The Difference Between a Statistic and a Model

Something that has long annoyed me about baseball statistics is the misuse of terms. For instance, we talk about Batting Average and Slugging Percent. Yet, batting average is a percent (the percentage of base hits in a given number of plate appearances that result in either an out, error or hit) while slugging percent is an average (the average number of bases per at bat that resulted in a hit, error or out, not counting an error as a base). But that's really just being nit picky. Who really cares if you use incorrect terms in those regards? It wouldn't really change the way that anybody looks at either statistic.

However, there is a more nefarious misunderstanding of terminology, and it actually tends to infect those who claim to have the best understanding of statistics. That is the difference between a statistic and a model.

A statistic is simply a single measure of some attribute. Batting average is a statistic. It takes the total sample (all outcomes for all plate appearances), isolates a subgroup (plate appearances resulting in a hit, error or walk) and then puts as the numerator a further subgroup (hits). Mostly, statistics don't make value judgments. You can say that the focus on a given statistic makes a value judgment, that is choosing to pay attention to batting average emphasizes that getting hits is more important than taking walks. However, the statistic itself says "hey, here's some information, use it as you will."

A model on the other hand makes value judgments. Models take phenomena and try to make predictions. For instance, OPS is a very simplistic model. Because slugging percentage and on base percentage measure entirely different things, it doesn't make statistical sense to crudely add the two. The value comes from a belief that when you add the two you get a rough model that gives you some sense of a hitter's value that you wouldn't be able to get from either of the component statistics in isolation. Yet, OPS is often referred to as a statistic, as if it was just giving raw information. Yet, it isn't. An OPS of .800 has all sorts of ways of happening. It could be a .300 OBP and a .500 slugging percent, it could be .400 and .400, etc. The model makes a value judgment in assigning equal importance to OBP and slugging pct. When you look at OPS as a statistic, you are forced to think that OBP and slugging percent have equal worth. Whereas with batting average, you can value the statistic as little or as much as you would like, you aren't forced to value anything to any particular degree.

And therein lies the problem, by calling OPS a statistic, people are mislead into believing that value judgment. By calling it a statistic you are lead to believe "hey, I'm not saying anything myself here, that's just what the numbers say." However, if you understand OPS as a model, you can think "hey, models can be inaccurate."

Most of the new "statistics" that the sabermetric crowd has been pushing lately are models, not statistics. There is nothing wrong with building a model, but you must call it a model. Calling it a statistic, while possibly simpler, is inherently misleading. WAR is a model of predicting how many wins a player adds above a replacement level player. It's not only a model, it's a model built out of other models (for instance a model for what a replacement player is worth, the relative merits of a stolen base v. getting caught stealing, etc). Yet sabermetricians tend to say "these are the stats" as opposed to "this is the prediction the model gives." Additionally, when you know you are working with a model, it's easier to gauge how reliable the model is. Models are inherently more reliable the closer they are to the most common values. For instance WAR is probably MUCH more accurate the closer it gets to players who give relatively average component statistics. WAR is probably pretty inaccurate for a guy like Albert Pujols, who usually is near the top 5% in almost every offensive category.

Furthermore, calling a model a statistic shields you from talking about the assumptions that the model makes. For instance, in calling OPS a statistic, nobody really discusses the assumption that on base percent and slugging percent are of equivalent worth. WAR assumes that a given player is just as valuable on one team as he is on another. And that's definitely not realistic. For instance a player who hits a lot of homeruns is much more valuable on a team that has a high OBP and low slugging percent than on a team with a high slugging percent, but low OBP. War assumes that a given player will perform to the exact same level in all playing environments (for instance, flyball hitters are probably much more valuable in the AL East, where all the ballparks are very hitter hitter friendly). These effects are often minor, but can be important at the margins, which is where WAR is used most often. Nobody needs WAR to tell you that Albert Pujols is more valuable than Alex Gonzalez, we use it most where the numbers are close, which is where the numbers are most likely to fall prey to these otherwise small issues.

Now, this would be all good and fine if sabermetricians just called these models stats for convenience's sake. However, it definitely seems that very few of them understand this difference very clearly.

In sabermetric circles, it lately seems as if the more complex you can make a model, the better. Sabermetricians don't really understand that the more complex you make a model, the more things you have to finely calibrate, and the more data you need to make your model accurate. A simple model may make questionable assumptions at times, but it's relatively easy to calibrate. A complicated model needs tons of data and is only really good for the centermost values.

