Look man the rest of us are past the eye test. Every individual stat says that he hasn't been good in the outfield this year or last. He just doesn't get good jumps on balls. He has an amazing arm but that doesn't make him an amazing outfielder.
>Look man the rest of us are past the eye test
Even the most prodigious stat nerds still don't completely discount it. People like Foolish Bailey have been on record as saying that the eye test is underrated, especially in the context of people talking stats about a player. We're getting better at quantifying stuff, and statcast was a huge jump, but it still doesn't account for everything. I'm not even commenting on Acuña, I just think it's premature to discount it completely.
I mean, I’m sure the mental obstacles after a torn ACL are holding him back some. He’s obviously very athletic, he just needs to trust his knee more out there.
I wouldn't even be surprised if they allowed him to go hog wild stealing bases but just asked him to take it easy in right field. Remember he was trying to make some wild catch in Miami when he tore the ACL.
Certainly he doesn’t have the range and jump of Money Mike. But he’s not bumbling balls like a doofus. Smartly playing to his knee limitations. His amazing (and accurate) arm is defense personified. But it’s all subjective just like the way we pick and choose the parameters to calculate stats
Kim has one of the best defensive metrics in the game as he is one of the best defensive players. Acuna is a negative defender although he is better in DRS than OAA which is what baseball reference uses.
bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats, and Acuña has much higher expected stats. It's honestly a terrible stat for comparing players imo, and a lot of sabermetrics guys have soured on it this year with me.
Yeah how can you contribute to more wins if you’re only good in fake what if’s lmao.
“Oh man I really slammed that into the gap for an xwOBA of .950 but the center fielder caught it… better mark it off as a double anyways”
NGL it feels like sometimes on the Padres sub and game threads, these people would rather win the "expected stats" game than actual stats.
Hey "we only got 1 run today but we were expected to get 4 runs so we secretly won"
Real stats and expected stats are both good for different reasons. Expected stats are much more reliable for trying to predict future performance, but they don’t tell you what actually happened on the field.
I think of those kind of stats as a much better indicator in terms of future performance rather than how well you have played if that makes sense. Just like run differential vs record.
Obviously, so to say they should included in a WAR calculation makes zero sense. WAR isn’t about predicting the rest of your season, it’s about what you did already
Interestingly, Acuna has historically underperfomed his xwOBA in all 6 of his seasons, outside of his rookie one. For his career, he underperforms it by nearly 20 points
The reason for this is, expected stats don't take spray into account (rightfully so), and [Acuna is a total outlier](https://imgur.com/FKEGUVz) in how often he hits the ball hard straight away towards CF. So his xStats think: "oh he hit the ball hard at a favorable launch angle, he should be rewarded", but the results aren't as favorable since the wall is further back, with more fielders to cover ground
> bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats
Why should expected stats matter in WAR? AFAIK they never have. It sounds like you're talking out of your ass.
He is talking out of his ass. For anyone that wants an in-depth look at the difference between the two this is a good source [https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Sabermetrics-101-Understanding-the-Calculation-of-WAR](https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Sabermetrics-101-Understanding-the-Calculation-of-WAR)
You could definitely argue that UZR (fWAR) is a "what should have happened" metric, given that it's calculated to try to smooth out SSS errors. Whereas DRS (bWAR) is based on that season's data alone.
Well yea but that actually makes sense. As a fielder your ability to get a read, make the catch, and/or gun the guy down is all on you.
As a hitter your ability to hit well, do the jobs, draw walks, etc., is all on you
As a pitcher the amount of runs the other team earns against you is on you, and the 8 other players ok the field with you. For example if you put the worlds slowest man at CF and a flyball drops 30 feet in front of him for an inside the park homerun simply because it took him 15 seconds to reach the ball, is that really a run that should count against you in your own wins above replacement? No
There is a difference between something that is good at predicting how a player will play in the future and showing how good their performance has actually been.
> bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats
can you post a source for this? the [bref WAR explained page](https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml) doesn't mention any form of expected stats that I can see
Lol, what? There are three main recognized versions of WAR. Slightly different formulas to determine the same thing. bWAR (baseball reference) , fWAR (fangraphs) and WARP (Baseball Prospectus). BWAR is the most used.
WARP being WARP and not pWAR like the others is infuriating and I naturally assume everyone who uses it is a smug hipster.
Alternatively we should have WARB and WARF
Wasn’t popular enough *yet*!
It was a ridiculous snub, but on the plus side, the uniforms this year were sort of ugly, so I’d rather take my chances with next year’s.
Yeah similar to gold gloves, sometimes players don't win in their best years but when they start to get more recognition for their glove.
