Kevin Gregg and the battle between stats and your own eyes

I know it seems like I have it in for Kevin Gregg. I wrote about him torpedoing the 2008 Marlins playoff hopes.

In 2009 I couldn’t figure out why the Cubs would want him.

In 2010 I wrote about how he shouldn’t be the closer for the Blue Jays.

And last month I kind of freaked out when I saw the Red Sox were interested in him.

Now he has 2 years in Baltimore, and he supplied some relief… for ME! As a Red Sox fan, I didn’t want him in Fenway. Now I know he is going to stay in the AL East, which is great for any AL East team NOT named Baltimore.

Look, I never met Kevin Gregg. I am sure he is a nice guy. I am sure he has talent. But I feel like I am Bizarro World when I hear people say things like “Gregg has a track record that suggests he will be a fairly dependable closer.”

REALLY?
I guess if by dependable you mean “you can depend on him to blow some big games.”

But this got me thinking. There seems to be two very different schools of thought in baseball today when it comes to evaluating players:

There is the old school of scouting, watching the players and going with gut instinct.
And there is the statistical evaluation with an ever evolving series of numerical criteria.

The problem with the first school is of course it is totally subjective. You could see someone have a great game the first time you saw them play and skew any scouting report to that opening impression. Plus there is no way to quantify things like “heart” and “clutch” and “gets his uniform dirty.” Yeah someone could get a clutch hit… but what if they got it off of a lousy pitcher?

Stat heads often have little patience for any praise or criticism for a player not based on numbers. I am sure someone out there can tell me why, statistically, Kirk Gibson’s home run off of Dennis Eckersley was not impressive.

But of course there is a reason why they cling to stats: They are not subjective. It is a game of numbers. Your worth comes from the numbers, not some vague intangible. “Moxy” doesn’t win ball games. A good on base percentage plus slugging can.

There are problems with the stats approach as well. While focusing only on stats and eliminating any human emotion might be a great way to assemble a fantasy team, the players are actually human. And sometimes there are elements to someone’s game that have nothing to do with the WAR that can make a player a bad fit.

All the statistical analysis showed that Edgar Renteria was a terrific fit for the Red Sox. Anyone who knew the guy felt that the rough Northeastern media environment would not gel with the shortstop. The Red Sox signed him and BANG! he didn’t fit in and had one of his worst seasons.

Last year when Javy Vazquez was reacquired by the Yankees, the stat heads were saying they had an ace and a bulldog. Look at his strikeout per inning ratio! Look at how many innings he pitched! Look at his situation wins saved! But I said and many other people said “Didn’t he flop in New York? Didn’t he fold up like a tent? And why would Ozzie Guillen trash Vazquez’s ability during a pennant run?” The statistical analysis won out, and to the surprise of nobody and except people analyzing the stats, he was a disaster in New York.

This brings us back to Gregg.
You can look at his strikeout totals, his good strikeout to walk ratio, his high save total and any other means you want to fold his stats into an oragami swan.

The most disturbing trend in his career when you look at the stats has nothing to do with numbers. It has to do with the teams.

The Orioles will be his fifth team in the last six seasons. Isn’t that a red flag? Doesn’t that tell you that each of these teams kicked the tires and drove the car and said “In theory it is great… but you can have it.”

All games, saves and blown saves are created equal on the back of the baseball card but not in reality. The games he blew down the stretch for the Marlins were huge stretch run games that took wind out of their sails in the Wild Card hunt. The games he blew out of the gate for the Cubs helped them stumble into the 2009 season and they never recovered.

Each of those teams had him and didn’t seem to have any urgency to keep him.
That’s a red flag folks.

Not convinced?
Still think that you analyze the stats and that is the end all and be all of figuring out who to sign?

How about this compromise?
You look at the stats, but then before offering a contract, you poll the fans. You know, the people who actually LIVED with the player for a season.

Remember Armando Benitez?

If you looked at his stats, you would come to the conclusion that he was an elite reliever. His strikeout to innings pitched ratio was insane. His ERA was solid. He piled up saves.

He won the Rolaids Relief Award in 2001.

Ask Mets fans about that great season he had in 2001. He was so hated by Met fans that year for his critical blown saves down the stretch that you would have thought he had wiped his butt with the flag flown at Ground Zero.

And this was AFTER he blew key post season saves in the 1999 Division Series, 1999 NLCS, 2000 Division Series and 2000 World Series.

I lived in New York when he pitched for the Mets. I lived near San Francisco when he pitched for the Giants. Don’t talk to me about his stats. He was a disaster in both places.

How his agent kept getting him big contracts was a topic of an early Sully Baseball post.

Oriole fans who now have Kevin Gregg to deal with also remember Benitez and him blowing games in the 1996 and 1997 post season.

Yeah he had great numbers. But sometimes the numbers didn’t add up.

Kevin Gregg, like Benitez and Vazquez, keeps getting passed around to teams who think they are getting a stud while their former team is chuckling.

So am I saying to throw stats in the garbage?
Of course not. Relying too much on scouting and subjective opinion is nuts. And relying only on numbers is perilous. Like a good pitcher, you need a combination of the two. Look at the numbers, understand the circumstances that the stats were piled up in.

And if the people who actually watch the player flinch when you mention him… maybe take a pass.

10 thoughts about the 2011 Hall of Fame vote

Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar are Hall of Famers. The election results are in and this wonderful day on the baseball calendar will no doubt have the columnists and bloggers typing all night long.

