Stats Bite

There are 598 players on Baseball Prospectus' VORP table for position players. At 323 you run into the zero-point-zero-kind-of-guy like Justin Ruggiano, Tony Clark, Mike Morse, and Eric Bruntlett. Last night's Yankee line-up featured: #410. Jason Giambi (-0.5), #502. Wilson Betemit (-1.7). #529. Jose Molina (-2.2), #574. Morgan Ensberg (-4.2), #597. Robinson Cano (-10.2). Curiously enough, each got hits while the priorly resurgent Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera couldn't reach base and left eight men. #463, Shelly Duncan (-1.1), got the night off. It's only May seventh, but come June seventh it will be interesting (or painful and disconcerting) to look at this chart again, wondering if Cashman has the agent's cell phone number for guys like Ruggiano, Clark, Morse, and Bruntlett.

Comments

[A YF]

Not for nothing but VORP is terrible for small samples. Any stat is really. That's exactly why guys like Ruggiano, Clark, Morse, and Bruntlett can rate so, uh, highly. Even two months is too small for VORP. Better to just use raw OPS. That says it all for Giambi and Cano any ways. At the end of the season look at VORP.

[FenSheaParkway]

It can't really be all that surprising to find mediocre 5-week VORPs on a 17-17 team. What were the career VORPs of that line-up? Better, right?

Just for my own curiosity, I wonder what player had the longest career putting up a 0.00 VORP (or close to it). Can we call him Mr. Replacement Player (ala the NFL's Mr. Irrelevant)?

[attackgerbil]

"VORP is terrible for small samples" which is why I said "It's only May seventh."

Then there is that frog and warm>boiling water theory.

[attackgerbil]

And, read the title of the post.