User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
Vivid Seats is a sports ticket broker, concert ticket broker and theater ticket broker offering the best baseball tickets like Yankees tickets, Cubs tickets, and Red Sox tickets, as well as Police reunion tour tickets and Jersey Boys tickets. |
We have baseball tickets, the NFL schedule, college football tickets and Cowboys tickets. We have NBA tickets like Celtics tickets and Lakers tickets. Plus, buy Giants tickets, Patriots tickets and Colts tickets. Also check out our MLB baseball schedule |
Concerts Theatre NFL Angels Dodgers MLB Celtics Theater NBA Tickets Venues NHL Lakers Tickets NFL Yankees NHL Phillies NBA Wicked Marlins MLB Concerts Cubs Mets Red Sox Wicked WWE Red Sox Mets Yankees Dodgers |
Page rendered in 0.8826 seconds
81 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
It just doesn't look right. Very clunky somehow.
And yet Neifi Perez had how many years of mlb work?
Of course, I have no evidence and I'll probably get grilled for that, but it stands to reason that as the pyramid narrows toward the top, the jump is far more drastic. The rushing that was done to the kids in 2006 was acceptable. In 2007 it was not.
Both guys tried to steal third with two out in key spots during the Mets' collapse... if you think about that, you'll come to the conclusion that you can't outrun stupid.
And yet, Grady Little made it all the way to California ahead of the dumb, Dusty Baker dashed from Chicago to Cincinnati and the stupid didn't even see him on the way out of town, and Willie Randolph still has a job even though Guillermo Mota kept pitching important innings for the 2007 Mets.
You sure you can't outrun stupid??? Sometimes, stupid ain't all that fast . . . .
Heh, all that means is that whoever signs these guys' paychecks are the ones bringing up the rear.
Who is talking about Gomez being a regular in '08? The Mets starting outfield, as it stands now, is Alou, Beltran and Milledge, with Chavez as the 4th outfielder.
Truth is, Fernando held his own in AA- it wasn't increased competition that broke his hand (as far as we know).
That said, I feel the Mets will follow Sickels' advice, and that is fine with me. You could do a lot worse, and I take what he says about prospects as seriously as virtually anyone I can think of.
Really? I actually think that was better than I expected. 9 prospects B- or above. That doesn't include Pelfrey or Milledge, or Pena. The Braves only had 11 prospcts B- or better and I keep hearing about how good their system is.
The minute a guy is better than the guy ahead of him, he plays. And he should play. Whether Gomez was better than the alternatives is a matter of debate, but keeping a guy in AAA when he deserves to be in the bigs on merit is both unfair to him and usually harmful to his development.
A myth, pure and simple. William Green points out in Warplanes of the Third Reich, after citing the often-given theory that it was Hitler's inference that held back the program, that it was the engine development problems that held back the Me 262, not Hitler.
"...the simple fact remains that Junkers failed to resolve the problems poised by series manufacture of the turbojet powering the Me 262 until mid-1944, and thus could not commence volume deliveries to Messerschmitt until the following September/October. Furthermore, the consensus of opinion of those actually engaged in the design, development and testing of the Me 262 was to be that the fighter was introduced to service at the earliest practicable stage in its evolution; that any earlier deployment of the warplane on a large scale would have been entirely premature."
This, of course, allowed the British to put the first jet fighter into squadron service, not the Germans, as is commonly thought.
I agree with that in principle, but there are exceptions. You could make a pretty good argument that the 2007 Mets were such an exception. Gomez may have been the best alternative at a given moment ONLY because of a freakish series of injuries that had sidelined Milledge, Alou, Chavez, Green, and even Beltran for a short period of time. IIRC, they may have briefly ALL been out together. Under those circumstances, the fact that Gomez was the best man left standing may mean only that he was the ONLY one left standing, not that he was truly ready to perform in the major leagues, and that to thrust him into the line-up could, indeed, be harmful to his development.
As it turned out, his performance -- while inadequate -- was not so horribly inept that it is likely to have any long-term consequences for his development. He played well defensively, stole some bases, and didn't utterly embarrass himself with the bat. No Mendoza line or anything like that. For a 21-year old kid who'd already been rushed as it was, it was as much as you could expect or really even hope for.
Unless something very strange happens, Gomez will be in New Orleans most of 2008. The best of all those strange things, of course, would be that he utterly obliterates the PCL and forces the Mets' hand. That'd be nice . . . .
And illustrating the depth of the Braves system, they have no C prospects on their list while the Mets have 7.
Why not Endy?
I think it's time to move on with Floyd and Green. Both were class acts as Mets, but they're not starting caliber anymore.