So why not chime in my own self?

I predicted than only Blyleven and Alomar would get in despite many other worthy candidates. But I have some other thoughts on these matters.

1. ALOMAR SHOULD BECOME THE FIRST HALL OF FAMER WITH A BLUE JAYS HAT ON THE PLAQUE

Only Rickey Henderson, Phil Niekro, Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield even played in Toronto and got elected to Cooperstown. (And Molitor was the only one to stay for more than a year.)

Alomar was a Blue Jay for five seasons. Not exactly a lifer with any one team, he should have the sideways bird engraved for all time. (The Blue Jay… NOT the Oriole).

2. BLYLEVEN SCORES ONE FOR “THE FAM-A-LEE”

An interesting thing happens when a player plays as long as Bert Blyleven did and has to wait almost as long to get elected. You find yourself celebrating teams that played generations ago.

Bert Blyleven wasn’t the biggest star on the 1979 Pirates (the late Willie Stargell was) but he now joins Pops in the Hall of Fame. And while Bert will probably go in as a Minnesota Twin, his time in Pittsburgh (where he threw the complete game win to clinch the NLCS and came out of the bullpen to win Game 5 of the World Series) should be saluted.

I have a mild obsession with the 1979 Pirates and hope that SOMEONE will cue up the Sister Sledge this summer in Cooperstown.

3. ALAS FELLOW “FAM-A-LEE” MEMBER DAVE PARKER WON’T BE JOINING HIM

On the 1979 Pirates, Dave Parker was a much more imposing figure than Blyleven. And I supported the Cobra’s Hall of Fame candidacy. But after 15 attempts it didn’t happen.

Maybe the Veterans Committee will take another look at him. Short of that, being the bad ass 1978 National League MVP and having two World Series rings might have to suffice.

4. HOW MANY PEOPLE WHO LEFT THEIR BALLOTS BLANK LAST YEAR VOTED FOR ALOMAR AND BLYLEVEN THIS YEAR?

Last year five writers left their ballots blank. And last year Blyleven and Alomar missed being elected by just a few votes. Those blank ballots could have been the difference.

If you left them blank last year and voted for Robbie and Bert this year, you should have your voting rights taken away.

Also if there were no Alomar nor Blyleven on the ballot, would there have been more support for Barry Larkin or other returning players? We’ll never know.

5. GET TO WORK ON YOUR SPEECH, BARRY LARKIN

It is going to happen. People like Barry Larkin. There is no cloud of doubt hanging over Barry Larkin. AND he got 62.1% of the vote this year.

Next year the player with the best Hall of Fame resume being put on the ballot if Bernie Williams. Terrific player. Not a Hall of Famer. He’ll get the votes next year to get in.

6. IT LOOKS LIKE THE 1984 TIGERS WON’T HAVE A HALL OF FAMER ON THEIR ROSTER

Sparky Anderson‘s passing recently shone attention back onto his wonderful 1984 World Champion Tiger team. It certainly FELT like a star studded super star team back then. But Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish never got the Hall of Fame support and now it looks more and more like Jack Morris and Alan Trammell‘s vote tallies are not going to cut it.

Therefore the only Hall of Famer from the 1984 Tigers would be Sparky.

7. IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD FOR MANY STARS OF THE 1980s

Don Mattingly‘s support is stagnant. Dale Murphy‘s isn’t getting better. Lee Smith can’t get over the hump after nine attempts. And poor Harold Baines is off the ballot after 5 tries. If Baines ONLY got those extra seven hits a year.

The 80s, the decade I grew up on, is struggling to put its superstars in the Hall!

8. WHY NO LOVE FOR TIM RAINES?

Staying with 1980s stars not getting love from the voters, the most perplexing is the lack of support for Tim Raines. In his fourth attempt he got less than 40% of the vote. It can’t be just because he played in Montreal.

It can’t be because of his drug problems.

I think people haven’t looked at his stats. Well here they are. Read them and vote! (Jim Rice had less than 40% of the vote too at one point and he got in, so there is hope.)

9. UM… MARQUIS GRISSOM GOT 4 VOTES?

As I wrote in my Jay Bell – Hall of Famer post a few years ago, I get it when a guy gets a stray vote. A sports writer may want to throw a bone to a player they liked and make sure they didn’t come and go without a single vote. It’s when a player gets more than one sympathy vote that I start to wonder “Did I see the wrong player?”

I’ve got nothing against Marquis Grissom… a good solid baseball lifer. But FOUR voters used their ballot to say “He should be immortalized!” Imagine if 460 did. They’d be carving a plaque for him. As for B.J. Surhoff… this article kind of says it all.

10. THE NEXT 15 SOME ODD YEARS ARE NOT GOING TO FUN IN TERMS OF HALL OF FAME VOTING

Kevin Brown is mercifully off the ballot… but Juan Gonzalez somehow will stick around for next year. And Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro can’t bust 20% of the vote but will be debated next winter as well.

The ‘roids talk influenced the Jeff Bagwell vote and it isn’t going to get prettier as the dreaded 2013 election looms… and Bonds and Clemens are eligible.

Be prepared for years and years of the tainted names on the ballot and lots of debate. Which is GREAT news for candidates like Barry Larkin and Rock Raines who will get more support from writers who don’t want to send in blank ballots.