Bewerbungen » because the unknowns about player perfor

DENVER -- Kenneth Faried was animated about losing his spot in the Denver Nuggets starting lineup earlier in the season.He looks to have a hold on it now.Faried had a season-high 20 points and 15 rebounds, Wilson Chandler also had a season-high with 28 points and 11 rebounds, and the Nuggets won for the first time at home this season, 120-104 over the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday night.Thats my spot, Faried said of his third straight start. I dont like people taking my spot. I didnt take kindly to that -- Coach knew that, my teammates knew that. I was outspoken about it, I was really upset.When I came out of my starting spot it kind of gave me a wake-up call that `Hey, you need to get back to who you are.The Nuggets got back to their winning ways at home, too.Danilo Gallinari had 18 points for Denver, which snapped a four-game losing streak. Jameer Nelson added 17 points and Emmanuel Mudiay had 15.The banged-up Nuggets played their second straight game without starting shooting guard Gary Harris. Hes expected to be out until mid-December with a foot injury.We need every win we can get right now, Chandler said. Close games, blowouts, no matter how we can get them we need to win.Brandon Knight scored a season-high 32 points for Phoenix, and Devin Booker had 24 before he was ejected with 17.8 left after receiving his second technical foul. The Suns have lost five of six.Tyson Chandler returned to the Suns starting lineup after missing the last four games because of his mothers death. He had five points and five rebounds in 21 minutes.We are 3-9, Knight said. Our goal was to be a playoff team, so we have a lot (of major) issues.The Suns never led, but cut a 20-point deficit to seven in the fourth quarter before Denver pulled away.Malone singled out Faried as a key reason the Nuggets held on and ended their recent slump.He has been amazing with his energy and game-changing type of plays, Malone said.The Nuggets built an early double-digit lead with a pair of 8-0 runs. They led 12-4 thanks in part to a Mudiays jumper and layup, then pushed it to 25-10 on the back of five straight points from Chandler and a 3-pointer from Nelson. Gallinari hit a 20-foot jumper to push it to 63-43 early in the third.Knight rallied Phoenix with 10 points in the fourth, and Jared Dudleys 3 cut the lead to 100-93 with 6:18 left.TIP-INSSuns: Booker cut it to 89-76 at the end of the third when grabbed an offensive rebound and hit an off-balance 17-foot jumper at the buzzer. .. Phoenix was outrebounded 49-35.Nuggets: G Will Barton (ankle) missed his eighth straight game. ... The Nuggets waived little-used F/C Jarnell Stokes and signed F Alonzo Gee, who was waived by the New Orleans Pelicans earlier this season. The seven-year veteran had one assist in four minutes. In the past Ive always admired him from afar, Malone said before the game. I like his approach.BOOKER EJECTEDAfter he was fouled by Faried late in the game, Booker received his second technical. He lined up for a free throw anyways, before the official pointed him off the court.I didnt know I was ejected, he said. It was my first ejection, its something new.NO TURNOVERSThe Nuggets have struggled to take care of the ball through their first 10 games, so Mudiays zero turnovers on Wednesday was reason enough for praise.Thank the lord, he said. Its about time I had no turnovers.UP NEXTSuns: Continue a six-game trip at Indiana on Friday night.Nuggets: Continue a four-game homestand against Toronto on Friday night. Alexandre Lacazette Jersey .B. - Sebastien Auger made 44 saves as the Saint John Sea Dogs edged the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan 2-1 on Saturday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. Konstantinos Mavropanos Jersey . Burke is expected to miss two to three months after breaking a finger in the teams third preseason game. Tinsley, a 10-year veteran, spent the last two seasons in Utah, where the point guard averaged 3. http://www.footballarsenalstore.com/Women-Henrikh-Mkhitaryan-Arsenal-Fc-Jersey/ . Newcastle dominated in the early stages but City weathered the storm and then raised its game in extra time. Negredo broke the deadlock from close range after a simple move in the 99th minute before Dzeko took the ball round goalkeeper Tim Krul to seal the victory in the 105th. Mohamed Elneny Arsenal Jersey . DAmigo scored twice in regulation and added the shootout winner as the Toronto Marlies edged the San Antonio Rampage 5-4 in American Hockey League action. Lucas Torreira Jersey . -- Los Angeles Lakers guard Jordan Farmar will be out for roughly four weeks after tearing his left hamstring. Players have good years, bad years and in-between years, and in 2016 Chris Davis had an