2024 Game Thread

[Namaste]

I’m at the Marlins game. There are soooooo many people here who have never been here before judging by what I’m overhearing

[Todd]

If he had enough AB to qualify Lopez would have the worst WRC+ and second worse WOBA among 2B. His WRC+ is 100 against RHP(i.e. average) and it took him a month and half of having a BABIP of over .400 to get it to that. With a normalized BABIP he doesn't hit RHP either.

He is an objectively awful hitter.

He is a decent baserunner and a pretty good defender.

You can shield him against LHP but you are still getting a bad hitter against RHP.

[Namaste]

Marlins down 3 runs in the 7th and Edwards gets thrown out with 2 outs trying to take 3rd after stealing 2B

With Norby in the batters box oooof

[lou]

To me, Otto is Jon Berti with slightly more upside. Probably not a starter on a good team, but he is just 25 in his first full season in the Majors and was once considered a fairly good prospect in Toronto, so I'm not going to say he can't develop a bit more.

Like I said, he's shown enough to be penciled in as a starter going into next season until someone can take the job from him and then he becomes the super utility guy. Maybe that's Sanoja...maybe it's Serna after a few months in AAA. But they got him for nothing and he's a solid MLB piece going forward who is cheap for a while...it's a win. Definitely one of the few bright spots this season.

Yes - 2023 FV45 (same as Edwards). This guy isn't a total nobody. The Giants are probably pissed they let him go over Estrada right now.

I think this team doesn't really need to coin starters TBH.

Burger, Edwards, and Norby should play every day somewhere. Everyone else is a platoon player right now. And I do mean everyone.

[lou]

If he had enough AB to qualify Lopez would have the worst WRC+ and second worse WOBA among 2B. His WRC+ is 100 against RHP(i.e. average) and it took him a month and half of having a BABIP of over .400 to get it to that. With a normalized BABIP he doesn't hit RHP either.

He is an objectively awful hitter.

He is a decent baserunner and a pretty good defender.

You can shield him against LHP but you are still getting a bad hitter against RHP.

You missed or didn't read my post. Here is is again.

And please note his BABIP for the season is .306 entering today. The BABIP normalized. If you want to complain he's on a bender, well he was unlucky before that. That's how BABIP works? A low .700 OPS hitter is not "a bad hitter against RHP". Analytics in expected slash support everything. What are you doing here?



Season line - .260/.302/.369 (.671)
Expected slash - .269/.311/.397 (.708)
His season BABIP is .306. 86th percentile sprint speed with good K rate, so that is perhaps, a bit low.

So he is overall, underachieving by all indications. Mainly just on a little slugging, but it is underachieving. A SSS BABIP point doesn't out weigh the entire season here my dude. And no, I do not think he is a .900+ OPS bat like his September split and nowhere have I said that. He's hot. It happens. He's still a high .600/low .700 OPS bat more than likely


What is also dead average against RHP mean? Let's unpack what average at 2B is.

A dead average hitter at 2B (overall, no splits) is a .683 OPS (minimum PA 200)
Against RHP, this scales up slightly to .687 (minimum 150 PA).
Against LHP, this scales to .692 (minimum 100, PA, I have scaled the splits opportunity guys down a little)

So overall right now

Slightly below average overall hitter for a 2B... but his expected outcome says he is a little better. He's in the range of average here depending on the bloops dropping.

Above average hitter against RHP (.726, actual OPS right now on split). This is actually fairly notable. And he has a .320 BABIP against RHP so that isn't outrageous with his speed/contact. He's not overachieving here, and if he is, he's still over a .687 OPS. Where an average hitter + elite defender + very good base runner is.... a good platoon starter.

Pathetic against LHP and yes, we agree virtually unplayable. It is very bad.

So if you shield him on lefties, he's performing like an above average overall hitter at his position (maybe not by a lot, but by some and that is something) so saying he is dead average isn't an accurate statement.

[lou]

Marlins down 3 runs in the 7th and Edwards gets thrown out with 2 outs trying to take 3rd after stealing 2B

With Norby in the batters box oooof

How did the ball sound off Otto's bat when he hit that single? Did Benny Hill music start playing?

[Todd]

You missed or didn't read my post. Here is is again.

And please note his BABIP for the season is .306 entering today. The BABIP normalized. If you want to complain he's on a bender, well he was unlucky before that. That's how BABIP works? A low .700 OPS hitter is not "a bad hitter against RHP". Analytics in expected slash support everything. What are you doing here?



Season line - .260/.302/.369 (.671)
Expected slash - .269/.311/.397 (.708)
His season BABIP is .306. 86th percentile sprint speed with good K rate, so that is perhaps, a bit low.