Emmanuel Derman, perhaps the worlds most famous living financial modeler, once said "people often forget the point of models. You can't make a perfect model, because the only perfect model is reality itself, which is too complex, which is why you wanted to make a model in the first place. You have to find the right balance of simplicity, easy to understand assumptions and relevant assumptions. A model with tons of difficult to understand and complex assumptions that may be very relevant is really no better than a simple model with easy to understand assumptions that may not be as relevant at all times. Because the more complex your model gets, the less you are able to understand when it is going to be accurate and when it is going to be inaccurate." His point was, if you build up incredibly complicated models, it often gives a false sense of accuracy, because it is so often difficult to see where the assumptions might be faulty, because there are so many of them. That's basically the philosophical mistake that Long Term Capital Management made. I often feel like that's the mistake a lot of sabermetricians make. They're so obsessed with coming up with the one model (which they call a statistic) to rule them all, to give the ultimate measure of a player's value, that they forget they're building models. They forget to keep track of where they made assumptions and talk about cases in which their model may very well be highly inaccurate. The point of a model is to make relationships easier to understand, not more obscure. Yet that is often what sabermetricians do when they create new versions of WAR. They obscure the relationships they're trying to express in order to create the one model to rule them all, the one model that spits out a perfect measure of value.

So what can be done? Well, as my econometrics professor often said, "if in doubt, return to the simplest statistics possible." WAR is comprised of a lot of simple statistics that don't make value judgments. Return to those and debate their relative importance. And if in doubt return to the simplest statistics of all, things like walks/PA, singles/PA, doubles/PA, HR/PA, etc. Then talk about how those should relatively weigh and how accurate or inaccurate the various models may be, and in exceptional cases, you probably shouldn't rely on the models at all.

The attraction to WAR is that it does this for you, it makes implicit assumptions about these various values. Yet, this is really its downfall as well. People trust these assumptions when they may very well be far from trustworthy. That's what happens when you confuse a model with a statistic.

**Yes I am aware that there are different version of WAR, they all do the same thing I am talking about here, and if anything this further proves my point that WAR is a model and not a statistic.**

On Coin Flips, Hot Streaks and the MLB Playoffs

When I was in college, I once set up the following experiment for an independent study I did in psychology and economics:

A coin flipping contest with a prize of $10.

There were 128 students involved in the contest. It's pretty easy to get college kids to flip coins for free pizza and a chance at enough money for 4 beers at the local college dive bar. It was set up NCAA Bracket style such that there were 7 rounds, with each round half the pool being eliminated until we had a final champion. One person got to flip the coin and the other person got to call it. Who got to do what was determined by drawing straws. The coin had to go at least 7 feet in the air and hit the ground.

Now the tournament was completely uninteresting and actually wasn't the focus of the study. What the students said after the tournament was what I was trying to get at.

Coin flips are obviously luck, especially when the coin flips more than a couple of times and even more so when different people are flipping the coin each time. You'd have to be borderline crazy to ascribe victory in this sort of tournament to anything other than luck.

However, in talking to the winner, and even those that had made it to the last few rounds, they all described a feeling that they could predict the coin flip. The winner going so far to say that he was basically 100% confident he was going to win the final matchup. Those who had won several rounds all ascribed their winnings to something other than pure luck usually "getting a feel for how the coin would flip and how to flip if it I was the one doing the toss." The winner actually said "how could you call that luck? I picked the correct side seven straight times, what are the chances of that happening?" Well, he's right that it is extremely unlikely that a given person picks correctly seven straight times in a coin flipping contest, there is less than a 1% chance of that happening. In fact the chances are exactly 1/128.

However, the problem is that we had 128 students and a contest set up such that somebody had to win. Stepping away from an individual in the coin flipping contest's point of view, it was clear that somebody had to be lucky and it just happened to be him. But our brain doesn't like that explanation. Our brain is designed so that, as much as possible, we don't ascribe unlikely events to dumb luck. The winner earnestly believed he had some sort of skill in predicting those coin flips.

In his career Barry Bonds came to the plate 12,606 times. In his career he reached base 44.4% of the time and got a base hit 29.8% of the times he didn't walk, sacrifice or get hit by a pitch.

Imagine a time when Barry Bonds reeled off seven consecutive hits. What do you think the announcers were saying? They were probably saying something along the lines of "wow, Barry is just completely locked in right now! That baseball must seem as big as a watermelon to him!" His manager would be elated and thinking about the carnage his zoned in slugger would be doing against that day's pitcher. Not only was it Barry Bonds, but it was Barry Bonds on a torid hot streak. Now, the fact is that while seven straight hits is highly unlikely, for a player who gets a hit 29.8% of the time and had just under 10,000 ABs, you'd expect it to happen right around 7 times. So while it was unlikely for it to be happening at any given point in time, by just pure dumb luck, you'd expect it to happen seven times over his career. Yet do players, managers, fans or announcers ascribe these sorts of streaks to luck? No, they ascribe them to being hot and skill.