in-between year. He was a productive major leaguer, worth a lineup spot on a good team. But he will most likely be named on no MVP ballots this week, after finishing 14th in voting a year ago and third two years before that. Taken together its all OK, except that Davis was playing the first year under a $161 million contract that will almost assuredly take him into that phase of his career where theyre eventually all bad (and expensive) years. The Baltimore Orioles needed this one to be good.As teams prepare this month to sign players to new $161 million contracts (or thereabouts), its worth looking at what makes for an in-between season. In one sense, Davis drop-off from 2015 to 2016 is remarkable: By OPS+, Davis (at 107) was more similar to Erick Aybar (at 69) than he was to the 2015 version of himself (147). In another sense, the margins between superstar and expensive, average player are slim enough to straddle.To appreciate this, dont think of a season as a single product, built in a factory somewhere and rolled out to the marketplace in its final form. It is a series of hundreds of individual events, each one with the potential to be good, bad or in-between. Consider it, in fact, like this:Thats what were calling Chris Daviss 2015 season, his good season. Thats the jar of dry black beans, unpopped popcorn, gummy fish, gummy half-fish, mini marshmallows, knockoff M&Ms, semi-sweetened chocolate chips and unshelled pistachios that were going to literally unpack today.Within that jar are the 47 gummy fish, 31 halved gummy fish, 66 knockoff M&Ms, 84 marshmallows and eight chocolate chips that Davis delivered in 2015. These are all delicious treats, and they are all excellent outcomes for a hitter. Within that jar are also 208 uncooked black beans, 214 unpopped corn kernels, and six pistachios. These are bad outcomes for a hitter, and no matter how many home runs a major leaguer can realistically hit, hes going to fill the spaces in between with outs. As Chris Davis did.So Davis went from a near-MVP season to a merely OK season, but not everything changed. For instance, he was hit by exactly as many pitches in both years, so the Orioles got just as many chocolate chips as they might have expected. He grounded into exactly as many double plays, so the Orioles got just as many of those as they have expected. If the Orioles were paying Davis to get hit by pitches, and avoid double plays -- and, in some fractional way, they were -- they would have considered him just as good in 2016 as in 2015. Since HBPs and GIDPs were a wash, lets remove those 14 outcomes from the season, because to the extent that Davis failed to repeat his excellent 2015 season, it happened in the other 650-plus outcomes.Our new jar, free of pistachios and chocolate chips:He drew four more walks in 2016, so to the extent the Orioles were paying him to walk (and they were) they got more than their moneys worth. He had six fewer singles, so to the extent they were paying him to single (and they were), they almost got their moneys worth. Davis repeated all of the walks and most of the singles, so remove all of the walks from the marshmallows, and all but six of the knockoff M&Ms.He hit 38 homers in 2016, down from 47 in 2015. He doubled 21 times, down from 31. So if the Orioles expected him to hit 78 extra-base hits, he lived up to that promise in 59 of 78 instances. Those 19 missing extra-base hits were, more or less, cleanly replaced by 11 extra strikeouts and five extra outs on balls in play. (He also batted five fewer times.)What got lost in the move remains in the jar; thats the 2015 production that Davis couldnt match. What he replaced it with is in the glass, on the right. Were talking about 20 plate appearances that shifted from positive outcomes to negative, fewer than one bad outcome per week. The overwhelming majority of his nearly 700 plate appearances stayed the same.This is not to diminish the value of those 20 plate appearances. Switching a home run to an out costs a team, on average, more than a run and a half. Switching a double to an out is roughly a run lost, and a single to an out is almost three-quarters of a run. The jar on the left is worth about 25 runs more to the Orioles, or about two and a half wins, which teams are willing to pay around $20 million or more for. This is why Davis wont sniff an MVP vote this year, and its why Davis gets lumped in with the regrettable signings from last winter.It does, though, stress how little has to actually change for a hitter to go from great to good, or good to bad, or valuable to albatross. That even in big samples, a small subsample can swing everything, for Davis or for any other hitter.You might wonder where those nine homers, 10 doubles and two singles went, and here again we can see how little has to