Tino Walkin'/ Not given enough credit? [Merged Threads]

[BuzzBuzzard]

Saw a stat last night that blew me away. Over his 6 years with the Yankees, Tino had more RBI (690) than Mattingly did over any consecutive 6 year period (684) during his career. Not by many, but more than Mattingly nonetheless. Never would have guessed that.

By no means does one stat make Tino better than Mattingly, but I was floored by that. Tino's numbers could be inflated, too, by the surrounding cast of players he had as opposed to Mattingly.

[moose]

Originally posted by BuzzBuzzard
Saw a stat last night that blew me away. Over his 6 years with the Yankees, Tino had more RBI (690) than Mattingly did over any consecutive 6 year period (684) during his career. Not by many, but more than Mattingly nonetheless. Never would have guessed that.

By no means does one stat make Tino better than Mattingly, but I was floored by that. Tino's numbers could be inflated, too, by the surrounding cast of players he had as opposed to Mattingly.

I was young in the mattingly era, but I suspect that jeter + bernie were slightly better table setters than what mattingly had other than rickey. not to take anything away from tino - he's a great player, and I'll always love him.

[ChrisCary]

Originally posted by BuzzBuzzard
By no means does one stat make Tino better than Mattingly, but I was floored by that. Tino's numbers could be inflated, too, by the surrounding cast of players he had as opposed to Mattingly.

Bingo.

Tino probably is better than you give him credit for, but he isn't Don Mattingly.

There's probably several more stats that can put Tino in the same sentence as Donnie but I watched pretty much every game of both their Yankee careers and (not to take anything away rom Martinez) Tino couldn't hold a candle to Don Mattingly

[poorme]

this gets into that "peak" versus "career" thing. Don Mattingly at his peak was three times the ballplayer as tino. If you boil it down to career stats, then you could make the argument either way. When I think of how great a player was I usually imagine him in his prime.

[WiredTiger]

I am not sure that Mattingly was three teams better than Tino at his peak but he definitely was better. If Mattingly would have had a "normal" aging curve than I think we'd be talking HOF. Tino is one of those guys who was good but not great and was helped by a good Yankee lineup.

[boot2112]

I think you also have to take into consideration the amount of runs being scored in the 6 year peroids that were used for this statistic. I don't have the numbers at my disposal but I guarantee that runs were harder to come by when Mattingly was knocing them in.

[pwdennis]

Mattingly was better than TIno but not by much. I always felt Mattingly was a little overrated and that Tino was somewhat underrated. Mattingly's table setters (mostly Randolph and Henderson during his peak years) were pretty decent. Mattingly's RBI numbers always seemed to me to be better than his BA and SLG suggested they should be.

[Craig S.]

Tino was a good solid RBI guy, just what the Yankees needed in the middle of a strong order. He was consistent, which was probably the Yanks' main concern with that spot.

I don't think he approaches Mattingly.

[The Curator]

OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Lou Gehrig .299 1.080 .780
2 Bill Skowron .101 .842 .741
3 Don Mattingly .097 .831 .733
4 Tino Martinez .056 .837 .781
5 Wally Pipp .029 .757 .729
6 Chris Chambliss .028 .740 .712
7 Hal Chase .026 .678 .652
8 Joe Pepitone .012 .725 .713

[Duque]

Are those league average OPSes by position, Curator?

[Slippery Pedro]

Originally posted by Duque
Are those league average OPSes by position, Curator?

Nah, just the League Average - if I used 1B Average, it would look like this:


OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Lou Gehrig .221 1.080 .859
2 Bill Skowron .059 .842 .783
3 Don Mattingly .036 .831 .794
4 Hal Chase .022 .678 .656
5 Wally Pipp -.006 .757 .764
6 Chris Chambliss -.019 .740 .759
7 Joe Pepitone -.025 .725 .750
8 Tino Martinez -.027 .837 .863

[satchel]

As a Yankees fan I was often down on Tino because I thought of what he could do with Bernie and Jeter setting the table for him, if he put up numbers like Delgado or Thome or Giambi. But the truth is, I think he was good enough, even if he did often end up in the middle of the pack among AL 1B. He wasn't better than he had to be but the Yankees' lineup was sufficiently balanced around him that he didn't hurt the team by not being the class of the league. He always seemed streaky but then again I don't really believe in streaks.