Now imagine we flip the script and Barry Bonds has just had back to back 0-4 days, zero for his last eight. The announced would be talking about how Barry needed to make x adjustment, that his timing was off, that he wasn't seeing the ball. His hitting coach might even suggest some sort of change. He would be cold. Except for he wouldn't. When a player doesn't get a hit 70% of the time, there's roughly a 5% chance that he will go a couple of games without getting a hit. in a full season, you'd expect that to happen several times, just by pure, dumb, bad luck. Yet, we almost always view it as the hitter is cold and may actually need to make some sort of adjustment to his swing.

To be sure, skill or lack of it has something to do with it. A player who gets a hit 35% of the time is much more likely to have a long hitting streak than a player who gets a hit just 25% of the time. But the majority of it is luck. You can think of it this way, if you do something (come to bat) enough times, highly improbable things (really long hitting streaks, really ice cold streaks) end up being likely to happen at some point.

Going back to my coin flipping contest, let's imagine a sport where the absolute best teams in the league win just 60% of their games. Now let's imagine we created a tournament where we took only those teams that already didn't win all that much more than half the time, and had them play only other similarly good teams (that won between 55% and 60% of their games) in one five game series to open and then seven game series subsequently.

Think about that for a second, we are only pitting teams that win between 55% and 60% of their games against one another in relatively short playoff series. You'd expect the best teams to have very slightly better odds, but mostly it would just be luck. Teams that are that closely matched would take several hundred games of playing one another to really sort out which team was actually better. Yet, you can bet, just like the coin flip participants, that those that went out early would be called chokers, and the champion would have put together a magical run and earned their way alongside the greats of the sport. Nobody would characterize the World Series winner (oops, did I let that slip) as just lucky, they would have ridden dominant pitching and "clutch hitting" all the way to glory. Because that's how our brains work. While it's risky to bet on any given winner, it's a virtually guaranteed bet that the winner, and especially the winner's fans, won't think the win was pure luck. When betting on chance, the only certainty is that people won't believe they're betting on chance.

Confirmation Bias and Ball Four

Imagine the following scenario:

A pitcher has been pitching a relatively decent game, showing decent control throughout the game. The pitcher has just thrown three balls to a hitter to reach a three balls no strikes count. These three pitches were all relatively close to the plate, not extremely wild. Assume that the pitcher has no desire to walk the batter and would like to throw a strike.

What do you expect the result of the next pitch to be?

Most astute baseball fans would guess a strike, as the pitcher took a little off and did his best to guarantee he did not walk the hitter.

Next imagine the following scenario:

A pitcher has a hitter in an 0-2 count. The pitcher would obviously like a strikeout and would love to get the hitter to chase a pitch. The hitter doesn't want to strike out and will likely swing at not only a strike, but anything that he thinks is close to being a strike. The hitter sees a pitch and does not swing.

Do you think the pitch was probably a strike or a ball?

This one seems even easier. It seems borderline near certain that the pitch was an obvious ball.

What these two thought experiments show is the following: in a 3-0 count, we expect pitchers to throw strikes and on 0-2 counts where the hitter doesn't swing, we expect that the pitcher threw a ball. It's reasonable to believe that umpires, who observe a LOT of baseball, have these same sorts of observations. They know that in general those tendencies hold true. They actually can't unknow this, even if they wanted to.

Which brings me to the new-ish book Scorecasting by Moskowitz and Wertheim, and particularly the first chapter on omission bias.

Amongst other claims, the two authors attribute the fact that umpires are more likely to call a 3-0 pitch a strike and an 0-2 a ball to omission bias. For the unitiated, omission bias is the idea that we view it as worse to do something bad than to not do something equally good. That an action leading to a bad result is worse than an inaction leading to the same bad result. Wikipedia has a more thorough explanation here.

Now omission bias obviously exists and has been proven to be something our brains do in a myriad of psychological studies. However, I think Moskowitz and Wertheim are a little cavalier in their ascription in at least the case with umpires calling balls and strikes.

There is another type of cognitive bias, that is very well known and is believed to be amongst our strongest and most difficult to overcome cognitive biases: confirmation bias and a sort of subranch of confirmation bias, selective perception.

