anyone else confused by Dale Sveum’s lineups? I can halfway understand Castro in the leadoff spot. Prior to this year, he was pretty good. Darwin Barney 2nd? Rizzo 2nd? I don’t understand. I know the Cubs aren’t exactly flush with talent up and down the order, but surely there is a more effective lineup for him.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
He’s trying things, like me.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Maybe he’s making a philosophical point about the absurdity of existence?
joshQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
What does Rizzo batting second really mean? For that matter, does this collection of persistent patterns we mutually agree is a thing we call “Rizzo” really exist, or is it simply a shared fiction?
These are the questions Sveum challenges us to ponder.
joshQuote Reply
New Shit
http://obstructedview.net/minor-leagues/jot-cubs-minor-league-recap-8-21-13.html
MylesQuote Reply