[BrianB]

I think that Yankee fans would only be truly happy if they had a superstar at first base, hell they have one now and the guy got booed at Yankee Stadium. In my opinion the only guys that might have made Yankee fans happy at first were Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro(a bone fide stud), and Mark McGwire(however I think Yankee fans would have called him a puss for being injured so much).

[Fuzzy Bear]

Originally posted by The Curator

OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Lou Gehrig .299 1.080 .780
2 Bill Skowron .101 .842 .741
3 Don Mattingly .097 .831 .733
4 Tino Martinez .056 .837 .781
5 Wally Pipp .029 .757 .729
6 Chris Chambliss .028 .740 .712
7 Hal Chase .026 .678 .652
8 Joe Pepitone .012 .725 .713

I wonder what the OPS stats would look like of we used Tino's career from 1995 on. (I'd like to see those stats for 1B only as well as league.)

Tino's not a HOFer, but he has improved to be a legit mid-pack 1B. His 1st few years in the league made one wonder if he was going to be a Rico Brogna (although Rico came later, but you get the idea; someone LIKE that). Tino belatedly lived up to his early hype, and that's more than Rick Reichardt could say.

I don't think Tino was as good as Mattingly at his best. However, Tino's teams won, and Tino was a big part of that. I used to be in favor of Mattingly for the HOF. Looking at him vs Tino, I'm not so sure, anymore.

[gyb13]

CAREER
1995-2002
1B

OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Mark McGwire .333 1.113 .780
2 Frank Thomas .292 1.071 .779
3 Todd Helton .262 1.047 .784
4 Jeff Bagwell .223 .998 .776
5 Jim Thome .208 .986 .778
6 Jason Giambi .205 .988 .783
7 Carlos Delgado .202 .980 .777
8 Mo Vaughn .164 .946 .782
9 Andres Galarraga .161 .931 .770
10 Rafael Palmeiro .146 .924 .778
11 Mike Sweeney .136 .918 .782
12 Ryan Klesko .124 .914 .790
13 John Jaha .115 .895 .780
14 Will Clark .104 .885 .781
15 John Olerud .101 .879 .778
16 Richie Sexson .095 .879 .784
17 Mark Grace .091 .866 .775
18 Fred McGriff .087 .860 .773
19 Sean Casey .087 .873 .786
20 Paul Sorrento .083 .863 .780
21 Tony Clark .078 .857 .778
22 David Segui .074 .845 .771
23 Tino Martinez .068 .848 .779
24 Brian Daubach .056 .838 .782
25 Paul Konerko .051 .830 .779

[gyb13]

CAREER
1995-2002
1B

OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Mark McGwire .260 1.113 .853
2 Todd Helton .204 1.047 .843
3 Frank Thomas .199 1.071 .872
4 Jeff Bagwell .167 .998 .832
5 Jason Giambi .128 .988 .860
6 Jim Thome .124 .986 .862
7 Carlos Delgado .119 .980 .861
8 Andres Galarraga .106 .931 .825
9 Mike Stanley .094 .824 .730
10 Mo Vaughn .083 .946 .863
11 Ryan Klesko .069 .914 .845
12 Rafael Palmeiro .056 .924 .868
13 Mike Sweeney .056 .918 .862
14 Jeff King .052 .803 .751
15 Richie Sexson .044 .879 .835
16 Mark Grace .035 .866 .831
17 John Jaha .032 .895 .863
18 Sean Casey .029 .873 .844
19 Jeff Conine .025 .790 .765
20 Fred McGriff .024 .860 .836
21 Will Clark .023 .885 .862
22 John Olerud .021 .879 .858
23 David Segui .010 .845 .835
24 Todd Zeile -.002 .784 .786
25 Tony Clark -.004 .857 .861
26 Paul Sorrento -.010 .863 .873
27 Eric Karros -.014 .817 .831
28 Tino Martinez -.016 .848 .864
29 Greg Colbrunn -.022 .808 .829
30 Brian Daubach -.026 .838 .864

[satchel]

Maybe another reason to think I've been too hard on Tino:

Last night on the Mets local TV broadcast, I thought I heard an announcer say that Tino had the third best BA with RISP among active players. Can anyone confirm? I also thought they said Mo Vaughn was in the top three (that's why they brought it up on the Mets braodcast). I can't recall who the third was. I was only half listening, so if anyone knows where to find this stat it would be kewl.