Sickels does say that both Mulvey and Gomez could both be B+ prospects. I personally don't think much of C+ prospects or worse as these guys genereally don't end up having good careers but that's just me. I am not arguing that the Met system is as good as the Brave system. I was just saying that I expected it to be worse. Met prospects as a group had a bad year overall in 2007.
Endy is not someone you want starting in a corner spot. He's a great 4th outfielder and wouldn't be the worst option as a starting CFer for some team but he is not a starting calibre corner outfielder under any circumstances.
I think it's not unfair to call Pelfrey over-hyped. He was being talked about as a top flight prospect - an immediate contributor at the major league level. There was no real mention of his complete lack of secondary stuff. He could still pan out, but he certainly hasn't met expectations, and the signs were there - people just missed them. (I was one of those who missed them.)
Victor Diaz comes to mind too.
I don't think the overhyped phenomena is unusually strong for the Mets, but as with most major media market teams, it's probably there.
Yeah, sure. As in "Just in case Justin Upton got abducted by aliens right before the draft". There was "talk" about Craig Hansen going #1 in the draft too...
But of course that's not uncommon for fans of a team.
Anyway, I'm curious. Suppose last offseason the A's had offered Haren and Buck for Milledge and Heilman -- do you wish you'd had the chance to do that trade? How about Blanton & Buck?
Walt, the rumors were that the A's wanted Gomez, Milledge, and Pelfrey for Haren. There's no way that deal was on the table. No way. The Mets were supposedly offering Milledge/Heilman/Pelfrey for Haren alone and that wasn't enough.
Yeah, sure. As in "Just in case Justin Upton got abducted by aliens right before the draft". There was "talk" about Craig Hansen going #1 in the draft too...
Here's a link to a Hardball times article that has the following excerpt:
Actually, his numbers were pretty similar to those of Jered Weaver in the Weaver's sophomore year. Pelfrey had that 2.18 ERA, 9.75 SO/9, and 1.87 BB/9. Weaver as a sophomore had a 1.96 ERA, 9.72 SO/9, and 1.35 BB/9. They even have the same adviser -- Scott Boras. Looking ahead to the 2005 draft, Mike Pelfrey is one of the prime candidates for the #1 pick. In a week, Pelfrey leaves for North Carolina to try out for Team USA.
Beane wasn't offering Haren for Milledge. And there was no freaking way he was offering Haren AND Buck for Milledge and Heilman.
According to rumours, for Milledge and Heilman, Beane was offering Harden. Omar wanted Haren. Beane then offered Blanton.
More, the Germans faced a very bad, "You can have a lot of crummy stuff now, or some cool stuff later, but not both," problem. They opted to build a lot of Bf-109Gs to try to fight the American bomber offensive. Given how outclassed the plane was, it didn't work, but there's no reason to think that not building them and concentrating on having the Me-262 twelve months later would have been any better.
The real problems came because the plane that was supposed to bridge that gap, the Me-210, turned into a disaster. That's the one that was rushed through development and didn't pan out.
I recommend Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction for an examination of the economic corner the Third Reich found itself in.
I usually think that you should push prospects through fairly quickly for the same reason: the only way you can learn to face major league opposition is to face major league opposition. However, there is a caveat to that, which is that a young player has to have sufficient skills to learn. You obviously can't take a high school prospect and put him on a major league roster and expect him to do well. He'll be overwhelmed and won't get anything out of his at bats (or batters faced). He has to learn how to learn in the minor leagues (which is essentially what is happening as he faces incrementally better competition).
There is also an argument that keeping players in the minors for longer allows the TEAM time to learn more about the player (larger sample size against consistent competition, lets a player be seen by a few teams more than once, etc.).
The flip side for me is that I also believe that only players who play in the majors at an early age tend to become the most elite of superstars. Now, of course, there is a tension there: are they in the majors after only 1-2 years because they are going to be superstars or do they become superstars because they're in the majors after only a few years? My guess is that by learning against better competition earlier, prospects have a longer period of knowledge preceding their physical peak (thereby extending that peak and possibly explaining why some of the most elite players have very long, but flat career peak periods).
I think this is why, if I were in baseball and had my own money so salary weren't an issue, I think I'd want to be a minor league director or director of player personnel. It seems like an extremely challenging and interesting problem to decide on how much is the right amount of push for each player to maximize his upside (and surely that amount varies quite widely from player to player, even for a group of very good prospects).
Sickels gives C+ to prospects with high ceilings, who he isn't sure about. I think there is a post on grading a bit further down on his site. And thats why the Braves system is thought of as deep. As they have lot of high end talent in the low minors, who have had good years. Plus couple of big names with slightly off years ( Eric Campbell, Kaaihui ) didn't even make the top 20.