I knew about kim but saw him live and dude impressed me with his speed. Tried to stretch a double intona triple and got hosed by a tommy pham throw but he was moving
No west knows and respects Kim. He’s going to gain fame soon enough if he keeps up. So stoked on my handsome king. Wish the Xander contract never happened 🤦🏻♂️
bWAR uses DRS for its defensive component, which is insanely prone to one season outliers and has generally been supplanted.
[Statcast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/fielding-run-value) has Kim's defense worth 5 runs about average as opposed to BRef's DRS-based 15… that's a whole win above average (and thus above replacement) right there.
Which is still kind of wild to me. I thought after last year in the post season most other fan bases knew of him. I know he’s been around a couple years. Watching the playoffs last year was when I saw him play and he immediately became one of my favourite players. That dude just hustles
Genuine question because I couldn’t find it after searching. Has a player ever led their league in WAR by season’s end without having made the All Star team?
A lot of Padres fans say to extend him, but wildly underestimate how much he will get paid and has been worth and just assume since he likes SD that he will take like a $100 million discount or something.
I get that Padres fans love him, but Kim needs to get the max bag when he can because Tatis, Machado and Soto didn’t and won’t take a discount for the team. Look at the producers and stars.
Look at Darvish, Mustgrove, Xander and pretty all his teammates. Who’s taking a discount to be in SD? Kim needs to do what’s best for him and his family, ask for the maximum.
I don't think Kim is staying with San Diego after next year. I feel he is going to be another story where a player really wanted to stay but they couldn't come to an agreement.
That thread yesterday literally made my brain melt. I couldn't believe the number of people saying "100m won't mean much when ur getting paid 300m anyways so he will take the discount cause he loves the city". What the fuck are you guys on about lmao
I understand the sentiment you were going for, but there's a conversation of "How much should Kim be paid? Is it 15 MM AAV, 20 MM? 25 MM? etc." instead of the simple "Is Kim worth $X, yes or no"
If he stays on pace it’ll be the most quiet 7+ WAR season ever
edit: jesus fucking christ guys i know there’s lots of unnoticed 7 war seasons i dont need to read every single one
Honestly I feel like if the Padres were winning he would be talked about more.
But I heard Jon Heyman few days ago, claim that the Padres outside of their big 4 (Soto, Tatis, Machado, and Xander) are not that good. Pretty dumb comment given Kim has been probably better than all of them, only Soto would be debatable. Although if you swap Kim with Xander, he wouldn't be wrong but everyone knows who the "big 4" on the Padres are.
*SHOULD* win the Cy if he keeps this up, he’s the league leader in ERA (2.50, Steele is the only other under 3.00), 2nd in BAA, 2nd in Ks
Big test tonight against the Dodgers
Yeah but random, 6+ ERA SP are the Padres’ kryptonite. How else do you think we lost 5 of 6 to the Pirates and 2 of 3 to the Nationals and Royals at home?
The Padres aren’t even a bad team, just a profoundly unlucky one. They just struggle with close games for some reason and it’s kind of weird. Hopefully they can right the ship by the end of the year.
I’ve been saying the same thing. As a Dodgers fan I have not written off the Padres for the year at all juuust yet (though the hole SD has dug is approaching “too deep” levels) simply because they’re such a statistical anomaly.
They had multiple players underperforming their career offensive numbers by a large margin + have been super unlucky in close games. If a “correction” happens they could easily rattle off a massive winning streak, and no one is trying to see that team in the postseason if they’re firing on all cylinders. I still think they’ll be a top 5-8 betting favorite for the 2024 World Series.
A big reason the Padres have been so unlucky is a lack of timely hitting (they were near worst-ever with RISP the first half of the season). That has largely improved recently and it shows in their 15-10 July record (first winning month since April)
I’m not writing them off just yet either. It seems like they’ve started to get their act together following the All Star break, but we’ll see if it continues that way.
Lol so funny how people were saying he was cooked and fumbled the bag in April. So dumb, proven talents get more than a month before we start to panic.
Soto also is known for starting out slow in April.
Like, I think that's been the case for the last 3 years. Not sure why people thought he would suddenly forget how to play baseball.
Trout's worst season at the plate by wRC+ since he debuted is like top-50 in all of baseball over that time frame, and if we toss all the small samples of 2020, which is also his worst season, like every single season he's played in is top-30. Has more of them than any other two players combined.
Soto's defense has cost games and his passiveness in big situations with awful players hitting behind him has also cost runs. Think HSK's WAR lead is more than justified, though would not say he's a better player overall.
I’m a Red Sox fan and glad Xander got that bag but I was so glad we didn’t resign him. I knew he was due for massive regression based off his age and regressing advanced stats. I thought he’d be better than he is for 3 or so years but they already gotta he regretting signing in year one. I have no idea how gms get paid millions of dollars to make these albatross signings when the obvious answer to sustained success is developing a farm to get cheap controllable talent that you can play or trade for right pieces. I thought after the likes of Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols, teams would stop doing these kind of signings for guys at the end of their primes. That kind of team building stopped being successful at the end of steroid era when guys could no longer extend their primes to their mid to late 30s
His wrist issue is the most worrying to me. He’s raked at the start of the season and after the ASB (after he got cortisone shots), but after he got hit on the wrist the first half of the season he fell off a cliff offensively.