Confirmation bias has been well understood for a long time. We tend to interpret things in accordance to the current understanding we have of the world around us. Confirmation bias isn't so much about seeing what you want to see, as much as it's about seeing what you expect to see. Some people in fact refer to the phenomenon as expectations bias. When an observed event doesn't conform to our beliefs, we either twist it in such a way that it does or discard it entirely as a mere aberration. We see what we expect to see, for the most part.

The strange thing about this sort of bias is that in many cases, it can actually make our perceptions more accurate, unlike most cognitive biases. Say for instance that you see a bird shooting by and you really didn't see enough of it to know what color it was, but you know that a lot of crows live near by and often fly by your window. Without you actually thinking about it, you will likely have "seen" the bird as being black. Now this is obviously going to much more accurate than if your brain picked random colors to see the bird as. However, it makes you biased against seeing blue birds.

It is my belief that this type of bias is the primary reason behind an umpire's actions when calling balls and strikes. The umpire knows that on 3-0 counts a pitcher is substantially more likely than normal to throw a strike and that hitters often "take all the way" on 3-0 counts, regardless of where the pitch is, hoping to eventually draw a walk. Likewise, umpires know that pitchers are more likely to "try to get a hitter to chase" a ball on an 0-2 count and that hitters will usually swing at anything close.

So what would this theory of the explanation predict? Well, one thing to notice is that on 0-2 counts, the umpire has two pieces of information when a hitter doesn't swing: 1) that it's an 0-2 count and 2) that the hitter didn't swing. This is in opposition to a 3-0 count where the hitter probably won't swing unless he's Jeff Francouer or it's the one pitch in the one tiny area the hitter is looking for. There the umpire only has one piece of information, that it is a 3-0 count. Therefore we would expect the "bias" to be much more magnified for 0-2 counts than for 3-0 counts. The umpire has twice as many reasons to think the pitch was a ball on an 0-2 count where the hitter failed to swing than he has reasons to think a pitch was a strike on a 3-0 pitch where the hitter failed to swing.

Luckily Moskowitz and Wertheim provide us with these probabilities and this prediction turns out to be wildly correct. On an 0-2 pitch that a hitter doesn't swing at, that is in the strike zone, the umpire calls the pitch a strike just 57.7% of the time. This is in comparison with 80% accuracy calling a strike a strike in all cases. That's a whopping 22.3% difference in accuracy. Compare this to the opposite situation, a 3-0 count where the pitch is actually a ball and the hitter doesn't swing. Here the umpire calls a ball a ball 80% of the time on 3-0 counts, in comparison to getting the call right 87% of the time on all counts. A mere 7% difference. While Omission bias wouldn't really explain why this difference in differences should be so stark, 22.3% v. 7%, confirmation/expectations bias does.

There are a lot of other studies that could be done with ball and strike data combined with pitch f/x data to figure out which effect is more likely driving the phenomena. For instance, we could study the correlation effect of whether or not a pitcher throwing a lot of strikes on a given day makes an umpire more likely to call a given pitch a strike. Expectation bias would seem to predict that the old baseball observation that you've got to establish that you can throw strikes before an umpire will give you a borderline call might have some truth to it. Omission bias would say nothing about this effect. Likewise we could examine whether or not hitters that are known to have a "good eye for the strike zone" get more borderline pitches called balls. Again, this would go along with traditional baseball observations and beliefs, but it needs to be studied more thoroughly than simply trusting traditional beliefs. Stepping away from balls and strikes, we could study whether or not an umpire is likely to call a good basestealer safe incorrectly on stolen base attempts. Expectation bias would say that since the umpire expects that the runner will likely be safe, he's more likely to call him safe in borderline cases.

I'm not saying that omission bias plays no role in this phenomenon. What I am saying is that we should really look at confirmation/expectation bias more closely, because there is at least some evidence that it could play a role, if not the major role in explaining this phenomenon.

Do you inefficiently like certain players?

We always believe that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. However, i wanted to question this. Basically, Brian McCann is probably the most universally loved Brave at this point. Heyward may generate more excitement, Chipper may be more sentimental, but Brain McCann, for a lot of hardcore Braves fans is the heart and soul of the the team. Heyward is too new to really be attached to and we've all gotten somewhat used ot the idea that Chipper is going to retire soon. So, with that in mind, I created the following poll. Would you be more likely to watch or go to a Braves game if you knew that while they would win one game fewer, Brian McCann would be on the team, or in the alternative that they would win one game more, but would have somebody like AJ Pierzynski catching?