I think it is almost certain that they are in the majors early because of their elite talent. They have enough raw ability to be adequate while learning the ropes. If you are completely overmatched, you can't learn.
I think rushing prospects is a really bad idea. There is no real harm in letting a player dominate every level. If they're that good, they will do this in about 2-3 years, depending on the age they start at.
From the team's point of view there is no point in having the service clock run while they are learning (and still sub-par for MLB).
Not true - more below. Hitler might have rushed Gomez to the Eastern Front to serve with the Blue Division, though. Many a yougn Spaniard and probably a few Latinos served the Fascist cause on the Eastern Front until they were completely obliterated and recalled to Spain.
Not true, either. For all his problems, and there were many, Hitler rarely intruded into weapon manufacture or design. The great failing of Todt and later Speer was not being able or willing to convert Germany's war economy into a more streamlined and rationalized system until early 1944. By that point, Tedder's infrastructure campaign and Spaatz's emphasis on defeating the Luftwaffe in the air (or ground) were beginning to make their mark. Also, the endless streams of Liberty ships, Sherman tanks from the West and T-34s and Katyusha rockets from the East were beginning to simply overwhelm the Axis forces on every front. Hitler could have ordered his designers to build cheaper tanks quicker, but when he did, the Germans produced the Panther - a direct German copy of the vaunted T-34, except it was more expensive and took long to build, even if it was more capable.
In the end, the Nazis tried to rely on wonder weapons that fascinate people to this day but had little impact on the outcome of the war, even if they had all worked. The Allies blunted the radio guided bombs the Germans used in the Mediterranean after a short time, and the V2 (which cost as much as the Mahattan project to develop) was nothing more than a scare weapon that had little chance of hitting anything useful.
Ding! Ding! Ding! The JUMO engines designed for the ME-262 were thirsty and performed poorly even by the standard of the time. They required an overhaul after roughly 15-20 hours of service. Hitler did want the jet to have an offensive capability, but this did not cause significant delays in the plane's development. At the time (1943) the COmbined Bomber Offensive had not started to adversely impact production in anyt sector and from Hitler's standpoint, the war was still winnable, but only by offensive action. The air defense role the ME-262 eventually filled was a defensive role and Goering assured Hitler that air defense guns and the current fighters could meet the challenge. (snip quoteage).
Always a good point. Even if the Luftwaffe had pushed the Me-262 into production earlier than 1944, the British would have followed with the Gloster Meteor and the Americans with the P-80. The Germans at no time had any chance of keeping air supremacy once the USAAF switched tactics and introduced fighter escorts that went after the Luftwaffe. The Me-262 was a surprise to Allied air crews and caused some minor concerns, but it could never by itself change the outcome of the war in total or the war in the air. The Allies didn't feel the need to introduce their own jets into forward combat because the Mustangs, Thunderbolts, Tempest and Spitfires did the job.
Part of the problem was that the Germans had not centralized strategic or economic planning until very late in the war. The "cool" stuff was the normal progression of R & D that most countries were going through. The German decision to stick with the Bf-109, for example, is that the design bureaus had no clear guidance from the military what they were to design and build. Hence you have several bureaus with redundant weapons and nothing available in 1941 to combat the oncoming rush of new designs from the UK and USA. Part of that is that the Germans started their re-armament scheme much earlier than anyone else. However, the designs of the early 1930s were outdated even by the start of the war (this was a problem in Japan, as well). Specifically relating the air force, the Germans did not have better equipment than the British, simply more experience and better tactics. Once the British completed their initial re-armament (late 1940), the Germans lost their clear advantage to conduct offensive operations.
The Germans tried to compensate by spending a lot of time and resources exploring every possibility, which denuded the effort to produce the proper equipment for the fight. Resources spent on the coal dust cannon would have been better spent on developing SAM or AAM - those could have severely blunted the Combined Bomber Offensive.
Now, if you want, you could actually answer my question. I'm trying to guage how badly you over-rate Milledge now. :-)
Walt, I am sure every Met fan here would have traded Milledge for Haren last year and this year as well.
Nobody said they wouldn't trade Milledge for Haren. I'm sure some people balked at Blanton because he seems like a weight case who gets by on smoke and mirrors.
You know I love you Walt, but . . . are you frigging out of your mind? More to the point, would you care to document that claim with even a single link? As Russlan and Amit have already opined, I don't recall a single Mets' fan taking that position (though I'm prepared to be proved wrong, of course), and if one or two did, it certainly wasn't anything like a consensus position. Indeed, I don't recall the question ever really arising, because no one ever thought such a deal was within the realm of the possible, except in our drunken fanboy fantasies. It was always how much MORE than Milledge would it take???