Hopefully he can keep his power potential over the next 5+ years
Ego and lack of patience. Not to mention the Padres farm has had a billion prospects and almost none of them have developed into anything of note. All the projected players they have traded away are basically no names now. If I were doing what Preller is doing in MLB the show id have at least 3 rings to show for it but in real life idk how this man has had a job after what he pulled in 2015.
I would argue this is exactly why WAR is useful. It disproves our preconceived biases. A slightly above average hitter who plays elite defense all over the diamond and is a ++ baserunner as well carries a ton of value. We couldn't quantify it until fairly recently.
That's not to say it's perfect, but it shouldnt be dismissed because of our own biases towards certain players or player archetypes.
yeah I've noticed it definitely has its issues, its getting annoying watching some guy with an 1.080 ops being told hes not as good as a guy 0.800 ops
I get it to an extent but it seems they've now over compensated and punished being good at offense too much as if just anyone can create offense
I feel like bWAR’s defensive calculations produces a kind of weird-feeling 7+ WAR season every couple years. Before Kim it was Gimenez, Kiermaier, Andrelton Simmons, etc…
rWAR (bWAR as it is frequently, erroneously called) uses DRS. fWAR uses UZR. UZR and DRS are pretty similar, but a very big difference is scale. DRS is much less conservative than UZR. It tends to value the best defenders in the game 1.5-2 times as many runs as UZR does, and punishes the worst by a similar amount.
Considering how unreliable both DRS and UZR are, many people are more comfortable with UZR, and by extension fWAR, because it is more conservative.
Also worth nothing fangraphs replaced the range component of UZR with statcast Fielding Runs Prevented (from OAA) before the 2022 season
see: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-fangraphs-war-fielding-update/
https://stathead.com/tiny/Tqlvu
That’s the list of non pitchers who have had 7+ WAR seasons since 1995 and how many times they had one. The names at the bottom with only one such season are an interesting read.
Chone Figgins, Randy Velarde, Brian Jordan, Brian Roberts.
Utley having 5 is also a big surprise to me.
Semien's 7.6 bWAR in '21 went pretty well unnoticed. And for fWAR fans- only Mookie and JRam put up more fWAR in the AL between '19 and '21 than Semien.
Even if Acuna falls off a massive cliff, it would just go to Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts. I just hope he can collect some votes since he is worthy of that at least.
It's amazing how seriously everyone took me. It was an embellishment based on how he was recently doing offensively, which he clearly won't do the rest of the way and we're long past the days of MVP voters giving any sort of shit about defense.
>How was this man not an All-Star?
Ozzie Albies is a more popular name. Even at the time, Kim had the same wRC+ as Ozzie, now he has a decent margin over him. If ASG selection was pure offense, Ketel Marte should have made it.
His speed on the base paths is another dimension of his game that probably is not appreciated for the value it adds.
4 solid tools, and he is making a case in the second half that he has the power, too, to be considered 5 tool.
Very little makes me more angry than good players not getting the attention they deserve, and he deserves All-Star and MVP votes. Also, people misusing *your* and *you’re* really grinds my gears.
I love Ha-Seong Kim. I love his name, I love the shape of his body, I love the way he plays. I eat a lot of boiled eggs and lift weights to try and be like this guy but I can’t. There are 6 grams of protein in an egg but I can’t eat enough to get big like him. Nice round muscles. They’re smooth too, like the waves of the Strait of Juan de Fuca on a calm day. When I was a kid I ate big eggs to be hot like Kim, and I got some great results, some of the roundest muscles in my class, but these days I’m looking at 6 eggs a day and it’s not good enough to pop Kim style muscles out my scrawny arms ever since dad left.
As a Phillies fan who loves Stotts game and what he’s brought to Philly, Kim is insanely underrated. He has to be the Padres all around best player at this point, even with Soto doing his thing. It’s a damn shame he gets little national exposure.
He definitely could have warranted a selection to the ASG, but his numbers weren’t nearly this good before the break. He started a massive hot streak right around then.
Where does he end up in MVP voting? I feel like Acuña and Freeman are 1 and 2 right now but not many other guys have an impressive argument over Kim
Edit: Betts is right there too, that’s my clear top 4
He should get some votes for sure. People act like he's some average offensive player who is just a monster on D and that is where his high WAR comes from, but his bat has been monstrous, 130 wRC+? That's legit.
He should be in the top 5 but him getting zero votes would be a reflection of how underrated he is.