So he is overall, underachieving by all indications. Mainly just on a little slugging, but it is underachieving. A SSS BABIP point doesn't out weigh the entire season here my dude. And no, I do not think he is a .900+ OPS bat like his September split and nowhere have I said that. He's hot. It happens. He's still a high .600/low .700 OPS bat more than likely


What is also dead average against RHP mean? Let's unpack what average at 2B is.

A dead average hitter at 2B (overall, no splits) is a .683 OPS (minimum PA 200)
Against RHP, this scales up slightly to .687 (minimum 150 PA).
Against LHP, this scales to .692 (minimum 100, PA, I have scaled the splits opportunity guys down a little)

So overall right now

Slightly below average overall hitter for a 2B... but his expected outcome says he is a little better. He's in the range of average here depending on the bloops dropping.

Above average hitter against RHP (.726, actual OPS right now on split). This is actually fairly notable. And he has a .320 BABIP against RHP so that isn't outrageous with his speed/contact. He's not overachieving here, and if he is, he's still over a .687 OPS. Where an average hitter + elite defender + very good base runner is.... a good platoon starter.

Pathetic against LHP and yes, we agree virtually unplayable. It is very bad.

So if you shield him on lefties, he's performing like an above average overall hitter at his position (maybe not by a lot, but by some and that is something) so saying he is dead average isn't an accurate statement.

His WRC+ against RHP is literally 100...exactly average. And that's with a .320 BABIP. And by WRC+ and wOBA he is the worst offensive 2B.

Are you being fucking dense? Or is this the one time you don't default to advanced statistics because they don't agree with you?

[fauowls44]

Not to be that guy that ignores all the numbers, because I generally believe that all these stats do matter in determining if a player is actually good…but I don’t think just pointing to his numbers and saying Otto Lopez is bad is fair. I have, for some reason, watched most of his at bats this year. You are entitled to your opinion, but if you haven’t actually watched him play and are just looking at these advanced stats overall, I would get why you assume he’s just whatever the numbers say he is. However, by watching him, I just think he is actually a decent to good hitter. Yes, he had a brutal stretch coming off the IL which is dragging his stats down, but other than those 100ish at bats he’s been good. He’s also a rookie getting his first extensive playing time in the Majors, so a slump or two isn’t unexpected.

I’m not saying the guy is a star or even close. My only point is that he is someone you can potentially start next season and feel pretty good about going into the season. The Marlins don’t have many of those players yet and to get one off of a waiver claim is kind of cool. Maybe he falls flat on his face next year or gets beaten out in spring training by Sanoja or Serna or whoever, but given how he’s performed this year and his past decent prospect pedigree, I’m not discounting him holding the job for a while.

[Namaste]

His WRC+ against RHP is literally 100...exactly average. And that's with a .320 BABIP. And by WRC+ and wOBA he is the worst offensive 2B.

Are you being fucking dense? Or is this the one time you don't default to advanced statistics because they don't agree with you?

You literally said he was an “objectively AWFUL hitter”

lou showed you in great detail that he’s an average hitter against RHP

then lou said he needs to be shielded from LHP

whos being dense?

[lou]

His WRC+ against RHP is literally 100...exactly average. And that's with a .320 BABIP. And by WRC+ and wOBA he is the worst offensive 2B.

Are you being fucking dense? Or is this the one time you don't default to advanced statistics because they don't agree with you?

I'm not being the dense one here Todd. You're using a number of things to try and cast a shadowy picture for whatever reason, like saying it's only about qualified hitters or using all MLB hitters as the baseline. Otto's value is tied to 2B, i.e. the position he actually plays. We don't care if Otto - or any - hitter is league average. We care if a player is average to where he plays as it's the only way to value him as he can never be judged against someone like Soto or even J. Sanchez. There is a very important position scarcity point here that is being overlooked, as well as only looking at qualified hitters can't be the bench mark for a guy who is platoon/bench player himself.

Let's do this again so show the math maths.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/ma...ault&pagenum=1

Otto is the 31st best overall hitter at 2B this year (I am using OPS for shorthand here, and min. 200 PA, which we have to scale down and not just say "qualified" as there are many platoons throughout the league, injured players, mid-season call-ups, or heavier usage bench guys, etc. This captures them all). 31st isn't exactly a great number, *BUT* this is out of 53 guys so it's not like he is a schmuck here and is better than close to half of them. He is holding his own basically. I've already said he is playing like a slightly below average hitter this year. At the same time, his expected slash is .270/.312/.398 so the analytics say he is underachieving on these numbers so if that expectancy is real, that would push this 31st to...16th. For real. The difference between a .677 OPS and .710 OPS moves you up from 31st in the league to 16th. i.e., all these players are the same as this is a pretty de minimus delta in OPS and we're talking bloop singles being the difference. A guy with a 86th percentile sprint speed as well as a good 17.8% K rate is extremely likely going to out perform his BABIP. And then, his overall BABIP this year is now .308 which I mean is as far as far can get. I'd be a lot more alarmed if his BABIP was say..... .384 like Xavier Edwards. If Otto had a .384 BABIP, I think we'd all agree this is a fringe bench guy at best. But he's not doing that.

