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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A look at Brian Giles and his intangible irreverency.
In the current season Brian is hitting .301 with a .394 obp and a .433 slg. His .394 obp stands 6th in the NL, and it’s the best on the Padres by a wide margin. Furthermore, Brian has walked more than he has struck out so far this year, which would mark the 10th consecutive season of that accomplishment. Though the slugging percentage is below his .512 career mark, it is the highest in his past three seasons and his ISO has been very steady over the past three years. In short, throughout his career Brian has personified the patience with power philosophy - posting quality at-bats in seemingly every plate appearance. He has been precisely what we want our young hitters to become.
In addition to his performance on the field (and in the outfield, for that matter), Brian also brings a number of intangibles to our team. First and foremost, Brian plays hard and plays through pain. Before banging his knee into the wall last season he had played in at least 158 games for three consecutive seasons. He wants to be on the field, and he wants to win. As many of you know, Brian is also a bit, how shall I say, irreverant in the clubhouse, which is incredibly helpful over the course of a long season. He loves playing the game, and it shows.
Repoz
Posted: July 17, 2008 at 02:45 AM | 19 comment(s)
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You mean the 2nd bit I assume (regarding the first bit, DePo would like a higher SLG but yeah, I assume he's content).
Sure, why not? It's not like he's saying that it's more important than what he brings in terms of performance. But good player AND plays hard AND isn't a tight-ass? What's not to like? And yeah, based on their reputation, I'm pretty sure hanging for 6 months with the Rox would drive me absolutely bonkers ... give me some irreverence.
That is ...
intangible irreverency.
should not be confused with irrelevant intangibles.
First we learn about Ichiro, now Giles. Glad to hear that swearing still goes on in baseball.
What does this mean? What does the Rox's reputation have to do with Giles' irreverence?
Which is honestly a pretty silly comparison. Somehow I doubt that guys like Matt Holliday or Todd Helton are any less jocular in the clubhouse than your average MLB player.
I don't know if 'excited' is the right word, but when somebody does something that's never been done before--even if it's something as benign as a baseball executive writing a blog--people tend to take notice. It's not the substance that's important, it's the medium.
Well isn't that the problem then?.. that people are getting excited just because it happens to a blog?
Why is that a problem? It's a more direct means of communicating with the fan base than front offices have used in the past. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, John Henry occasionally posting on SOSH is the only example of something comparable.
It's not that blogs are inherently exciting, it's that this is the first time a baseball executive has availed himself of that platform. Now of course he's probably not going to be leaking any proprietary or earth-shattering information there, but this gives the Padres an opportunity to engage the fans in a different way. Different from a press conference. Different from quotes in a newspaper column. Different from an interview. There's no filter here besides the one that DePodesta may choose to impose on himself. The blog is a means of reaching the fans that doesn't require the scaffolding of the mainstream media, and that is why it's significant.
Frankly, it was the kind of things that could have been in a well done newspaper story about the process, but at least judging by the Boston media most sports writers aren't all that interested in that story.
Some of the posts around the international signing period fall into the same category as well.
So, if you're looking for a completely candid and transparent insider view of SD baseball ops (and why would you ever expect that?), then praise for the blog will come of as more medium over substance. But if you're looking for engaging, informative posts about the kinds of things that the papers often times ignore, then it fills a nice little niche. I'd like it if my team had an exec posting the same kind of information.
Well put. I was going to say the same thing but with a lot more words.
Seconded. It was good nuts and bolts stuff, that has little interest to newspapers but interest to people who would read his blog. Most of it isn't interesting to non-Padres fans, but it's got it's uses.
Exactly. During his prime, nobody in the national media was paying attention.
I think that this is a theme that Peter Handrinos is using for a new book. I think that the ability to keep you and your teammates loosey-goosey over the season is more important than leasership when it comes to intangibles.
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