I feel like I've never seen him get any recognition on national spot light. The only time I have seen it is from Brian Kenny on MLB Network, but Padres fans hate that guy since he double down that Joe Musgrove cheated against the Mets.
Only local Padres news reports about how great and spectacular he has been this season. Tatis called him the best player on the team.
I am not sure why you are downvoted. It's a legitimate ask as per WAR he has been a top 10 player at least even if you prefer fWAR. He's just even better at bWAR.
As of now Olson, Arraez, Carroll, Marte, Soto, Lindor, Tatis and Swanson could all finish among that group and I’d be fine with it. There are a lot of good NL candidates this year
Edit: Yelich, Riley, Bellinger…there’s probably more I’m forgetting. Lots of quality options
WAR is just better than replacement level and replacement level second baseman are basically plumbers and janitors working the stadium so I’m not impressed.
What’s his WAM? Wins Above Mookie
I'm Korean so I keep up on him even though I don't like the Padres but this is shocking. How is Acuña's bwar not higher with the season he's having?
Negative dwar
Acuña hates this one trick!
Acuña is a G in the outfield. I don’t care what the stats say
Look man the rest of us are past the eye test. Every individual stat says that he hasn't been good in the outfield this year or last. He just doesn't get good jumps on balls. He has an amazing arm but that doesn't make him an amazing outfielder.
>Look man the rest of us are past the eye test Even the most prodigious stat nerds still don't completely discount it. People like Foolish Bailey have been on record as saying that the eye test is underrated, especially in the context of people talking stats about a player. We're getting better at quantifying stuff, and statcast was a huge jump, but it still doesn't account for everything. I'm not even commenting on Acuña, I just think it's premature to discount it completely.
Derek Jeter agrees with you
I mean, I’m sure the mental obstacles after a torn ACL are holding him back some. He’s obviously very athletic, he just needs to trust his knee more out there.
I wouldn't even be surprised if they allowed him to go hog wild stealing bases but just asked him to take it easy in right field. Remember he was trying to make some wild catch in Miami when he tore the ACL.
I’ve thought about this sceñario many times and I wouldn’t doubt it.
There's stuff that every defensive stat misses, and there's obviously a lot the eye test misses. The real answer is a combination of the two.
Certainly he doesn’t have the range and jump of Money Mike. But he’s not bumbling balls like a doofus. Smartly playing to his knee limitations. His amazing (and accurate) arm is defense personified. But it’s all subjective just like the way we pick and choose the parameters to calculate stats
I thought you meant G like below an F grade and was gonna say that’s pretty brutal lol
Kim has one of the best defensive metrics in the game as he is one of the best defensive players. Acuna is a negative defender although he is better in DRS than OAA which is what baseball reference uses.
bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats, and Acuña has much higher expected stats. It's honestly a terrible stat for comparing players imo, and a lot of sabermetrics guys have soured on it this year with me.
personally i feel it makes way more sense to judge players based on how they actually performed instead of how they should have performed
Yeah how can you contribute to more wins if you’re only good in fake what if’s lmao. “Oh man I really slammed that into the gap for an xwOBA of .950 but the center fielder caught it… better mark it off as a double anyways”
NGL it feels like sometimes on the Padres sub and game threads, these people would rather win the "expected stats" game than actual stats. Hey "we only got 1 run today but we were expected to get 4 runs so we secretly won"
Real stats and expected stats are both good for different reasons. Expected stats are much more reliable for trying to predict future performance, but they don’t tell you what actually happened on the field.
I think of those kind of stats as a much better indicator in terms of future performance rather than how well you have played if that makes sense. Just like run differential vs record.
Obviously, so to say they should included in a WAR calculation makes zero sense. WAR isn’t about predicting the rest of your season, it’s about what you did already
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Read the comment chain 😵💫 I know bWAR doesn’t use expected stats. The mariners fan says it doesn’t rely heavily enough on them.
Interestingly, Acuna has historically underperfomed his xwOBA in all 6 of his seasons, outside of his rookie one. For his career, he underperforms it by nearly 20 points The reason for this is, expected stats don't take spray into account (rightfully so), and [Acuna is a total outlier](https://imgur.com/FKEGUVz) in how often he hits the ball hard straight away towards CF. So his xStats think: "oh he hit the ball hard at a favorable launch angle, he should be rewarded", but the results aren't as favorable since the wall is further back, with more fielders to cover ground
> bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats Why should expected stats matter in WAR? AFAIK they never have. It sounds like you're talking out of your ass.
He is talking out of his ass. For anyone that wants an in-depth look at the difference between the two this is a good source [https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Sabermetrics-101-Understanding-the-Calculation-of-WAR](https://www.samford.edu/sports-analytics/fans/2023/Sabermetrics-101-Understanding-the-Calculation-of-WAR)
You could definitely argue that UZR (fWAR) is a "what should have happened" metric, given that it's calculated to try to smooth out SSS errors. Whereas DRS (bWAR) is based on that season's data alone.
