SCHAEFER METS PLAYERS OF THE MONTH, JULY 2010

[Benjamin Grimm]

SCHAEFER METS PLAYERS OF THE MONTH, JULY 2010

The Schaefer Mets Player of the Month and Pitcher of the Month for July 2010 is R. A. DICKEY. This is R.A.'s first Player of the Month win and his second Pitcher of the Month win. (He was also June's winner this season.) Dickey had a team best 1.51 ERA over 6 starts and 41.2 innings. His won-lost record was a deceptively bad 1-3. Dickey was trailed by Johan Santana, who had a chance to win the Player and Pitcher awards, needing only to earn 1.24 points in his final start of the month; but he instead earned a zero for that July 28 start. Santana nonetheless had an outstanding month, going 3-0 with a 2.06 ERA in 6 starts and 43.2 innings. Santana tied Hisanori Takahashi for the team lead in strikeouts with 28. (Jon Niese, 2-2, 2.48, had 27 strikeouts.)

A special tip of the cap to July's leading offensive player, ANGEL PAGAN, who finished slightly more than 3 points behind R. A. Dickey. Pagan led the Mets with a .337 batting average, a .594 slugging percentage, and a .402 OBP. He led the team in runs (15), hits (34), doubles (7), stolen bases (9), and total bases (60). His 2 triples tied him with Alex Cora for the team lead, and his 5 home runs trailed only Ike Davis, who had 6.


And the Schaefer Mets Relief Pitcher of the Month is a second-time winner, RAUL VALDES. Valdes narrowly beat Bobby Parnell, who only needed to net 0.08 points on July 31, but he ended up giving up 3 runs without retiring any batters. (Perhaps these Schaefer awards are putting too much pressure on the Mets players.) Valdes' victory shows how quirky Schaefer can be with relief pitchers. His 4.26 ERA was higher than those of Parnell, Francisco Rodriguez, and Elmer Dessens, and he appeared in fewer games than those players. Valdes' ERA was inflated in his last appearance of the month, on July 30, when he gave up 4 earned runs in 0 innings. But prior to that, he racked up the Schaefer points with 10 consecutive scoreless innings over 6 games from July 19 through July 28. (That included games in which he pitched 2, 2.2, and 3 innings.)



Month-to-date totals for July 2010
Through game of July 31, 2010

Rank	Name	Points
1	R. A. Dickey	24.30
2	Johan Santana	23.07
3	Angel Pagan	21.22
4	Ike Davis	17.52
5	David Wright	17.32
6	Jon Niese	17.13
7	Hisanori Takahashi	10.40
8	Jason Bay	9.99
9	Jos� Reyes	7.76
10	Josh Thole	7.25
11	Raul Valdes	5.96
12	Bobby Parnell	5.89
13	Carlos Beltran	5.86
14	Alex Cora	5.68
15	Francisco Rodriguez	4.44
16	Elmer Dessens	4.04
17	Jeff Francoeur	3.87
18	Rod Barajas	3.20
19	Fernando Nieve	2.43
20	Pedro Feliciano	2.40
21	Manny Acosta	2.22
22	Jesus Feliciano	2.20
23	Luis Castillo	2.15
24	Mike Pelfrey	1.83
25	Mike Hessman	1.49
26	Ruben Tejada	1.37
27	Henry Blanco	0.90
28	Chris Carter	0.60
29	Oliver Perez	0.49
30	Justin Turner	0.47
31	Ryota Igarashi	0.15
32	Fernando Tatis	0.03

[Guest Edgy DC]

RA Dickey does it all, including stealing Schaefer.

Strange to see Tatis on the list. Igarashi too, I guess.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And congratulations on a repeat visit to Schaefer City to both:

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Congrats to R.A.

He deserves all the Schaefer they can brew.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Seriously though, a 35-year-old journeyman with a bullshit pitch, a wildman beard, and a sub-arbitration salary who makes faces like this when he releases cracks into the Mets rotation as overpaid disappointments fall by the wayside, and consistently dominates.