[poorme]

Originally posted by gyb13
CAREER
1995-2002
1B

OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Mark McGwire .260 1.113 .853
2 Todd Helton .204 1.047 .843
3 Frank Thomas .199 1.071 .872

28 Tino Martinez -.016 .848 .864
29 Greg Colbrunn -.022 .808 .829
30 Brian Daubach -.026 .838 .864

Well, this pretty much shows his lameness. Now who'll be the first to tell us about all his "intangibles".

[hmrsf]

Originally posted by poorme


Well, this pretty much shows his lameness. Now who'll be the first to tell us about all his "intangibles".


I always thought Daubach was a poor mans Tino. Streaky as hell but comes up big.

[Duque]

Originally posted by gyb13

27 Eric Karros -.014 .817 .831
28 Tino Martinez -.016 .848 .864


I know this won't be the first time I (or anyone else) has posted this, but I've always thought of Tino as the left-handed Eric Karros.

[maildave]

So... I bare myself to the group for the first time...

I wrote a short bit on the StL Post-Dispatch board back in December when Tino signed with the Cards (my Cards) and I was pretty upset about the cash dropped on him when, as I thought, "with our offense, anyone would do."

Anyway, I wondered if Tino had any chance of improvement left in him, looking for a silver lining, and I came across the strange case of the walk rates of Cardinal acquisitions.

I compared walk rates for several players in their first FULL Cardinal year with the season before for evidence of this (these are the guys I thought of off the top of my head... I am certain there are many more)

BB/PA preSTL STL Diff
Gant .153 .146 -7
Edmonds .087 .164 +77
McGwire .215 .241 +26
Matheny .045 .071 +26
Tatis .045 .132 +87
Vina .078 .069 -9
Renteria .085 .083 -2
DeShields .084 .088 +4
Gaetti .084 .063 -21
Clayton .069 .063 -6
Paquette .038 .066 +28

And here's Tino so far...
Martinez .067 .159 +92

He's only batting .224, but if one can reasonably expect that to come back up... Should we also expect his impressive-so-far improvement in plate discipline to go away totally?

By Whitey, I hope not.

[WiredTiger]

I would think Martinez will come back towards his norm both in average and walk rate. I always though Martinez was slightly over rated. He had tons of RBIs but that was more a product of being in a strong lineup than anything else.

The cardinals would have been better served finding two good OF/1b types than one Martinez.

[SmedIndy]

Still to early to see, but he's got to be better than Dunston or Paquette in terms of walkin'.

[Doobster779]

Look at the entire team mattingly had:

guys like Claudell Washington, Gary Ward, Bobby Meachem, and Butch Wynegar. They weren't much in those days, far from the team they have now.

[gyb13]

I think his walk rate is the leading indicator, not the lagging.
Or in non-economic terms:
it's more likely that his walk rate signifies that his hitting will come around, not the other way around.

[maildave]

3 more walks in the last 2 games of the Houston series.

His OBP is sitting at .363 - even with an average at .236 (up 30 points since Sunday) this season is off the charts for Tino. It's absolutely unlike him to have this kind of plate discipline. Same thing happened to Edmonds when he got to St Louis, and maybe I'm just a homer, but I think that Tino just might keep the new skill.

Does a .275/.390/.460 season sound unreasonable?

DJ

[gilduck]

I think Tino is a solid 1B. He won't put up MVP numbers but he's proven he can get RBI and get the hit when you need him. He hasn't hit well for the Cards up until lately but still has put up good RBI numbers and been able to get on.

[gyb13]

Originally posted by gilduck
I think Tino is a solid 1B. He won't put up MVP numbers but he's proven he can get RBI and get the hit when you need him. He hasn't hit well for the Cards up until lately but still has put up good RBI numbers and been able to get on.
Look at the two tables I posted above....he's a below-average hitter for a starting 1B.

[gilduck]

No argument there. However, I still think Tino gives you more than Brian Daubach or others.

[gyb13]

Originally posted by gilduck
No argument there. However, I still think Tino gives you more than Brian Daubach or others.
He does give you more than Daubach. .010 points in OPS, to be exact ;)

[gilduck]

Touche! I am not old enough to compare him to Mattingly so I guess we are all allowed our own opinions.