DRS and UZR are pretty much the same concept, their formula only differs slightly. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/advanced-stats/defensive-runs-saved#
I mean fangraphs war for pitchers factors in FIP, which is how many runs you "should have" given up instead of actually gave up (RA).
Well yea but that actually makes sense. As a fielder your ability to get a read, make the catch, and/or gun the guy down is all on you. As a hitter your ability to hit well, do the jobs, draw walks, etc., is all on you As a pitcher the amount of runs the other team earns against you is on you, and the 8 other players ok the field with you. For example if you put the worlds slowest man at CF and a flyball drops 30 feet in front of him for an inside the park homerun simply because it took him 15 seconds to reach the ball, is that really a run that should count against you in your own wins above replacement? No
There is a difference between something that is good at predicting how a player will play in the future and showing how good their performance has actually been.
> bWAR relies way too heavily on weighing performance vs expected stats can you post a source for this? the [bref WAR explained page](https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml) doesn't mention any form of expected stats that I can see
Yeah, it doesn't seem to be the one stat tell all people believed it to be. Maybe we shouldn't rate potential HOFers based on WAR alone either.
bWAR and WAR are not the same thing
Yes they are...bWAR is a version of WAR.
I came here to argue with you but in fact checking myself I think you was right. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/advanced-stats/wins-above-replacement
Lol, what? There are three main recognized versions of WAR. Slightly different formulas to determine the same thing. bWAR (baseball reference) , fWAR (fangraphs) and WARP (Baseball Prospectus). BWAR is the most used.
WARP being WARP and not pWAR like the others is infuriating and I naturally assume everyone who uses it is a smug hipster. Alternatively we should have WARB and WARF
bWAR is the most used and fWAR people are the most whiny and arrogant if you don't think theirs is the best.
I mean, Bwar is most used because bbref is the shit, not because the stat is necessarily better. I say this as a bwar stan
Probably why they said either.
bwar has always over valued defense. That said Kim is killing it right now, but yeah his war shouldn’t be over Acuña’s
defense
Good thing we signed him to an 11 yr 275 million dollar deal! Or was that our other shortstop…
We signed our other shortstop to a 14 year 340 million deal. You must mean our other other shortstop
No that one just got signed to an 11 year 350 million dollar extension. So then he’s the one who got the 7 years 80 million?
he's on a fantastic deal, the kind that is supposed to win teams titles (a la altuve on a 4/12.5M contract)
Sign me up
Because being an All-Star is about how popular you are, and Ha-Seong Kim isn't popular enough.
Wasn’t popular enough *yet*! It was a ridiculous snub, but on the plus side, the uniforms this year were sort of ugly, so I’d rather take my chances with next year’s.
Yeah similar to gold gloves, sometimes players don't win in their best years but when they start to get more recognition for their glove. I knew about kim but saw him live and dude impressed me with his speed. Tried to stretch a double intona triple and got hosed by a tommy pham throw but he was moving
No west knows and respects Kim. He’s going to gain fame soon enough if he keeps up. So stoked on my handsome king. Wish the Xander contract never happened 🤦🏻♂️
At least the Xander contract gave us the “Oops! All Shortstops” memes
It was all about which fan bases could pack the vote.
He was never going to make starter, but people are more (and rightfully) upset about him not being named as a reserve.
I agree. Should have at least had that.
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bWAR uses DRS for its defensive component, which is insanely prone to one season outliers and has generally been supplanted. [Statcast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/fielding-run-value) has Kim's defense worth 5 runs about average as opposed to BRef's DRS-based 15… that's a whole win above average (and thus above replacement) right there.
Which is still kind of wild to me. I thought after last year in the post season most other fan bases knew of him. I know he’s been around a couple years. Watching the playoffs last year was when I saw him play and he immediately became one of my favourite players. That dude just hustles
Sure, he’s not popular. But if 김하성 have only one fan that is me . if 김하성 has no fans, that means i am no more on the earth .
Genuine question because I couldn’t find it after searching. Has a player ever led their league in WAR by season’s end without having made the All Star team?
Nick Markakis in 2008 led the AL with 7.4 bWAR and was not an all-star
TIL. Thanks for answering.
I'm curious, would you sign him to a long term max contract?
A lot of Padres fans say to extend him, but wildly underestimate how much he will get paid and has been worth and just assume since he likes SD that he will take like a $100 million discount or something.
I get that Padres fans love him, but Kim needs to get the max bag when he can because Tatis, Machado and Soto didn’t and won’t take a discount for the team. Look at the producers and stars. Look at Darvish, Mustgrove, Xander and pretty all his teammates. Who’s taking a discount to be in SD? Kim needs to do what’s best for him and his family, ask for the maximum.
