This looked interesting until I realized the 218 homers were RBI. I can't understand why the Nationals didn't stockpile this guy onto their noodle limbed catcher "depth" chart.

I'm gonna miss Brown. I thought he could have been a decent C/1B/PH, maybe even 3B like Melhuse v.2003. Can LeCroy actually play a position anymore?

Brown is going to get a job at a mall and start selling jeans.

Ha, Matt LeCroy is probably most famous for being pudgy, and here he is replacing Jeremy Brown, the man whose saga brought us the whole jeans-selling idea. This must be intentional.

.300/.364/.500

I'd say Beane was vindicated.

Why would Brown retire at this point? He had a good chance to make the roster.

Brown is going to get a job at a mall and start selling jeans.

Beat me by ten minutes! Well played, sir.

Seriously, I'm sure there must be some kind of extra story to this, as it seems like he had a good chance at a Sal Fasano type career.

Why would Brown retire at this point? He had a good chance to make the roster.

I wonder if he has a real world job set up. That would seemingly be the only explanation.

Two old points about Brown.
Baseball America touted him as the best defensive player (all positions) out of college the year of his draft. Moneyball comes out, and Baseball America switched to calling Brown a bad defensive catcher.

At Midland, Brown badly hurt his hand, which IMO knocked him from future star to good backup.

Cross-posting:

I wonder why somebody like Brown would retire. Are there really better options for him at this point? Same question goes for the likes of Adam Piatt and Tony Torcato. Yes, I realize their careers weren't going as ideal, but you'd think they hangaround on the oft chance a break may occur.

LeCroy was pretty awful last year - 194/281/279 in AAA, so I have him projected at 216/302/347. Did he have an arm amputate or something before the season?

The BA tools page from the 2002 draft preview says:

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER
College
1 Taber Lee, ss, San Diego State (77)
2 Chris Snyder, c, Houston (70)
3 Drew Meyer, ss, South Carolina (27)

High School
1 B.J. Upton, ss, Chesapeake, Va. (1)
2 Denard Span, of, Tampa (20)
3 Adam Donachie, c, Orlando (44)

They didn't have him among the top 250 overall draft prospects or the top 25 catchers. They ranked him as the 12th best prospect from Alabama and said:

Two other very attractive senior signs off the Crimson Tide are OF Scott McClanahan and C Jeremy Brown. McClanahan always has been a physical player with all-around tools, and this year he finally started to hit. Brown’s body (5-foto-10, 208 pounds) isn’t pretty, but he’s the best catcher in the Southeastern Conference and could be at least a solid big league backup

Nor did we rank him among the best defensive players in his draft year of 2001:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/online/draft/besttools01.html

Best Defensive Player
College
1 Bobby Crosby, ss, Long Beach State 46
2 Ryan Theriot, ss, Louisiana State 63
3 David DeJesus, of, Rutgers 98
High School
1 Bryan Bass, ss, Seminole, Fla. 44
2 Michael Hollimon, ss, Dallas 92
3 Matt Macri, ss, Clive, Iowa 28

Same story, wasn't a top prospect on our list in 2001 either, but we did rank him No. 11 in Alabama (http://www.baseballamerica.com/online/draft/regions/alabama01.html) and wrote:

Former first baseman Jeremy Brown doesn't have the best body (5-foot-10, 208 pounds), but he was the best catcher in the SEC this year. He didn't make an error and gunned down 35 percent of basestealers.

I guess it made for a more entertaining story for Michael Lewis, but we never killed poor ol' Jeremy Brown like he claimed. He was a good college player and he wasn't a top draft prospect, but he was a prospect with a chance to one day make it to the majors. But I guess that isn't as entertaining to put it that way.

Apparently Brown has personal issues that are making him retire.

The A's will leave open the opportunity for the 28-year-old Brown to come back to the organization if that's something he decides he wants down the road.

"It's a shame. The kid could really hit. We certainly understand his family's more important at this point,'' Beane said. "It caught us a little by surprise. Things like this, personal issues, come up. ... It's absolutely an open door.''

Apparently, there's some family-related issues that triggered the retirement. Edit: Or what Worst person said.

Why would Brown retire at this point? He had a good chance to make the roster.

To protect that .300 career average. Just like Johnny Kruk.

Yeah, Jeremy Brown's retirement is a little weird. He seemed poise to, at the least, take a backup job, and the Gregg Zaun career path was still a possibility for him, it seemed. Depending on what the "family issues" are, he might be back.

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER
High School
1 B.J. Upton, ss, Chesapeake, Va. (1)
2 Denard Span, of, Tampa (20)
3 Adam Donachie, c, Orlando (44)

Well, if BJ Upton's hitting doesn't pan out against world-class competition, at least we know he'll be a whiz in the field.

Blanton, Swisher and Teahen are the players from the draft that have "made it" thus far, right? Even given the number of picks he had, that's pretty good yield IMHO.

Blanton, Swisher and Teahen are the players from the draft that have "made it" thus far, right?

Yep.

Swisher's B-R statistical comps are really interesting. Every one of them was a disappointment in some way - guys like Phil Plantier, Bob Allison, the original Frank Thomas, Jose Cruz Jr., Austin Kearns, and Pat Burrell. It's stunning.