If you're not a huge McCann fan, or even a Braves fan, you can think of the poll as asking "what would I like more, my favorite player on a team that won one game less or my favorite player gone, but the team wins one more game." Also, consider that while the one win may or may not determine whether the team makes the playoffs, its within the range where it is at least possible that it could. Which is why I picked the number I did for the Braves. Basically in the area where it may be enough to win a wildcard, even taking the additional loss, but also might cost them the wildcard, or they may even miss the playoffs regardless of the single win.

Which would you rather have?

How To Argue With Someone About Heyward Hitting Second

So the Jason Heyward hitting sixth thing has taken off. He did hit second yesterday, but only because Nate McLouth was out. Reading Fredi Gonzalez's quotes on the issue is painful, as is David O'Brien's condescending head nodding on the topic. (O'Brien's analysis of the issue seems to be along the lines of "well, he rides a Harley, and there was that thing with Hanley Ramirez, so this guy has to be infallible.")

What doesn't seem to work when debating these issues with people who support Heyward hitting sixth is logic and facts. You can point out all sorts of facts like the second hitter comes to bat substantially more and comes to bat with virtually identical numbers of runners on base as the sixth spot. You can point out the fact that Heyward has by far the most walks on the team and hasn't scored on any of those walks. You can point out the fact that it makes no sense to think that Gonzalez is good enough to protect Heyward, but isn't good enough to protect Uggla. (another shot at O'Brien is that he has asked the question "for those who think Heyward should be hitting 2nd, who will protect Uggla then?!" and then said after Gonzalez has had an admittedly good start with the bat "hey all you guys who don't think Gonzalez is good enough to protect Heyward in the 6th spot, well...." And he doesn't seem to have the slightest clue that those two statements are totally incongruous.)

You can point all that out and none of it matters to them. So I am going to point out some ways to argue the point. These aren't good arguments and are filled with all sorts of logical fallacies and misconceptions about the game of baseball, but that's what these people need to be convinced by. It's like telling your superstitious grandmother that you had a dream she didn't get a flu shot and then died of a snakebite to convince her to get a flu shot, instead of just trying to reason with her.

1) Heyward has been cold in the sixth spot. He may have some homers, but his batting average, the primary way we should evaluate hitters has been an abysmal .240. That is the number they put on the scoreboard. Last year he hit .277 from the #2 spot. Obviously he needs to be moved up to the #2 spot to "get him going" because hitters hit totally differently depending on what spot in the batting order they're in.

2) We may not know more about baseball than Fredi Gonzalez, he rides a Harley Davidson afterall. However, who knows more about baseball in the history of the world than Bobby Cox? Bobby Cox hit Heyward second. So, really it's not so much that I'm questioning Fredi Gonzalez, I'm questioning why he isn't following the example of a HOF manager who knew more about how to put his players in a position to succeed than perhaps anyone in the history of the game.

3) I appreciate the fact that we're trying to get McOut going and all, but it's a failed experiment, we need to just cut losses with the guy and trade him along with Kawakami to some Russian League team.

4) Heyward is being groomed for the #3 spot, so we should hit him #2, which is closer to Chipper's spot, and thus he'll be able to more closely observe Chipper.

5) The Braves lineup has struggled thus far and we just need to shake things up.

Now, don't think through any of these statements too hard yourself. Definitely don't apply logic to them. Just keep in mind that sometimes you can reach a correct conclusion for totally nonsensical reasons.

Studies Show...

A recent paper has shown that merely linking something lends credibility to what is being said, regardless of the content of what is being said in the linked article.

This makes sense and seems to go along with my intuitions on the matter.

It's Hard To Believe That One Person Can Spew This Much Fail

I believe we have found Murray Chass and Joe Morgan's love child. In response to Keith Law's latest insider column "goldenbear1975a" posted the following:

goldenbear1975a (4/13/2011 at 8:44 AM) Report Violation

Sabermatrics does not win baseball games and RBI do,
just ask the Oakland A's
RBI is the second most import offensive stat in all of baseball other than the Run scored.
Hating on the win is stupid as well, it is by far the most important stat in all of baseball, since winning is all that matters.
I would rather win every game 6-5 and have my sp have ERA of 4.50 then lose every game 1-0.

goldenbear1975a (4/13/2011 at 9:13 AM) Report Violation

Yes and no, if a pitcher is given a big lead (7-0 after 3 innings) and they just throw strikes and give up 4 runs and win 10-4 that is their job on that day but their WHIP might be high. But who cares if their team wins the game.
Bill James and money ball is so overrated, I would rather have a team full of 100 RBI guys that means you score runs, then a team full of OPS of 1000


Wow, just wow. It's hard to believe that somebody, in this modern age, can misunderstand baseball as badly as this guy.