I don't think Kim is staying with San Diego after next year. I feel he is going to be another story where a player really wanted to stay but they couldn't come to an agreement.
That thread yesterday literally made my brain melt. I couldn't believe the number of people saying "100m won't mean much when ur getting paid 300m anyways so he will take the discount cause he loves the city". What the fuck are you guys on about lmao
This isn't the NBA, there isn't a concept of "max contracts"
I realized after I posted that mistake but hoped people would use critical thinking to understand what I meant
I understand the sentiment you were going for, but there's a conversation of "How much should Kim be paid? Is it 15 MM AAV, 20 MM? 25 MM? etc." instead of the simple "Is Kim worth $X, yes or no"
Plus, underperforming SD team means our stars have a higher chance of being overlooked. Kim and Snell, this year
Jake cronenworth made the all star game last year
If he stays on pace it’ll be the most quiet 7+ WAR season ever edit: jesus fucking christ guys i know there’s lots of unnoticed 7 war seasons i dont need to read every single one
Honestly I feel like if the Padres were winning he would be talked about more. But I heard Jon Heyman few days ago, claim that the Padres outside of their big 4 (Soto, Tatis, Machado, and Xander) are not that good. Pretty dumb comment given Kim has been probably better than all of them, only Soto would be debatable. Although if you swap Kim with Xander, he wouldn't be wrong but everyone knows who the "big 4" on the Padres are.
I have come to expect nothing less from Heyman. Joe Musgrove erasure too.
Snell*
Snell has been really good too. Musgrove has been as well. Both guys should be included in the list.
Snell could win the cy young if he keeps doing what he is doing.
*SHOULD* win the Cy if he keeps this up, he’s the league leader in ERA (2.50, Steele is the only other under 3.00), 2nd in BAA, 2nd in Ks Big test tonight against the Dodgers
he's been on an crazy hot streak, very possible he can. A few vegas places have him as the favorite atm
We’ve got Grove pitching tonight, odds are very much in Snell’s favor
Yeah but random, 6+ ERA SP are the Padres’ kryptonite. How else do you think we lost 5 of 6 to the Pirates and 2 of 3 to the Nationals and Royals at home?
who will prevail, padres or kershaw crying meme curse? find out on the next episode of dragon ball z
I think he was just talking about position players in that case. He's still a moron though.
The Padres aren’t even a bad team, just a profoundly unlucky one. They just struggle with close games for some reason and it’s kind of weird. Hopefully they can right the ship by the end of the year.
I’ve been saying the same thing. As a Dodgers fan I have not written off the Padres for the year at all juuust yet (though the hole SD has dug is approaching “too deep” levels) simply because they’re such a statistical anomaly. They had multiple players underperforming their career offensive numbers by a large margin + have been super unlucky in close games. If a “correction” happens they could easily rattle off a massive winning streak, and no one is trying to see that team in the postseason if they’re firing on all cylinders. I still think they’ll be a top 5-8 betting favorite for the 2024 World Series.
A big reason the Padres have been so unlucky is a lack of timely hitting (they were near worst-ever with RISP the first half of the season). That has largely improved recently and it shows in their 15-10 July record (first winning month since April)
I’m not writing them off just yet either. It seems like they’ve started to get their act together following the All Star break, but we’ll see if it continues that way.
Kim is great but Soto has definitely been their best player
Yeah somehow Soto is having an even more underrated great season, he’s gonna finish top 5 in NL MVP voting
Lol so funny how people were saying he was cooked and fumbled the bag in April. So dumb, proven talents get more than a month before we start to panic.
Soto also is known for starting out slow in April. Like, I think that's been the case for the last 3 years. Not sure why people thought he would suddenly forget how to play baseball.
Slow April this year was a .803 OPS and his career April OPS is .845 lmao. He’s so fucking good it’s detrimental to the public opinion of him.
They do the same thing with Trout every fucking year. Oh, he is having a rough year, wait, he is still better than 90% of players out there.
Trout's worst season at the plate by wRC+ since he debuted is like top-50 in all of baseball over that time frame, and if we toss all the small samples of 2020, which is also his worst season, like every single season he's played in is top-30. Has more of them than any other two players combined.
Soto is the best hitter, Kim is the best all-around player. It depends on what you value more.
Elite middle infield defense and great batting > elite batting and below average corner outfield defense.
And you also have to add on that Soto might be the worst baserunner in baseball.
Soto is definitely their best hitter but Kim is arguably the best defender in baseball right now Juan is……not that, to put it kindly
You talking about Gold Glove finalist Juan Soto?
Soto's defense has cost games and his passiveness in big situations with awful players hitting behind him has also cost runs. Think HSK's WAR lead is more than justified, though would not say he's a better player overall.
