The Crawfish Boxes: An SB Nation Community

Navigation: Jump to content areas:



Sports blogs for fans, by fans.
New Feature: Mobile Commenting and Retweeting now live!


Do the Astros need to give Miguel Tejada more days off?

Earlier in the Hot Stove season, when everyone thought we might be trying to do things that would make our club better, there was a lot of discussion about whether or not Miguel Tejada needed an adequate platoon to ensure that he got more days off.  I've always been a little skeptical of that prognostication, but I wanted to put some numbers to the idea and see what stuck.

You can find out...after the jump.

Star-divide

What follows is a rather unwieldy table, but one that looks at every single Tejada off-game (defined as a game in which Tejada did not start and played no more than one inning) and what his Triple Slash (AVG/OBP/SLG) was for the five games prior to the off-day, the three games prior to the off-day, the three games immediately following the off-day, and the five games immediately following the off-day.  This method of analysis was possible for every off-day except for July 6th and July 9th because there were only two games separating the off-days.  After the four groupings around off-days, I measured the average change in each of Tejada's Triple Slash categories in both the three day groupings and the five groupings.  Finally, Tejada's season average for his Triple Slash stats are compared to his average performance after an off-day, both three and five days groupings.

While there is hopefully a lot to gleaned from all of this, keep in mind that there are only 7 data points for us to look at.  Even worse, because of my definition of an off-day, July 6th doesn't count because Tejada played multiple innings of an extra inning affair against the Braves.  Thus in the case of the five day groupings, only 5 data points exist and for three day groupings, 6.

Off Day 5 Days Before 3 Days Before (2 days for 7/9)
  AVG OBP SLG AVG OBP SLG
May 15, 2008 0.400 0.435 0.400 0.385 0.357 0.385
Jun 6, 2008 0.053 0.142 0.105 0.091 0.231 0.182
Jul 6, 2008 0.143 0.143 0.143 0.167 0.167 0.167
Jul 9, 2008 N/A N/A N/A 0 0.111 0
Jul 23, 2008 0.286 0.286 0.333 0.077 0.077 0.077
Aug 8, 2008 0.286 0.286 0.304 0.286 0.286 0.357
Aug 19, 2008 0.200 0.238 0.250 0.250 0.308 0.333
             
Off Day 3 Days After (2 days for 7/6) 5 Days After
  AVG OBP SLG AVG OBP SLG
May 15, 2008 0.357 0.357 0.500 0.330 0.364 0.524
Jun 6, 2008 0.182 0.308 0.455 0.300 0.364 0.75
Jul 6, 2008 0 0.111 0 N/A N/A N/A
Jul 9, 2008 0.231 0.231 0.231 N/A N/A N/A
Jul 23, 2008 0.500 0.462 0.500 0.526 0.524 0.684
Aug 8, 2008 0.308 0.308 0.615 0.381 0.409 0.619
Aug 19, 2008 0.462 0.462 0.538 0.318 0.318 0.409
             
  Average Change Season Average Triple Slash After 5 Days
5 Day AVG 0.126   AVG 0.283 AVG 0.371
5 Day OBP 0.118   OBP 0.315 OBP 0.396
5 Day SLG 0.319   SLG 0.415 SLG 0.597
          Triple Slash After 3 Days
3 Day AVG 0.159       AVG 0.340
3 Day OBP 0.126       OBP 0.355
3 Day SLG 0.251       SLG 0.473

None of this is really significant in the statistical meaning of the word, but one thing is for sure, Miguel Tejada was measurably better offensively after an off day—especially in terms of power production.  It seems that there is a clear benefit to giving Tejada more rest days than the schedule allows for, perhaps an extra 3-4 a month (maybe more, maybe less depending on which month it is).  In that context, it doesn't seem like whoever Tejada's back-up will be will see a significant amount of playing time.  So, at least we don't have to be mad about not acquiring a back-up for Tejada now...right?

Thoughts? Comments? Reactions? Any speculation as to why his SLG improves so much more?

This would not have been possible, for me at least, without Baseball Reference's Game Logs. Thank you Baseball Reference.