Is Brian McCann No Longer a Power Hitter?

Fredi Gonzalez has seemingly "settled" the issue of who his cleanup hitter is, and it seems to be Brian McCann. This seems to have happened because it looks like Fredi starts his lineup by penciling in Jason Heyward in the 6th spot and then builds off that alternating lefty righty. So Because Heyward (left handed) must hit 6th, that puts Uggla (right handed) 5th and McCann (left handed) 4th. The Heyward hitting 6th issue has been talked to death, and I won't revisit it here, other than to say, for all the world, that seems to be the primary factor in why McCann is the cleanup hitter.

Now McCann has been a good power hitter and a good candidate for the spot for most of his career. He's been the best power hitting catcher since he came into the league.

However, McCann has seen his power numbers steadily drop since his best power year, 2008 (he had a slightly higher slugging percentage in 2006, but that was mostly because he had a much higher BABIP).

In 2008, Brian McCann was a behemoth. In Just 145 games, he hit 42 doubles and 23 homeruns and even added in a triple. 66 extra base hits from the catcher's spot is some serious damage.

In 2009, we saw a slight dip, but seemingly nothing to be concerned with. McCann still hit 21 homers, which isn't statistically different from 23. However, his doubles did drop from 42 to 35. That was a more significant drop than the homers, but still probably nothing to be concerned over.

In 2010, the homers stayed the same, again likely keeping any alarms from going off. However, his doubles fell again, this time all the way to 25.

People tend to not pay much attention to doubles, but it's long been my contention that doubles are perhaps the most criminally overlooked stat in baseball. Doubles rates, when combined with homers tend to give you a pretty good idea of how often a player is hitting the ball with authority. Comparing McCann's 2010 season to his 2008 season, just looking at doubles and homers, the alarms are beginning to go off:

2008: 42 2B, 23 HR = 65 HR + 2B
2010: 25 2B, 21 HR = 46 HR + 2B

So McCann's HRs + 2Bs have dropped by almost 30%. McCann almost hit more doubles in 2008 than he hit homers and doubles combined in 2010.

So what could be causing this? I can identify three possible factors as being most likely: bad luck, bad health, premature aging due to the rigors of the catching position.

Bad luck is often underappreciated in baseball. Often times the difference between an average season and a very good season is just a few balls finding a couple extra inches left or right. I was perfectly willing to say that McCann's 2009 may well have been bad luck. 7 doubles and 2 home runs is entirely within the range of possible bad luck, especially since McCann played fewer games. However, he then tacked on another, mostly healthy, season and his numbers dropped even further in 2010. Could McCann's power outage be bad luck? It's possible, but at this point he's had enough AB's that it seems unlikely that bad luck plays much more than a small role.

We know McCann had vision issues off and on for the past few years. We know that hitting a baseball with authority takes excellent vision. Maybe McCann's power outage is the result of those vision issues and those vision issues are correctable. Well, this could very well be the case. However, if this is the explanation, then it seems hard to make the case that the vision issues are really correctable at this point. If it's a problem with his vision, then it has taken nearly two years and we still haven't seen McCann consistently hit the ball with authority. Also cutting against the idea that this is mostly a vision issue is the fact that McCann has substantially improved his walk rate. If he's truly having major vision problems, then it would seem unlikely that he's also able to have a better ability to identify strikes and balls. McCann also has seen a decrease in his swing and miss percentage, again cutting against the idea that this is a vision issue.

Lastly is the explanation that no Braves fan wants to hear. It could be possible that the catching a lot of games in the Atlanta heat for several years has just worn him down to the point that he just isn't as strong as he once was. Catching is a hard job and because McCann's bat has been so valuable to the Braves over the years, he has caught a LOT of games. Very few catchers have long careers where they maintain high power numbers throughout, and most of those that have have played for a long time with high power played in places that are nothing like the heat of Atlanta. Carlton Fisk played his career mostly outside of anything like serious heat. Mike Piazza played in Southern California, which can get hot, but not sweltering and New York. Perhaps McCann is just worn down. Sadly this explanation seems to make the most sense. It would explain why McCann has maintained every other part of his offensive game, and in fact improved his walk rate, but has seen a steady drop in his power.