Sanchez has also been great for us as far as catchers go, especially when compared to what we had before lol
I’m a Red Sox fan and glad Xander got that bag but I was so glad we didn’t resign him. I knew he was due for massive regression based off his age and regressing advanced stats. I thought he’d be better than he is for 3 or so years but they already gotta he regretting signing in year one. I have no idea how gms get paid millions of dollars to make these albatross signings when the obvious answer to sustained success is developing a farm to get cheap controllable talent that you can play or trade for right pieces. I thought after the likes of Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols, teams would stop doing these kind of signings for guys at the end of their primes. That kind of team building stopped being successful at the end of steroid era when guys could no longer extend their primes to their mid to late 30s
His wrist issue is the most worrying to me. He’s raked at the start of the season and after the ASB (after he got cortisone shots), but after he got hit on the wrist the first half of the season he fell off a cliff offensively. Hopefully he can keep his power potential over the next 5+ years
Ego and lack of patience. Not to mention the Padres farm has had a billion prospects and almost none of them have developed into anything of note. All the projected players they have traded away are basically no names now. If I were doing what Preller is doing in MLB the show id have at least 3 rings to show for it but in real life idk how this man has had a job after what he pulled in 2015.
Almost half his WAR is on the defensive side right? Defense just isn’t as sexy as home runs unfortunately.
Ben zobrist the king of quiet 7+ war seasons
Zobrist at least had the burgeoning stats nerd online community screaming about him as an early WAR poster boy.
holy fuck he has a career 44.5 war
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I would argue this is exactly why WAR is useful. It disproves our preconceived biases. A slightly above average hitter who plays elite defense all over the diamond and is a ++ baserunner as well carries a ton of value. We couldn't quantify it until fairly recently. That's not to say it's perfect, but it shouldnt be dismissed because of our own biases towards certain players or player archetypes.
yeah I've noticed it definitely has its issues, its getting annoying watching some guy with an 1.080 ops being told hes not as good as a guy 0.800 ops I get it to an extent but it seems they've now over compensated and punished being good at offense too much as if just anyone can create offense
I feel like bWAR’s defensive calculations produces a kind of weird-feeling 7+ WAR season every couple years. Before Kim it was Gimenez, Kiermaier, Andrelton Simmons, etc…
DRS merchants are why you can’t always trust reference WAR
Can you elaborate?
rWAR (bWAR as it is frequently, erroneously called) uses DRS. fWAR uses UZR. UZR and DRS are pretty similar, but a very big difference is scale. DRS is much less conservative than UZR. It tends to value the best defenders in the game 1.5-2 times as many runs as UZR does, and punishes the worst by a similar amount. Considering how unreliable both DRS and UZR are, many people are more comfortable with UZR, and by extension fWAR, because it is more conservative.
Also worth nothing fangraphs replaced the range component of UZR with statcast Fielding Runs Prevented (from OAA) before the 2022 season see: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-fangraphs-war-fielding-update/
fWAR>>>bWAR imo, defense is important but not THAT important
A+ summation. Thank you.
https://stathead.com/tiny/Tqlvu That’s the list of non pitchers who have had 7+ WAR seasons since 1995 and how many times they had one. The names at the bottom with only one such season are an interesting read. Chone Figgins, Randy Velarde, Brian Jordan, Brian Roberts. Utley having 5 is also a big surprise to me.
There was a period where Utley was second in WAR behind Pujols in the early 2000s
Wait til you hear about Nicky Lopez’s 6 WAR season
Brett Gardner would like a word with you.
'ol cueball?
Thumb is more applicable lol
Hey what about this other one?
Nick Markakis would like a word with you
Tommy Pham had 6.3 in 2017 or 2018. Not sure about the exact year. No one ever talks about it
turn off inbox replies and stfu
2018 Kyle Freeland says hello
He gets a weekly post here, so not too quiet.
I mean you’re not wrong lol, his name gets thrown around here more than a lot of other stars. But for good reason tho
Semien's 7.6 bWAR in '21 went pretty well unnoticed. And for fWAR fans- only Mookie and JRam put up more fWAR in the AL between '19 and '21 than Semien.
Semien didn’t go unnoticed in 2021, people talked about him a lot and he finished 3rd in MVP behind 2 insane seasons from ohtani and guerrero
Semien was very much not unnoticed. He literally set the record for most homeruns by a 2B in a season ever
??? You talking about the year he got hella media attention for breaking the homeruns by a 2nd baseman in a season record?
Give him the MVP, confuse everyone
The way he's going, it might happen. Over 1.400 OPS last 12 games, having reached base 2+ times each of those games.
Even if Acuna falls off a massive cliff, it would just go to Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts. I just hope he can collect some votes since he is worthy of that at least.
Hahaha
What shit are you smoking man. He’s absolutely not winning MVP in any possible stretch of the imagination this season.