So just to be clear: of course I'd trade Milledge for Haren. But I'll tell you this, too: I think someday I'd have a lot of regrets about it, because I think Milledge is going to be a great player, and the GM who trades him is going to have a lot of 'splainin to do. But sometimes you have to take that risk, and I'd take the bird in the hand that is Mr. Haren now, no doubt.
Spanish volunteers fought on both sides on the Eastern front. Several Spanish fighter pilots served with the Soviets during WW2. At least six of them reached ace status flying with the Soviets.
By far the most accomplished of these was Juan Lario Sanchez. Sanchez scored seven victories in the Spanish Civil War, flying Polikarpov I-15s for the Republicans. After the Republicans lost, he fled to France, and then to the USSR, where he joined the Soviet Air Force.
He participated in the air war on the Eastern front from 1941 to 1945. He flew in the defense of Moscow, at Stalingrad, and at Kursk. Sanchez ended the war flying Spitfire Mk.IXs with the 348 IAP over the ruins of Berlin. Spanish pilot, British aircraft, Soviet airforce, flying over Germany...
He scored 27 solo victories during the Great Patriotic War, with 8 shared victories to his credit, giving him a total of 34 solo and 8 shared victories between the two wars. He stayed in the VVS after the war, but returned to Spain in 1957.
Off topic, I know, but forgive me...
Dunno if it was linked here, but Newsday's Ken Davidoff (who is quite good, I'm not trying to put him down) had a "how to fix the Mets" article yesterday where he suggested Milledge, Heilman and Mulvey for Haren. That doesn't sound too crazy. Who knows. Unfortunately, his only other two ideas to "fix the Mets" were to acquire Jose Contreras, and to fix the bullpen not by signing free agents, but by doing things "like the Padres." I guess Contreras would be ok, but that doesn't exactly turn things around, and as for the bullpen, the Mets have been trying to do what the Padres do -- the only free agent reliever is Wagner -- but it doesn't necessarily work like that.
True. Don't also forget the Republican refugees that served with the French in 1940 (some estimates are as higha s 55,000, though I don't believe that number is reliable).
Scott Schoeneweiss.
Also, dumping Heath Bell for Ben Johnson is NOT what the Padres do. Yeah, that still pisses me off.
If you're going to gamble, why not some Japanese relievers? Kobayashi is gone, but Yabuta is still available. And probably for a lower price tha JC Romero.
I'd extend this point even beyond the air force -- when they weren't getting hopelessly flanked and out-maneuvered by aggressive (sometimes overly aggressive) German commanders, even French tanks were superior both in quality and quantity to their German counterparts (in fact, the French Char B1 was generally considered the best tank in the world in 1940, and despite the blitzkrieg mythology -- the overwhelming majority of German forces were still relying on horse draw artillery, bicycles, and such).
It was an overwhelming doctrinal advantage that won the day in 1940 -- there were a few seemingly minor technical advantages (German tanks being radio linked, French armored groups were not) -- but it was really all about the allied command still fighting circa 1917.
Even when it comes to doctrine, though -- despite the breathless reporting about this "new type of warfare" -- the allies would have been wise to have paid attention to Japanese/Soviet skirmishes the year before. In fact, a forgotten chapter of WWII-era history, the Battle of Khalkhin Gol would actually be the world's first glimpse of a highly mobile doctrine that relied on fast moving armored spearheads. Rather than Guderian, Rommel, or Rundstedt -- it was in fact Georgy Zhukov who made first use of armored flanking maneuvers... beating the wehrmacht by about a week before they'd slice into Poland. Of course, Zhukov had an overwhelming artillery, armor, and troop advantage -- which gave him a lot more room for error than the Germans really had in France.
Service time, dude. Would you rather have a guy spend his age 21-26 years in the majors and struggle in the first two and then lose him when he is 27. Or let him develop in the minors and then have cheaply in your possession for ages 23-28.
Would you rather have a guy spend his age 21-26 years in the majors and struggle in the first two and then lose him when he is 27. Or let him develop in the minors and then have cheaply in your possession for ages 23-28.
If you're a big market team that actually develops and keeps it players, you really shouldn't worry about losing him when he's 27. You bring him up when you think he's (a) ready, and (b) when he can help you win. If it accelerates his clock towards arb eligibility and then free agency, so be it. My reasoning would be that if he's good enough to earn big money in arbitration or in free agency, he's good enough to help us win along the way, so it's all good . . . and we can afford to pay him what he's worth.