For right now, McCann is the Braves number 4 hitter. For right now he has no extra base hits. One or both of those are going to have to change in a hurry, or this season could unravel quickly. Even if McCann is now more of a singles hitter, he could still be a much better than average offensive catcher, especially considering his improving walk rates. However, if his power drop is real and not just an aberration, he certainly shouldn't be hitting 4th.

Something is Wrong When You Get Outsmarted by Cholly

First, this isn't second guessing. I said this ALL, before it happened and even tweeted how dumb it was before the backbreaking grand slam happened. It was first guessing.

So in a situation where the backup catcher, a RH and the pitcher spot where due up, Fredi G. brought in lefty specialist George Sherrill. It was pretty much an automatic that Cholly was going to pinch hit for Schneider and it was beyond obvious that if the pitcher's spot came up, a pinch hitter would be up there as well.

So it was a near guarantee that Sherrill was going to come on to face 3 RH hitters, if you were paying attention to the game situation. In this situation you need to put in a pitcher who can get out either handed batter out. Eric O'Flaherty would have been a good choice. Even Christhian Martinez would have been decent, as he wouldn't have walked anybody and made the guys hit their way on. Instead, a guy who should only ever face LH batters came in, and couldn't retire a single guy he faced, loading the bases.

This was bad enough.

However, as I said in my bullpen preview, Scott Linebrink, at this point in his career, is a decent bullpen guy, as long as he only comes in with the bases empty. He's prone to giving up the long ball, but is good if the worst he can do is give up a solo HR. But you NEVER bring him up with runners on base or especially with the bases loaded.

Yet, here comes Scott Linebrink and gives up a completely predictable grand slam. Was it guaranteed to happen? Obviously not, but it was substantially more likely to happen by bringing in Linebrink.

The worst part of this whole exchange was how predictably bad it all turned out. None of this was shocking to anybody who knows this team. One thing is known about Sherrill, he can't get RH hitters out. One thing is known about Linebrink, he gives up the long ball.

Cholly didn't pull out some managerial genius, he just made completely normal, predictable moves. Yet Fredi G's completely undefendable moves made Cholly look like a genius. You gotta try pretty hard to make Cholly look like a genius.

I don't know what's more likely the case and what's worse, if Fredi G thought these moves out and somehow thought they were good ideas or if he just wasn't really paying attention.

A Possible Real Impact Call Up That The Braves Should Make Sooner, Rather Than Later

There is a possible, very realistic call up the Braves could make this year that might well put them over the edge in what is likely to be a really, really close race with the Phillies. This call up is a legit major league talent and is already in the organization. Imagine these numbers being added to the team:

in 15 games he could well hit .300/.420/.600 with 3 homers, 12 runs, 7 RBI, 4 doubles. And those numbers would be just a regular, "that's what he's projected to do" type numbers, not an aberrantly hot start.

Who is this late season miracle worker and why in God's name hasn't Wren called the guy up already?!

Well, that's the problem. The guy has already been called up. His name is Jason Heyward.

Huh?!

Over a full season Jason Heyward is slated to lose 15 games worth of AB's, by hitting 6th instead of 2nd. Those AB's will be taken by Nate McLouth. Nate McLouth who best case scenario probably hits .265/.350/.450 over that span.

David O'Brien snidely suggested the other day via Twitter that people upset over those numbers are just upset because they have Heyward on their fantasy team, implying that those additional numbers from Heyward wouldn't benefit the team. I don't have Heyward on my fantasy team, as another deranged braves fan payed $70 for him in my auction league (Heyward went for more dough than Pujols or Joey Votto). However, I do think that those numbers are significant. Especially because there really is absolutely no pro at all to losing that many Heyward at bats. O'Brien's quote also has the chuckle worthy implication that Bobby Cox hit Heyward 2nd last year because he had Heyward on his fantasy team.

First let us consider the supposed pro, which is that Heyward is a run producer, long term, and the 6th spot is kinda like the 5th spot, which is kinda like the 4th spot, which is sorta like the 3rd spot, which is where Heyward will eventually hit according to everyone you talk to about the kid's future (some people say he should always hit 2nd, but I'm actually there referring to where he likely will eventually hit, after Chipper retires). Now, there is the obvious way of looking at things, that the 2nd spot is actually numerically closer to the 3rd spot, and there's the more subtle way of looking at things and see what the spots in the order do. However, the 2nd spot is really much more of the dual run creator and producer type role, as is the 3rd spot. And this is what Heyward is best at, both driving in runs and getting on base to create runs. In contrast, the 6th spot is more of a low end run producing role and is definitely not where you want someone who is going to be a major run creator, as you'll often be left with depending on the 8th and 9th hitters to knock him in. So both ways of looking at the situation say that if you are worried about "grooming him for the 3 spot" which is dubious reasoning to begin with, it still says you should bat Heyward 2nd.