If we weren't so busy with our angst, we'd be going nuts with what a great story this is. (And not for nothing, but Takahashi also.)

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Dickey's first innings are the only defensive first innings I can watch/listen to anymore (save the occasional Niese or Takahashi start).

I'm seriously considering getting a jersey, or at least a custom shirsey. (My fellow-right-thinking-- if more casual-- cousin Benedict is even more seriously considering it.)

[TransMonk]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: I'm seriously considering getting a jersey, or at least a custom shirsey

Me too. I'll prolly wait through the offseason to make sure he's around next season before I pull the trigger.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Dickey's been my favorite Met for about two months now. We'll see how long this lasts. On a Dickey note, I'm pissed at fangraphs WAR because Dickey's WAR stayed the same (2.1) after last night's start. That oughtta raise Dickey's IP/WAR. Baseball Reference's WAR formula had Dickey at 2.4 before last night's game.

The reason that Schaefer is so quirky with relievers (relievers especially, I'd say, but quirky with everyone) is because the Schaefer system for determining player of the month is deeply flawed. So there. I finally said it after holding it in all these years. That's why I don't participate in Schaefer. It's my personal protest against the system. Call me a killjoy all you want. I can't help myself anymore and I can't hold it in anymore. I've been holding it in 'cause I figured I'd get moidered here but I can't hold it in.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Blame Bob, Ralph and Lindsay, not us. They invented the thing.

[batmagadanleadoff]

I'm not blaming anybody.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Which specific flaw do you speak of?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: Which specific flaw do you speak of?

I 'm glad you asked. Schaefer works well enough to determine the player of the game, but begins to break down as the demands on Schaefer are increased; Schaefer is ill-suited to determine the player of the month, player of the year, etc.

In order to determine player of the month with any degree of reasonable accuracy, the voter ought to be required to rate the performance of every single player that played in the game, not just the handful of players that had the best performances. Moreover, the rating scale ought to reflect that the score of a player who doesn�t get into the game should be zero. This means that any player whose performance hurt the Mets more than it helped the Mets ought to be given a negative number score.

I�ll illustrate the Schaefer flaw using the following example for relief pitchers, since Grimm noted just how quirky the system is for relievers. But the flaw is just as applicable to starting pitchers and everyday position players.

In the month of September, the Mets win their first 13 games, all by the score of 2-1. K-Rod saves each of those first 13 wins by pitching a scoreless 9th inning and striking out the side on nine pitches in each of his 13 saves. On the evening of his 13th save, he suffers a season-ending injury while celebrating after the most recent Met win.


The Mets then go on to win their remaining 13 games in the month of September, all by a score of 1-0. In each of those remaining 13 games, the starting pitcher pitches eight innings of shutout ball. Bobby Parnell saves each of the last 13 games, repeating K-Rod�s performance of the first half of the month by striking out the side on nine pitches in every save.

Here�s the catch: (or glitch): K-Rod�s September record is a perfect 13 appearances/13 saves/39 strikeouts/0.00 WHIP. But what if Parnell was the eight inning pitcher in each of K-Rod�s 13 September saves? And what if Parnell gave up one run in each of his eighth inning performances? The Schaefer voting, in all likelihood, wouldn�t penalize Parnell for his ineffective run of eighth innings. Schaefer would simply credit Parnell for his saves �. his positive performances. And because Parnell�s and K-Rod�s positive performances are identical in this hypothetical, it is likely that they would finish tied for Schaefer reliever of the month for September. The flaw in Schaefer player of the month is that it doesn�t penalize, or even account, for negative performances. The system, as it is, is bound to get the player of the month right sometimes, either by luck, or because of the disparity in performance among the top candidates. But the closer the candidates are statistically, the likelier it is that Scahefer will pick the wrong player of the month.

But the mock baseball cards alone, are worth the price of admission.

[Guest Edgy DC]

So it boils down mostly to no negative points for negative performances, correct?