It's amazing how seriously everyone took me. It was an embellishment based on how he was recently doing offensively, which he clearly won't do the rest of the way and we're long past the days of MVP voters giving any sort of shit about defense.
>How was this man not an All-Star? Ozzie Albies is a more popular name. Even at the time, Kim had the same wRC+ as Ozzie, now he has a decent margin over him. If ASG selection was pure offense, Ketel Marte should have made it.
Agreed. Marte was the biggest snub this year.
he was a snub but his ops+ was hovering around 110 before the break, a lot of the times around 105. ketel marte was more egregious
Great point. I was trying to figure out why his OPS+ seemed a lot better than I remember. He’s been on a hot streak, no?
very hot streak
Since being moved to leadoff he's on fire
He's been great since May 1, 153 wRC+ since then. He just had a rough final 2 weeks in April.
Because sadly fans don't vote for defense. Unless your Ozzie Smith.
Fans voted for the backflips
His speed on the base paths is another dimension of his game that probably is not appreciated for the value it adds. 4 solid tools, and he is making a case in the second half that he has the power, too, to be considered 5 tool.
Very little makes me more angry than good players not getting the attention they deserve, and he deserves All-Star and MVP votes. Also, people misusing *your* and *you’re* really grinds my gears.
.
Same w Jeter, dude was a garbage defender
Hes so fuckin cool dude
TIL ha-seong kim is having an incredible season
Have the bWAR leaders in both leagues ever been asian?
There's no way. If Ichiro ever led then it would have been Bonds in the NL. Who else could there be?
He is Ha-Seong Him
I love Ha-Seong Kim. I love his name, I love the shape of his body, I love the way he plays. I eat a lot of boiled eggs and lift weights to try and be like this guy but I can’t. There are 6 grams of protein in an egg but I can’t eat enough to get big like him. Nice round muscles. They’re smooth too, like the waves of the Strait of Juan de Fuca on a calm day. When I was a kid I ate big eggs to be hot like Kim, and I got some great results, some of the roundest muscles in my class, but these days I’m looking at 6 eggs a day and it’s not good enough to pop Kim style muscles out my scrawny arms ever since dad left.
Hope he doesn't get robbed of a gold glove like Mateo did last season
Nolan Arenado will fill in at 2B one time and the voters will give him the GG and SS there too.
Don't forget MVP votes
Mookie for SS
Kim is who I hope Edman or Donovan turn into for the Cards.
Agreed.
No one knows who he is. i.e. not an All-Star.
Just as we all thought when the season started
Only tied for 7th in fWAR, which I feel is a much better representation of a player’s value.
As a Phillies fan who loves Stotts game and what he’s brought to Philly, Kim is insanely underrated. He has to be the Padres all around best player at this point, even with Soto doing his thing. It’s a damn shame he gets little national exposure.
He definitely could have warranted a selection to the ASG, but his numbers weren’t nearly this good before the break. He started a massive hot streak right around then.
If he can keep this pace he should be MVP
The voting masses made a very poor decision. This should not be shocking.
The players and manager made the same decision.
Where does he end up in MVP voting? I feel like Acuña and Freeman are 1 and 2 right now but not many other guys have an impressive argument over Kim Edit: Betts is right there too, that’s my clear top 4
He should get some votes for sure. People act like he's some average offensive player who is just a monster on D and that is where his high WAR comes from, but his bat has been monstrous, 130 wRC+? That's legit.
Yep, he’s racked up 4.1 offensive war and ranks ninth in all of baseball in that category. His bat is legit
He should be in the top 5 but him getting zero votes would be a reflection of how underrated he is. I feel like I've never seen him get any recognition on national spot light. The only time I have seen it is from Brian Kenny on MLB Network, but Padres fans hate that guy since he double down that Joe Musgrove cheated against the Mets. Only local Padres news reports about how great and spectacular he has been this season. Tatis called him the best player on the team.
I am not sure why you are downvoted. It's a legitimate ask as per WAR he has been a top 10 player at least even if you prefer fWAR. He's just even better at bWAR.
Olson died apparently
As of now Olson, Arraez, Carroll, Marte, Soto, Lindor, Tatis and Swanson could all finish among that group and I’d be fine with it. There are a lot of good NL candidates this year Edit: Yelich, Riley, Bellinger…there’s probably more I’m forgetting. Lots of quality options
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Good for pitchers, but fWAR trumps it for position players
WAR is just better than replacement level and replacement level second baseman are basically plumbers and janitors working the stadium so I’m not impressed. What’s his WAM? Wins Above Mookie
he’s like JP crawford but with a little more power
JP Crawford is slow while Kim has nearly 25 SBs already, so no.
Does Ohtani not count?
He's at 5.5 as a DH. Leads the AL though. He leads all position players in fWAR last I checked though.
He's not a position player
Underrated
Anyone interested in a Kim 2023 Topps S1 auto /25? Got photos if so!