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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
This has to be the most eagerly awaited match-up since Santo y Blue Demon vs Dr. Frankenstein!
But whatever. The Dodgers’ ownership gave in to the chattering idiots and fired DePodesta after just a year and a half on the job. In his place, the Dodgers hired Colletti, whose philosophy seemed diametrically opposed to DePodesta’s. Colletti worked under Brian Sabean in San Francisco and represented baseball’s old guard. When asked about VORP, a very basic and useful new stat that every GM should be aware of, Colletti memorably replied, ‘’I may be using it and not even know it, and if I am, it’s nobody’s business. There are a lot of different criteria in judging players. I think I use, um, esoteric qualitative mathematical review times five. That’s one of them.”
The ha-ha anti-intellectualism of this response must have warmed the hearts (and souls!) of LA’s media, who practically threw Colletti a parade. A parade with lots of heart! And soul! And guts! And no pocket protectors! Or calculators! Ha ha, nerds!
...What I oppose is the knee-jerk rejection of statistical analysis, and the use of vague appeals to heart and soul to excuse complete cluelessness. Have you ever seen Juan Pierre play? I have. He’s not a good baseball player, and any scout worth his or her salt should be able to see that. He can’t throw, he doesn’t play otherwise spectacular defense, he can barely hit the ball out of the infield, he doesn’t get on base, and he doesn’t steal bases terribly efficiently. He’s fast. That’s about it.
Repoz
Posted: April 22, 2008 at 12:05 AM | 33 comment(s)
Related News: General, Sabermetrics, LA Dodgers, Toronto
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But who cares anyway? Sabean is clearly the worst GM in baseball...I guess the other seedings will rank them after him.
But Sabean had better not rest of his laurels. There are up-and-coming GMs who can rival him for that worst-GM spot in the years to come - Bill Smith and Frank Wren spring to mind.
Lo Duca's done interesting things. Not on the field, but still.
Kenny Williams has a ring and the year that team won it, they didn't have a huge payroll. His team is leading the division by 2.5 games and the Sox are up 5 games in the loss column on the Indians.
He is not a bad GM. What has Shapiro done that Williams hasn't?
as for Ricarddi, his moves hasn't been bad. he's pretty good at finding value with a budget. the grudge on him is that he's not drafting very well so far. then again, in that division they need some extrodinary good performance from him to have a chance.
God I hate that guy. More than any other baseball figure -- more than, I don't know, Juan Pierre, Dusty Baker, the ghost of Neifi Perez, even Admiral Evil Joe Morgan himself -- I despise Ned Colletti for taking what could be a truly excellent team and doing everything he can to #### it up. God damn. ####. What an asscock.
White replaced Ed Creech, who went on to spin his magic in Pittsburgh.
I'm pretty sure he's saying Krivisky is handily worse than Williams.
And Russlan is probably asking what Kenny Williams is doing in this poll at all.
Had a bar mitzvah?
It may well be that Wayne, in his eagerness to shed some baggage from the previous regime, pulled the trigger too quickly on a few deals.
There is also word that after much hemming and hawing the team is reaching out to Dunn about an extension. And with the announcing team moving on to Edwin Encarnacion as the new whipping boy it's possible that Dunn will at least listen.
Ned Colletti......Dodger GM for LIFE!!!! :-)
In the right setting Dusty can succeed. If he can keep Jr. to 125 games, stroke Dunn's ego, get EE on track, play Votto and let Harang/Arroyo do the heavy lifting on the mound the Reds will be in the mix.
And you know what? So far he is doing all of those things. The only items of concern are giving Corey such a high profile in the offense and riding Cueto late in games.
What has Frank Wren done to deserve that?
Relevant players lost by Colletti: Bradley, D. Sanchez, Navarro, Seo, Perez, Izturis, Guzman, Drew, Gagne, Maddux, Lofton, Lugo, Betemit, Wolf
1) That is an awful lot of guys to bring in for a team with an extremely strong farm system. He really has resisted giving the kids a shot.
2) Lots of turnover for only his third year at the helm. Even if he didn't give up much, shuffling around Maddux, Lugo, and Wolf so quickly shows a lack of a long-term vision.
3) Between Bradley, Navarro, Drew, and Betemit, there is a lot more upside on that second list. Ethier stands out as the only acquisition who could be expected to improve on his previous level of performance.
Someone doesn't like the Meche deal, I guess.
You obviously do not follow the Lions.
Either you're confusing Frank Wren with Dayton Moore, or I just missed a joke or something...
All those Atlanta assistants look the same to me.
McCourt's definitely a problem. Did he hire Malone before DePo? He then caved to media pressure when DePo improved the team, and went out to hire a guy that would sign old, grizzled players.
Still, Coletti's deliberate moves to block his best players from playing time is pretty damning.
I believe Dan Evans was the GM before DePo. Sheriff Malone was hired by Fox.
Thanks.
His start with the Braves has been OK. The Kotsay deal and Glavine signing were questionable, but looks like he made up for a good bit of that with the Renteria/Jurrjens deal. The Braves have been beset by injury but their run differential is still among the best in the NL.
I think the jury is very much still out on Wren. But I don't see anything to indicate incompetence along the lines of a Sabean.
Golly, you must be right. I just sort of assume KW is always in this conversation and everybody knows it.
Wren was only in charge in Baltimore for 11 months. That's not really enough time to properly assess him, IMO.
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