be different for a lot to be different.ddddddddddddFrom the time that the ball was pitched to the moment it was hit, heres what changed for Davis; a bunch of other things stayed more or less the same, and wont be mentioned:Pitchers threw slightly more pitches in the strike zone -- about 45 out of every 100, up from 43 of 100.Davis was much more patient. He swung about five fewer times per 100 pitches seen, a patience that showed up both at pitches in the strike zone and out of the strike zone. He went from the top 40 percent of free-swingers, in 2015, to the bottom 20 percent in 2016. (This probably explains the modest uptick in both walks and strikeouts, as he worked deeper counts.)More teams shifted against him, though not that many more -- he was already shifted by almost everybody. Still, he hit 127 ground balls against an extreme shift in 2016, up from 113 in 2015 (and 96 the year before that). This cost him a single or so.Finally, the direction the ball went changed dramatically. Davis pulled 55 percent of the balls he put in play in 2015, which was the fourth-highest pull rate among all qualifying hitters. He pulled just under 42 percent of balls he put in play in 2016, which is the 62nd-highest pull rate. That was the biggest change in pull rate in the majors this year, by a lot:This last bit seems, at first glance, like a major change. And considering how much more power most hitters have when they pull the ball -- the league as a whole slugged .665 on pulled balls this year, .541 on balls hit to center, and just .495 on balls hit the other way -- it seems like the answer for the missing homers and doubles.But, in fact, it explains nothing for Davis, who has had extraordinary power to all fields in his career:His slugging percentage to the opposite field over the past five years is the best mark in baseball by more than 65 points. Hitting more balls to left or center isnt necessarily a bug for Davis, and in 2016 especially it worked to his benefit: He slugged .975 on balls hit the other way, more than 100 points better than any other hitter in baseball. He slugged .795 on balls hit to center, fifth best in baseball, two points behind Mike Trout.So it wasnt his inability to pull the ball that cost him power. However, it was his inability to pull the ball for power that cost him power. He slugged only .586 when he pulled the ball, his worst power performance on pulled baseballs since 2011, a season he began in Texas. In fact, here is where we find all the missing extra-base hits, and more:This despite the fact that his exit velocity on pulled baseballs was, at 91.3 mph, almost identical to his 2015 figure (91.6 mph). His exit velocity on pulled line drives went up, from 97.2 mph to 98.7 mph -- and yet his doubles on pulled liners dropped from 16 to five, and homers from five to two. His average exit velocity on pulled fly balls went up, from 95.7 mph to 99.1, and his average distance on pulled fly balls dropped only from 346 feet to 344; and yet his home runs on pulled fly balls dropped in half, from 22 to 11. Sometimes the park just holds you. Sometimes the defense is just a little bit better.One might still take all these facts and conclude that Davis is in serious and irrevocable decline. Most ballplayers older than 30 are in irrevocable decline, after all, and everything weve noted was different about Davis this year might be used to build in a circumstantial case against him: Pitchers threw him more strikes because they (and their advance scouts) already intuit that he isnt as dangerous as he used to be, maybe. He took more pitches because he realizes that, as he ages, he cant handle as many quality pitches on the edges of the zone, maybe. He pulled fewer pitches because his bat is slower, maybe. He did less damage when he did pull it because hes not as strong, maybe. He dealt with hand soreness throughout the season and said himself that I havent been myself all season. His hand kept him from turning the bat over, maybe, or from getting backspin, maybe. Anyway, he struck out more and he hit less. You dont need a jar full of gummy fish to understand that this is what happens to ballplayers sometime after they turn 30.But we, as analysts and baseball fans and GMs signing free agents, miss on veterans almost as often as we miss on young players, because the unknowns about player performance dont go away, they just shift a little. Almost everything Chris Davis did this year was as good as it had been the year before. In a small sliver of his outcomes, sent to just one sliver of the field, everything he hit turned into nothing -- and for no clear or convincing reason. This is one way that a season ends up in the in-between, and its one way that we are overeager to declare a contract sunk 14.3 percent of the way into it. ' ' '