Shut up about Albert Pujols. Shut up about Miguel Cabrera. Shut up about Robinson Cano. Shut up about Matt Kemp. All four have put up excellent offensive statistics under their current contracts, unlike Jason Heyward, whose contract is a massive embarrassment to the feeble minded conformists in the SABRmetrics community.
Here’s some Basic Math:
8/10 of what makes a player great is slugging. 1/10 is hitting for average. 1/10 is everything else. That doesn’t include leadership, which is intangible. Since it is intangible, it is of no use to the greedy SABR people – they deride the idea of intangibles because they’re worried about their bank statements.
Pujols is a True Leader. And he has put up Legit power numbers consistently with the Angels. No wonder the miserable, wretched beta males in the SABRmetrics community despise him, and try to tear him down. He is a great power hitter. They are feeble minded and weak. They are jealous of his Awesomeness. Wretched.
Cabrera is So Legit. His numbers have been great every year, until last year. He had one bad season and The Intelligentsia pounced like Hyenas. Why? Dave Dombrowski, Old School Dude – that’s his official job title – gave him his contract. They say they are “objective” and “unbiased.” LOL!
Cano is a good player. A very good player. Is he a leader type? No. He isn’t. Still, his numbers have been great with the Mariners since Old School Dude Jack Zduriencik signed him prior to the 2014 season. Plus, there’s this: he’s Robinson Cano. That counts for a lot.
Kemp is the most underrated player in baseball. He is a great power hitter, a great leader and he gets a ton of RBIs. He turned Freddie Freeman into a next-level player. Why do The Intelligentsia hate him? Simple. He is Handsome. Handsome as could be. The SABRmetrics people are ugly inside and out. Basic Math.
The SABRmetrics people are nothing more than leeches, accruing great wealth and power trying to tear people down who are better than them. Their “advanced statistics” serve one purpose – to augment their own wealth and power.
Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano and Matt Kemp all put up excellent numbers in the traditional categories. So how to tear them down? Invent new categories: OPS+, wRC+. wOBA, DRS, UZR, WAR.
Jason Heyward’s WAR was Super Awesome. That’s why he was given an 8 year, $184 million contract prior to the 2016 season. WAR is a “metric” based on the ridiculous idea that defense, baserunning and arm strength matter nearly as much as hitting, especially hitting for power.
His contract was supposed to be an example of the new, more “sophisticated,” more “intelligent” way of doing things in MLB front offices. Guys used to get paid for leadership, home runs, General Awesomeness and other things that the feeble minded SABRmetricians are blind to. They can’t see beyond numbers on an Excel spreadsheet.
How has the Heyward contract been? An unmitigated disaster. In 2016, the first year on his deal, he hit .230, with a .306 OBP, and a .325 slugging percentage. So bad. He hit 7 home runs and drove in just 49. Wow. And this is a player who is on a $184 million deal.
Last year he “bounced back.” A .259 batting average, a .326 OBP, a .389 slugging percentage, 11 home runs and 59 RBIs. OK! Not bad! For a AAA guy filling in for an injured veteran for two weeks. Those numbers are abysmal when you consider the money that Heyward is being paid. Abysmal.
He’s off to an atrocious start this year.
Let’s be charitable. His 2017 season was the better season on his deal. Let’s compare his best season on his deal to the worst for the 4 players who are widely held up as examples of “overpaid” players.
Albert Pujols was injured in 2013. He played in only 99 games. Still, he outproduced Heyward’s 2017 season. His batting average was .258 – Heyward beat him by a point. Margin of error? His OBP was .330 and his slugging percentage was .437, so, he beat Heyward on both those counts. And he hit 17 home runs and drove in 64. And that’s in his worst year on his deal.
I would tell you his numbers from the other years but I don’t want to embarrass Heyward too much. Then again, it’s not Heyward’s fault. It’s The Intelligentsia’s. So here. I’ll embarrass them.
Pujols’s first year with the Angels was So Good. He hit .285 with a .343 OBP and a .516 slugging. Solid. Plus he hit 30 home runs and 105 RBIs. Nice.
Then, the injury plagued 2013 where he still managed to outproduce Heyward’s 2017.
2014 was a great year for Pujols. .272/.324/.466. Throw in another 28 home runs and another 105 RBIs. Wow.
2015 was even better. His batting average and OBP were down (.244 and .307). Who cares? As I said above, 8/10 of what makes a player great is hitting for power. In 2015 Pujols did that at an elite level. He had a .480 slugging percentage and hit 40 home runs. Will Heyward hit 40 home runs during the entire duration of his contract? Dubious. Plus, Pujols knocked in another 95 runs that year. Weak. Nothing short of 100 impresses me.