The second argument for Heyward in the 6th spot is that he's more of a run producer than a run creator and that is where his talents help the Braves the most this year. There are three major flaws to this logic. First is the idea that run producers are more valuable than run creators. Guys who get on base and get knocked in are extremely valuable. What has Atlanta mostly been missing for a lot of the decade? A consistent guy at the top of the lineup to get on base and run the bases well and get knocked in by the middle of the order. By batting Heyward 6th, you are wasting one of the most valuable assets in all of baseball: A guy you can pencil in for an over .400 OBP. The second major flaw is the idea that Heyward is more of a run producer than a run creator at this stage in his career. Heyward can have beastly power, however, it is still developing. Right now Heyward has one of the highest ground ball percentages on the team. He has a mostly downward/level swing. When he does hit homers they're mostly of the screaming line drive variety, not the towering majestic shots. At this point in his career, Heyward is more of a doubles hitter with occasional home run power who walks a ton. That type of hitter is best leveraged high in the order, because he's going to get on base more than he clears the bases. The third problem is the very idea that in the current Braves lineup the 6th spot will come to base with substantially more baserunners aboard is faulty to begin with. For now McLouth has actually come to plate with slightly more baserunners than Heyward. And while over the long haul I expect the 6th spot to have more "RBI opportunities" than the 2nd spot, I don't expect the difference to be dramatic, because it's right behind the two best homers/double hitters on the team, McCann and Uggla. Uggla is likely going to have a combined 70-80 homers and doubles. Meaning that a lot of those supposedly precious RBI opportunities are going to be already cleaned out by Uggla. Uggla's not some slap hitter that is going to be on base for Heyward and advance runners for Heyward very much. He's a very powerful hitter that is going to clear the bases a lot.

The third argument for hitting Heyward 6th is to provide Uggla with protection. I'm not really going to go into the dubious idea of lineup protection here, because I've found that the adherents to that belief take more than statistical convincing that lineup protection is a relatively minor point, if it exists at all. Even granting that lineup protection is real, this idea still makes no sense. Jason Heyward is the best all around hitter on the team, and he's patient. If the worry with lineup protection is that it hurts a patient hitter by having them pitched around, wouldn't you want to protect Jason Heyward more than Dan Uggla?! David O'Brien was going on last week about how with a decent start Gonzalez was adequately protecting Heyward, then this week busted out the gem "for those who want Heyward 2nd, who do you suppose is going to protect Uggla?!" Huh? So Gonzalez is good enough to protect the super patient, apt to be pitched around Heyward, but not good enough to protect Uggla, who often swings at and punishes pitches slightly off the plate anyway? Uggla, who fared relatively well in Florida with little to no lineup protection, all of the sudden needs Jason Heyward behind him in Atlanta? Yet Jason Heyward, who tore things up in the 2nd spot last year with protection doesn't need protection? Again, I think the idea of lineup protection is overblown by the traditional media, but even if it is important, it still doesn't support that Heyward should hit 6th.

In the end I doubt this convinces anybody either way. Those that support the Heyward in the 6th spot idea will find any support they can for it. You can approach a nameless beat reporter and Braves blogger with the statistic that Jason Heyward has now walked 8 times and has scored on exactly 0 of those walks and they'll retort "Heyward, you mean that guy who hit that three run bomb the other night?" as if that somehow meant something. Perhaps the most ironic thing is that last year when some fans were questioning Bobby Cox's use of Heyward in the #2 spot, these same people were defending Bobby. They would respond in absolute disbelief that you could question a guy as patient as Heyward in the 2nd spot and the nerve of questioning a hall of fame manager. In the end that probably points out a lot of what this is about. There are some who cannot question the team's manager, especially when he's well respected, as both Fredi and Bobby were and are. You can even make the case that some writers have an interest in backing the manager, and hoping that that backing leads to more access to the club. I'm generally supportive of Fredi, I think he runs a good clubhouse, is pretty good at figuring out when to take out the starting pitchers and I like the way he rotates his lineup regulars. However, batting Heyward 6th is, in my opinion, not the best usage of Heywards talents and not the best way to score more runs for the team, and I'm going to call it that way, not because I question everything the manager does, but because it's true.

So Fredi, please call up Heyward from the 6th spot and put him in the 2nd spot, where he thrived last year, and where Bobby had the foresight to pencil him in.