Scott Cousins 2011: He's Got Mike's Back

[Ramp]

uffered a toe injury and opted out of his contract. Still a rookie, Cousins can't boast Wise's experience, but in terms of skill sets he's in no way an inferior alternative.

"We know that there's more Cousins can bring other than being a fourth outfielder," said manager Edwin Rodriguez, adding that he plans to use Cousins as a defensive replacement in center until Chris Coghlan's shoulder is 100 percent. "Cousins has a higher ceiling."

With Ross proclaiming himself healthy last April, Cousins headed to Triple-A New Orleans and did not make his major league debut until September. He appeared in 27 games and went 11-for-37 (.297) with two doubles and two triples.

I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't disappointed when they sent me down," Cousins said. "You have to be. Otherwise, why are you playing this game? I had to let that pass and take care of business at Triple-A. … [The September promotion] was imperative. I wanted to get that taste and show I belonged there and get that confidence. Now that I have that, I want to focus on playing my game and playing the team game.

"I just want to be a guy that helps this team get to the postseason. That's my main focus. I got a ring in the minor leagues [Double-A Jacksonville in 2009] and that was the best feeling I've had playing baseball. I want to have that feeling at the big league level."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/f...0,441358.story

[Jay]

Wasn't his AAA line unimpressive last year?

[emkayseven]

it was pretty in line with his career numbers

[Jay]

Started slow? I might be mixing him up with another AAA outfielder.

[Ramp]

He starts slow every season and tears it up when the weather gets hot

[lou]

It's hot and humid today

[Party]

He better tear it up.

[Mainge]

Catch the ball, Scotty.

[Ramp]

courtesy of MarlinsManiac.com

In the tenth inning of the Saturday night game between the Marlins and Mets, Scott Cousins made an interesting decision that apparently got the Marlins’ brass talking. In a situation with no one out and Jose Reyes and Angel Pagan at second and first respectively, David Wright popped a foul ball into right field that Cousins intentionally dropped. That sounds like a strange move, but listen to the reasoning Cousins provides:
Cousins didn’t make the catch, he said, because both runners would have tagged into scoring position with one out.

Ignore the fact that Wright later singled and plated Reyes anyway. Was this the right decision? To figure this out, we have to look at a lot of very interesting factors. Let’s start with a simple win expectancy examination using this table provided by Tom Tango.



The two game states boxed in red are the ones with which we need to be most concerned. Essentially, Cousins’s reasoning came down to a decision between a situation with runners on first and second and no one out or runners on second and third and one out (any inning past the ninth works the same as the ninth inning, so you can use ninth inning data / simulations as proxy). As you can see, the change in win expectancy isn’t very large; the former situation has a Marlins win expectancy of 0.297 while the latter is at 0.281. Still, the Marlins would have been hurt by taking the out and letting the runners advance (assuming both runners were able to advance). In addition, manager Edwin Rodriguez already claimed that he would have walked Carlos Beltran, the following hitter, to load the bases for Chin-lung Hu anyway. You can see by the chart that the bases loaded situation actually yields a lower win expectancy for the Fish, at 0.278. Essentially, by passing on catching that ball, Cousins potentially saved about 0.02 wins.

Let’s make the assumption that Pagan would have taken second base only half the time on a caught foul ball, yielding an expected WPA of .292. That wrinkle would make the move essentially an even trade, netting the Marlins about half an extra percentage point chance of winning. That means that Cousins decision is defensible on this basis alone (either move would have yielded similar results), but there are three additional factors to be considered:

1) The hitter at the plate was David Wright, while the next hitter was either Carlos Beltran or Chin-lung Hu.

2) The pitcher was Ryan Webb, who has a higher than average propensity for inducing ground balls.

3) The count at the time was not 0-0.

ZiPS projects Wright as a .363 wOBA hitter, or about 0.03 runs better than an average hitter per plate appearance. That is projected to be 0.014 runs better than Beltran and about 0.07 runs better than Hu per plate appearance. On average we’d expect Wright to be 0.042 runs better than the average hitter following him using these projections. Given the importance of the situation, those runs would be worth about 0.15 wins, meaning they would sway the argument towards catching the ball and getting David Wright out.

However, based on Baseball-Reference’s box score, the count at the time was 1-2, and hitters aren’t nearly as good on 1-2 counts as they are normally. In 2010, major league hitters hit .257/.325/.403 as a whole, but only .179/.228/.239 on 1-2 counts. Even Wright has a .291 wOBA (.226/..286/.377) after 1-2 counts. So in that respect, the Marlins’ odds were better with Wright at the plate because he would have been a signficantly worse hitter down 1-2 than at least Beltran on a starting count.

What’s the ultimate decision? The math initially leaned towards’ Cousins’s decision to drop the fly ball. What do you Maniacs think?

[Beef]

I'm glad you posted that mostly because I was curious if Cousins did it on purpose for that reason or if he just saw the wall coming.

[Party]

Take THAT drunk fan from Jupiter who got up yelled at Cousins and left.

[Beef]

I would have preferred he caught it still.

Also, you are guy that yelled at Maybin, always!

[Bobbob1313]

But he doesn't drink.

[MiamiHomer]

I'll never forget when Festa got upset at Maybin for not hitting the cut off man after he robbed someone of a three run HR.

[Bobbob1313]

I'll never forget when Festa got upset at Maybin for not hitting the cut off man after he robbed someone of a three run HR.

Glass houses, Mr. Angrypants.