In 2016 he was Legit again. Go figure. He is a Legit Dude. He hit .268/.323/.457. He hit 30 home runs and drove in 119. 30 home runs and 100 RBIs are a major Legit Dude Indicator – that’s a scientific term.
Last year was a down year. .241/.286/.386. Still, do you like home runs and RBIs? If you don’t, you’re weak. He hit 23 home runs – more than Heyward has in his 2 + years under contract with the Cubs – and drove in another 101.
He’s off to a great start this year. He’s got a .433 slugging percentage, plus he’s already hit 6 home runs and has 21 RBIs. Another 30 and 100? Why not? The Intelligentsia will be scratching and clawing up at him either way.
How about Miguel Cabrera? His numbers were off-the-charts good until last year. His numbers were way down last year. Let’s compare his numbers from his worst year under his contract to Heyward’s best under his.
.249/.329/.399. A higher OBP and slugging percentage than Heyward’s. Plus he hit 16 home runs and drove in 60.
How about Robinson Cano? His numbers have been good every year. His lowest batting average on this deal? .280. Wow. His lowest slugging percentage on this deal? .446. He hasn’t hit a lot of home runs, but he hit 14 in his least prodigious year on this contract, 2014. That’s three more than Heyward hit last year. Plus, Cano hit 39 and drove in 103 in 2016.
How about Matt Kemp? It’s hard to pick out a “worst season.” I guess 2013 fits the bill. It was an injury plagued season. He played in just 73 games. Still, his batting average – .270, his OBP – .328, and his slugging percentage – .395, were all superior to Heyward’s 2017 numbers. Just 6 home runs and 33 RBIs though, so Heyward has the edge there, I guess?
In 2014 he bounced back. He hit .287 with a .346 OBP and a .506 slugging percentage. He hit 25 home runs and had 89 RBIs.
Then in 2015, after Snobby Intellectual Andrew Friedman – that’s his official job title – traded him to San Diego, Kemp was Legit again. .265/.312/.443 with 23 home runs and 100 RBIs. Not bad. Not bad at all.
In 2016 he was traded to the Atlanta Braves mid-season. His combined numbers between the Padres and Braves that year were So Good. Sure, his batting average was down again – just .268. His OBP was just over .300. Pity. Dude slugged .499 on the year. He hit 35 – yes, 35, and these wretched beta males say he’s a bad player – home runs and drove in 108. This while Jason Heyward was struggling to get a measly little hit in Chicago. LOL!
Last year was a “down year” for Kemp, I guess. He missed some games with injury, but he hit .276, with a .318 OBP and a .463 slugging percentage. Throw in 19 home runs and 64 RBIs in just 115 games and that’s enough to make Kemp’s harshest, most wretched, miserable critics from the SABRmetrics community blush. They are the ones who are Not Legit. Matt Kemp is Legit. He is a Legit Dude.
But here’s the thing. So is Jason Heyward. Heyward is a very good baseball player and a high character individual. He was given a $184 million, 8 year deal in a free agent market where Justin Upton was given a 6 year, $132.75 million deal and where Yoenis Cespedes, fresh off of single handedly saving the New York Mets franchise, couldn’t even get a multi year deal (what was that all about?). Cespedes was the best outfielder in that free agent class – he should have been given the Mega Deal. He was the number 1, not Heyward. Heyward was the number 3, behind Cespedes and Upton. He got put in a number 1 spot though. No wonder he’s struggling. People only thrive in their proper roles.
Heyward shouldn’t be on this contract. It’s bad for him. He’s the overpaid player. An overpaid player can not help but struggle to meet unfairly high expectations. Give him a shot of truth serum. Would it surprise anyone if he were to say that he would rather be on a 5 year $100 million deal – the kind of deal he should have gotten prior to the 2016 season – putting up normal numbers than this ridiculous Intelligentsia Fail contract, with him getting embarrassed day in and day out?
SABRmetrics is bad news all around. It’s bad for players, it’s bad for teams, it’s bad for fans. Who isn’t it bad for? The power mad, greedy, wretched, miserable, feeble minded beta male conformists in the SABRmetrics community who have made a fortune and amassed immense power leeching off of a great game filled with great people. It is time for their shakedown to come to an end.
Right now there are a plethora of good Old School GMs on the market – Ruben Amaro Jr., Omar Minaya, Ed Wade, Jack Zduriencik, Tony Reagins and Ned Colletti, for example. Ownership groups around baseball should take notice of the fact that Andrew Friedman, Jerry Dipoto, Jeff Luhnow and the rest of The Intelligentsia’s darlings are not what they are hyped up to be. They should choose the Old School Dudes. They would do a better job than the SABRmetrics people. Just look at Heyward’s contract versus Pujols, Cabrera’s, Cano’s and Kemp’s.
SABR Skeptic 