-- MWE

Swisher's PECOTA comps, from their 2008 spreadsheet: Mark Teixeira, Jeff Burroughs, Bob Allison, Bobby Kielty

Blanton, Swisher and Teahen are the players from the draft that have "made it" thus far, right? Even given the number of picks he had, that's pretty good yield IMHO.

Pretty good's an understatement. 3 average to above MLers is a great haul for those 7 picks. 1.5 would have been good.

1.5 would have been good.
Not for the half.

Obviously, I hope his family issues sort themselves out swiftly and amenably.

While I think Brown was only third in line for the backup job this year (behind Bowen and Knoedler), he still had a decent shot to get sustained big league time. As for his glove, I thought he was okay enough as a pro, despite reported stiffness behind the plate (he didn't really have trouble with PB) and a real slow gun (last I saw, his CS and SBA/9 numbers were respectable - though his A/9 for '07 suggests otherwise).

Swisher's PECOTA comps, from their 2008 spreadsheet: Mark Teixeira, Jeff Burroughs, Bob Allison, Bobby Kielty

Burroughs and Kielty qualify as disappointments, too, don't you think? Teixiera, not so much yet.

Allison's career is really interesting. He was a deserving RoY in 1959 at age 24, hitting 30 HRs in a tough DC ballpark, then blossomed after the original Senators moved to Minnesota. He ran well, was a solid OF (good enough to handle CF in his prime), and was probably one of the 10 best players in the AL in 1963-1964. Then it all just went away. By the end of 1965 he was platooning with Sandy Valdespino, then he broke a hand the following year and while he was still a good player, he wasn't at the top of the heap as it appeared he would be back in 1963. Bob was quite the football player, too.

-- MWE

3 average to above MLers is a great haul for those 7 picks.

I'm not sure what to make of Teahen. It's not clear that he is quite an average player. His 3 yr OPS+ is 100 even. Individual totals are all over the place - 82, 122, 98. The first two were at 3B. If I recall his defensive numbers there were pretty mixed.

His RF were terrible by SFR, which Dan Fox just wrote about the other day. Not sure about other systems, but the Royals have bumped him from RF to LF.

If he settles in as a league average hitter with -15 defense in LF, then he's probably not really an average player afterall and that big 122 OPS+ will look like a fluke in retrospect.

Swisher and Blanton, who has really come on, will still be a good return, but Teahen trending down knocks the overall assessment down a peg.

Somebody's going to have to redo similarity scores to measure similar skills instead of career totals.

I find it amazing that Brad Wilkerson is not on Swisher's list, but Bo Jackson is. Without that list, I don't think anyone would have ever mentioned Swisher and Jackson in the same sentence, let alone do it twice.

I do think that one thing that is constantly overlooked is that Browne was really the only off the wall selection out of that group. The others had decent support from traditional rating systems so they weren't creations of a special approach. They were all considered first five round drafts, which means they projected pretty decent. Not saying either system was correct, but just pointing out that despite the issues made in the book, the thought process did not differ that much other than with Browne, who unfortunately became a victim of the book.

Swisher, who the A's selected No. 16, was ranked No. 34 going ito the draft by BB America, and third best first baseman in draft.
Blanton, who the A's selected No. 24, was ranked No. 18 going into the draft by BB America, and eighth best RH pitcher in the draft.
McCurdy, who the A's selected No. 26, was rnaked No. 45 going into the draft by BB America, and the second best second baseman.
Ben Fritz,who the A's selected No. 30, was ranked No. 53 going into the draft by BB American, and No. 7 as a catcher and No. 23 as a pitcher.
Steve Obenchain, who the A's selected No 37, was ranked No. 170 going into the draft by BB America, and No.76 as a pitcher.
Teahan, who the A's selected No. 39, was ranked No. 134 going into the draft by BB America, and 11th best third baseman.

Jeff Burroughs pops up on my comp list as well. Others on mine include Pat Burrell, Ron Gant, Ken Henderson, Mike Young, Lee Mazzilli, Greg Vaughn, Rondell White, Tom Tresh, and Don Baylor.

How does Kielty end up on his PECOTA comp list. Through age 26, Swisher has about 2000 PA, a 118 OPS+, and a 110 SLG+ with 80 HR. Through age 26, Kielty had about 1000 PA, a 109 OPS+ (not bad), a league-average SLG and 27 HR.

Is PECOTA over-ranking Kielty because he's also a switch-hitter. I know PECOTA looks for similar "body types" and includes handedness I'm pretty sure. But that seems a rather silly thing to do for switch-hitters. Note Teixeira's also a switch-hitter and he's pretty well out-performed Swisher seems to me. (Allison and Burroughs are not of course ... though if PECOTA does include handedness, you'd think it makes more sense to compare switch-hitters to lefties ... unless they're Kielty. :-)

Jeff Burroughs pops up on my comp list as well. Others on mine include Pat Burrell, Ron Gant, Ken Henderson, Mike Young, Lee Mazzilli, Greg Vaughn, Rondell White, Tom Tresh, and Don Baylor.

Hey Dan - Ron Gant's on my comp list too. Plus Shooty Babbit, John Tesh, Alyssa Milano, Norm from Cheers, and the Village People. I think I'm going to have to tweak the ratings.