 

0 recs | Comment 4 comments | Share on Facebook Digg!

Story-email Email Printer Print

Around SB Nation

Lazy Saturday Comparisons

Jun 2009 from Brew Crew Ball - 5 comments

talking trade

Jun 2009 from Viva El Birdos - 497 comments

Comments

Display:

Good job getting that level of detail.

The results, though a small sample size, confirms my subjective impression that Tejada hit better every time he came back from a day off. I had the same impression about Biggio; in his later years, Bidge seemed to hit better when came back from off-days.

I can only take wild guesses as to why. As an old guy, myself, I look to my own personal experience. I like to play tennis. A lot. Ten years ago, I might play tennis 3 – 4 times a week. However, as I get older, sore joints in my shoulder and feet diminish my performance toward the end of matches.So now I play 1 or 2 times per week and that seems to help. Even though I always subscribed to the idea that practice makes you better, I now find that if I haven’t played in week or so, I feel refreshed and physically play more like I did when I was younger.

As an older player, I’m sure that Tejada has nagging physical issues which he doesn’t talk about publicly. Maybe a day off lets his body heal a bit and he feels better. Heck, maybe it is partly psychological.

by clack on Dec 22, 2008 9:58 PM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

I understand

Undeniably, he played better (even that better wasn’t all that great in a few instances) coming from the off day. For me, the question is how valid is this, or how much is influenced by chance and the myriad of other factors that could influence his post-off-day performance.

I was pleased that he really doesn’t need a ton of off-days if this pattern holds, which is a lot better than the dire warnings we were hearing earlier in the off-season.

Once I had finished the spread sheet, I realized that it might have made a lot more sense to see what he splits were after regular off-days in the schedule…then my eye’s glazed over thinking about all that data collection. I put that project in the “If the planets align” section of my to do list. If anyone wants to beat me to the punch…please do.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by DyingQuail on Dec 23, 2008 12:19 AM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

given the sample size, you won't know...

if it is statistically significant, even if you do the additional analysis.

by clack on Dec 23, 2008 5:05 AM CST to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Statistically Significant?

Not really….but am I willing to wait around for Tejada to gather 1000 AB just to see if this holds to three decimal places? Not really. There are some decisions that you’ve just gotta make based on observation/anecdote/small evidence, and I think giving Tejada regular rest is one of them.

Thanks for doing this! I know how tiresome it can be to go through game data to pull out that info.

by AstroAndy on Dec 23, 2008 9:31 AM CST reply reply actions actions   0 recs

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Welcome to the Crawfishboxes, the SBNation blog for the Houston Astros.
Start posting about the Astros »

Join SB Nation and dive into communities focused on all your favorite teams.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recent FanPosts

Small
BA posts mid-season top 50 Prospect Rankings & 'Stros have 2.
Small
Jose Altuve
Astros_small
time for a change
Oingo_boingo-only_a_lad_small
Hunter Pence, All-Star (For Reals!)
Small
Jay Austin
Baseball_-_roy_oswalt_small
Astros Play Day Game Against Padres
Astroandyavatar_small
International Free Agent Signings
Houston_texans_small
Am I the only one...
Small
Special thanks goes to
Astroandyavatar_small
Astros Uniforms - Vote your favorite

Post_icon New FanPost All FanPosts Carrot-mini

THE CRAWFISH BOXES GETS SOCIAL

Picture_88_medium The Crawfish Boxes on Facebook

Picture_89_medium The Crawfish Boxes on Twitter

Current Series

Nationals lead the series 1-0

NL Central Standings

W L PCT GB STRK
St. Louis 47 40 .540 0 Won 1
Milwaukee 44 41 .517 2 Lost 1
Chicago 41 41 .500 3.5 Lost 2
Houston 41 42 .493 4 Won 2
Cincinnati 41 42 .493 4 Lost 1
Pittsburgh 38 47 .447 8 Lost 1

(updated 7.9.2009 at 3:46 PM CDT)


Humble Blog Managers

Urbanshocker_small HighLeveragePerformer

Lovelance_small DyingQuail

Editors

Nsapcs13_large_small clack

Fbod6_small farm_stros