Then, you move over to the RHP splits (https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/ma...ault&pagenum=1), and lowering to 150 PA to give some extra runway for the platoon guys, Otto all of a sudden is the 15th best hitter (out of 51) at 2B against right handers. Yes, his RHP BABIP is .320, which for one isn't outrageously high for reasons stated, and two, even if you want to grab 10-20 batting average points off of him, he's still still going to end up being call it the 25th-35th best hitter (out of 51) at 2B against right handers scaling him to the .670-.690 OPS range. Which again, is not a schmuck level of production at 2B even if that is unplayable at other positions in the league like 1B/OF.

So he is a pretty average hitter at 2B overall, maybe slightly below but not by much, and likely a slightly above average one at worst versus RHP. He is of course, one of the worst and unplayable against LHP.

So package that offense with being a top 5 defender (fangraphs says 3rd, statcast says 91st percentile for the entire league), and top 10 base runner at the position (FG says exactly 10th, and statcast 74th percentile for the league), and this is a very solid overall baseball player who spikes higher at RHP. There is a reason he is 12th in fWAR this year among all 2B, and his range of outcomes if you want to ding his offense is a floor 11th-20th range player with this amount of overall production. That is, an average starting baseball player or a real asset if you get a platoon split out of him.

So I again ask, what are we doing here? This guy is fine. Otto's career slash right now is .271/.313/.379 (.320 BABIP, as his fleeting time before this year he got some hits, this is an 18% K rate). Berti's career slash is .259/.336/.366 (Career .327 BABIP, because he's fucking quick, and that's a 22% K rate) and we like Berti? Are we criticizing Berti's BABIP figures?

I'm not saying Otto is going to hold up as the offensive profile is still low and yes, it is *a lot* of defensive value and one ankle tweak could impact that greatly which I get, but this is a piece for 2025, he is good enough to me to discuss the idea of moving Edwards/Serna for a SS/CF(right handed) as combined with the other of Edwards/Serna and Norby this is a good 2B plan for awhile, and the underlying data supports what he is doing - even if viewed as a platoon/bench guy. What Edwards is doing is *not* real with a .384 BABIP. What Bride is doing with vast 100+ OPS overachieving versus his expected slash is not real. Otto is not in this bucket. He has earned all of it and as Marlins fans, we should be happy they plucked what looks like to be a pretty real guy out of nothing, even if when we say "real", that means a 400 PA platoon/bench 2B/backup SS type against RHP and late game defensive replacement. This is the kind of guy the Rays get, extract value out of for 3-4 years, and churn out. We can applaud them for this, even if this isn't the earth shattering move (or three) that they need to get into the contending space.

[lou]

Not to be that guy that ignores all the numbers, because I generally believe that all these stats do matter in determining if a player is actually good…but I don’t think just pointing to his numbers and saying Otto Lopez is bad is fair. I have, for some reason, watched most of his at bats this year. You are entitled to your opinion, but if you haven’t actually watched him play and are just looking at these advanced stats overall, I would get why you assume he’s just whatever the numbers say he is. However, by watching him, I just think he is actually a decent to good hitter. Yes, he had a brutal stretch coming off the IL which is dragging his stats down, but other than those 100ish at bats he’s been good. He’s also a rookie getting his first extensive playing time in the Majors, so a slump or two isn’t unexpected.

I’m not saying the guy is a star or even close. My only point is that he is someone you can potentially start next season and feel pretty good about going into the season. The Marlins don’t have many of those players yet and to get one off of a waiver claim is kind of cool. Maybe he falls flat on his face next year or gets beaten out in spring training by Sanoja or Serna or whoever, but given how he’s performed this year and his past decent prospect pedigree, I’m not discounting him holding the job for a while.

Bingo. If nothing more, he has earned a 2-3 month leash against all RHP to open next year unless he completely falls on his face. He has shown more than enough this season.

[Namaste]

Guess I picked the absolute worst game of the Dodgers series to attend

[rmc523]

Guess I picked the absolute worst game of the Dodgers series to attend

You get credit for trying lol.

i wouldn’t have bothered giving them any money

[fish16]

i'd say that's probably the best game you could have gone to. saw history and one of the best individual hitting games ever. what was the best case scenario? you see a terrible team about to lose 100 games win 1?

[lou]

Guess I picked the absolute worst game of the Dodgers series to attend

I know, getting to see Brujan pitch. Would have been amazing.