UPDATE: Jayson Werth and His .227 Average Stopped by the Public House Last Night, Washington Post Makes Ridiculous Argument
Consider this your little Friday afternoon game preview, if you will- even though I hate myself for writing such predictable prose.
According to Nick, who stopped by quizzo at Drinker's, Jayson Werth was at the Public House in Center City last night. From Nick:
Saw Werth at public house he told me he misses Philly. Swear to god. Wish I got a pic. He asked me how the birds did and I told him I didn't know cause I was at phillies trivia. He then proceeded to tell me how much he missed Philadelphia.
I can't quite envision Werth as the type of guy to spew his emotions at random strangers, but we'll give Nick the benefit of the doubt. A few other folks spotted JW, as well:
Fascinating. This will be his second trip back to Philly… let's take a look at how things are going for him:
He's batting .227 (his slash line is awful: .227/.331/.386) with 14 home runs and 44 RBIs. He has also struck out 121 times already.
Yeah, not good.
As we pointed out the other day, Cliff Lee has a higher home run to at-bat ratio (1:26) than Werth (now 1:29) and a batting average only one point lower, .226. That's sort of embarrassing.
Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post makes the ridiculous argument that if Jayson Werth added one extra double per week (roughly 19 weeks), he would be having a similar season to last year: [Washington Post]
What is the point? Well, the large gap between Werth’s career performance and his 2011 performance, through that one-double-a-week prism, says something interesting, to me, about the marathon grind of a baseball season and the importance of keeping track of statistics in regard to evaluating a hitter. This is not meant to be comprehensive, and we’re ignoring all kind of valuable advanced metrics and such. It’s just a different perspective.
If they didn’t record averages and keep of track stats, do you think you would notice the absence or presence of one extra double per week by one hitter? You could be awfully attentive, and still, would that really make a difference if you couldn’t count it all up? It’s hard to know for sure, but it seems to me that it would not, purely by watching games and no record, make the difference between a dominant player and one who is not quite league average.
Other examples of that logic: If the Phillies would have won two more games in the 2009 World Series, they would have won the World Series.
If Jeff Carter would have elevated just one more puck…
If Heath Ledger had taken just two less pills…
If my dick was just three inches longer…
That whole argument is actually pretty fucking ridiculous. What separates good from great and average from good in professional sports is exactly those unnoticeable feats of which Kilgore speaks. But are they really that unnoticeable?
If Werth had an additional 19 doubles (which, oh by the way, he doesn’t), he would be batting roughly .272, instead of .227 (anagram, yo). But here's where the difference would really be made: Since 42% of JW's at-bats this year have come with men on base, Werth would have roughly eight additional doubles with – let's call it – an average of 1.5 men on base. That would yield an additional 12 RBIs (runs scored for the Nationals), or, when put in context, jump the Nats over four teams in the Majors in runs scored. All of that is not to mention the residual effects of having 19 additional baserunners (Werth) and less outs (19 less, to be exact). So, 19 additional doubles would actually be a pretty substantial – noticeable – difference. But hey, not everyone can write for the Washington Post…
A WaPo reader has a familiar take on JW in their comments:
You can sugarcoat this any way you want but the bottom line is that he hasn't been clutch; oh sure last week in Colorado he finally came through but against the Cubs he struck out far too many times, the cubs have the worst pitching in the NL. He has made errors in the field and he tried to throw his now departed manager Jim Riggleman under the bus in the midst of an early season losing streak.
Nodding…
You can grab your tickets to see Werth (sans his 19 mythical doubles) right here. Prices start at $20.
Also, with Hunter Pence taking over for Werth in right field, we've been asked by a local media outlet to help spread the following: When the clap-drum thing – which usually results in "Let's go Phillies" chants – springs up at CBP, everyone now cheer "Let's go eat, let's go eat." I'll co-sign that.
Let's go eat.
UPDATE: As reader Tommy points out in the comments, Kilgore 100% stole his argument from Bull Durham.