I do generate negative points for each game. I posted them for a while, solipsistically thinking them worthy of attention, but Willets thought me a negative Nancy, so I stopped.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy DC wrote: So it boils down mostly to no negative points for negative performances, correct?.

Kind of. To determine player of the month, every player should be awarded a game score for every game he appears in. The stars, the heroes, the goats, and everyone in between.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Didn't mean to imply you were blaming anyone, just saying that we all acknowledge the Schaefer process is flawed to some degree but based upon the way they used to it in the booth. If you make the mental adjustment that these results are not meaningful statistics but more or less what would have been come up with by announcers in the 1970s it's easy to participate.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I also agree that it has its flaws. But to Johnny's point, this exercise is for fun, not for science. We're extending the Lindsey-Ralph-Bob tradition.

[Willets Point]

Edgy DC wrote: So it boils down mostly to no negative points for negative performances, correct? I do generate negative points for each game. I posted them for a while, solipsistically thinking them worthy of attention, but Willets thought me a negative Nancy, so I stopped.

Me? Don't blame me. I have nothing to do with this. I just come to look at the cool retro-style baseball card.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Aww shucks and all. I know you weren't criticizing me. I didn't take it that way. I was only trying to explain why Schaefer would yield quirky results, as Grimm noticed earlier. Heck, I might even vote tonight now that I got this out of my system.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I also agree that it has its flaws. But to Johnny's point, this exercise is for fun, not for science. We're extending the Lindsey-Ralph-Bob tradition.

That's the spirit!

[ashie62]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Didn't mean to imply you were blaming anyone, just saying that we all acknowledge the Schaefer process is flawed to some degree but based upon the way they used to it in the booth. If you make the mental adjustment that these results are not meaningful statistics but more or less what would have been come up with by announcers in the 1970s it's easy to participate.

It is not flawed at all. I just don't understand why its' the same 6-8 people voting every game, yeesh.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Willets Point wrote: Edgy DC wrote: So it boils down mostly to no negative points for negative performances, correct? I do generate negative points for each game. I posted them for a while, solipsistically thinking them worthy of attention, but Willets thought me a negative Nancy, so I stopped. Me? Don't blame me. I have nothing to do with this. I just come to look at the cool retro-style baseball card.

Blaming? Certainly not.

[ashie62]

We need to cultivate the blame.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Um... wha?

[G-Fafif]

I'll bet the graphics team at Schaefer-Topps HQ in Pa., when planning for the season ahead, made preparing R.A. Dickey cards a pretty low priority. Yet you wouldn't know it from the work they put out. The '74 is a beauty.

R.A. Dickey is a beauty, too.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Thank you!

I don't prepare them that far in advance, though. Just a few days, when I get a sense of who the winners might be. Sometimes I end up with cards that go unused. Last year there was a 1972 Luis Castillo and a 1971 Daniel Murphy. (Yes, Castillo came very close to being a Player of the Month. I forget which month. Murphy's near miss was in September, when he finished behind Jeff Francoeur.)

This year I have three such cards. I hope to get to use them all this season, but there's one that's very unlikely. Even if they remain un-Schaefered, I'll eventually reveal them.

[metsmarathon]

i need to get back on the schaeffer bandwagon. i generate two lists. well, actually four or five. one with just the schaeffer votes. one with the schaeffer votes before they are scaled to the 10-point max scale. one which rates all players, positively and negatively. and another two where i turn a key. a little skate key which has been gathering way too much dust lately.

the results from the first three lists don't usually differ all that much, until you get to the very bottom of the list.

[Zvon]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Thank you! I don't prepare them that far in advance, though. Just a few days, when I get a sense of who the winners might be. Sometimes I end up with cards that go unused. Last year there was a 1972 Luis Castillo and a 1971 Daniel Murphy. (Yes, Castillo came very close to being a Player of the Month. I forget which month. Murphy's near miss was in September, when he finished behind Jeff Francoeur.) This year I have three such cards. I hope to get to use them all this season, but there's one that's very unlikely. Even if they remain un-Schaefered, I'll eventually reveal them.

Rare Grimm collector cards...

Yay!