His promotion from low-A to AA was not warranted by his performance, being slightly below league average in low A generally does not merit a promotion to AA, if the scouts don't like you you'll earn a return assignment to low A (or worse), if the scouts like you you would normally go to A+
His promotion from AA to AAA? More justifiable, he was about league average in AA, which in an of itself may not warrant a promotion to AAA, but considering his age and improvement from the year before it really can't be called "rushing"
His promotion from AAA to MLB- borderline absurd, even accounting for all the injuries the Mets had.
WRT to his status as a prospect, I can see the athlete, I can't quite see a baseball player yet.
I know the Mets think he can become an OF version of Reyes, but he's not nearly as developed as a PLAYER as Reyes was at the same age, and it was Reyes development AFTER that point that made him a plus MLB player.
IOW I'm not a Carlo Gomez fan, and I think he's been overhyped the way the Mets used to overhype players like Stanley Jefferson and Alex Ochoa. The difference between Milledge and Gomez? Milledge is already an MLB level player- give him 600 PAs and I'd be stunned if his OPS+ in 2008 was below 100, I think he'll put up between 110-120, given his age, add 10% we could ahve a real good player. Give 600 PAs to Gomez? I'd be surprised if he managed 90, and wouldn't be surprised if he put up .260/.300/.360
Who is arguing that Gomez would be as good a big league player as Milledge in 2008? The question that needs to be asked is what line would you expect from Gomez in 2009.
i really enjoy the following, though:
And then later:
To Sam's point, though, every other mets fan wanted to do haren for milledge + heilman. the sheen was already off Lastings as of last winter.
To Sam's point, though, every other mets fan wanted to do haren for milledge + heilman. the sheen was already off Lastings as of last winter.
No, it the sheen was not off, at least not for everyone who would make that trade. We just understand to get a quality pitcher like Haren who is signed to a very reasonable contract, you have to give up something in return.
.265/.310/.375
IOW I don't see a star, I see someone who could be an Endy Chavez age 28 type contributor at ages 26-30 if all goes well, someone who will never be a productive MLB regular if he doesn't develop at all, and someone whose chance of actual stardom is no better that many other sub 25 year olds on EVERY other team.
I see the Mets love for Gomez to be an unhealthy flashback to the Mets serial love affairs with Stan Jefferson/Herm Winningham/ etc etc and the need to acquire players like Roger Cedeno and Vince Coleman ad nauseum.
Fleet of foot and empty of Bat, you can have him.
I'm glad my toss-away comment on the 262s grew into such an interesting OT.
I am not going to speak for everyone but the fact that Milledge performed extremely well in AAA (.828 ops in one of the very worst hitting environments in baseball) outweighed the minor behavioral problems that he exhibited. I think more of a player as he shows continued success in more advanced levels i.e. a 19 year old who plays well in A-ball is less impressive to me than a 20-year old who plays well in AA-ball, etc. To me, Milledge was more valuable Nov. 2006 than he was Nov. 2005.
IOW I don't see a star, I see someone who could be an Endy Chavez age 28 type contributor at ages 26-30 if all goes well, someone who will never be a productive MLB regular if he doesn't develop at all, and someone whose chance of actual stardom is no better that many other sub 25 year olds on EVERY other team.
Why do you hate him so much as a player? His prospect status is based more on tools than performance but the guy did post a .777 OPS in AAA as a 21-year old. His statistical record suggests there's reason to be optimistic about his future. This isn't Ambiorix Concepcion we are talking about here.
I think there's a very good chance Gomez becomes a quality regular as a CFer because I already know he's going to steal 50-60 bases, get hit by 10-15 pitches, and play excellent defense in center. If he can hit .280 and draw a few walks, he'll be a quality centerfielder.
I just can't agree -- they had no real choice but to call Gomez up on the "warm body" principle. He could (and did) provide good defense and reasonable baserunning on the rare occasion he got on base. It was done only on an emergency basis, and face it -- an emergency was exactly what they faced.
As to Gomez's likely fate . . . JPWF13, I think you are being way premature here. It seems to me you can't both blame the Mets for promoting him too fast and then say he can't hit. If he's been overpromoted, then you have to give him a chance for his performance to "catch up" to the level at which he's competing before making any firm judgments. He's not just a "sub 25 year old." He's just 21. There's a lot of developing he needs to do, I agree. But speed is a tool that can translate into a lot of goodness, as our SS demonstrates.
To Sam's point, though, every other mets fan wanted to do haren for milledge + heilman. the sheen was already off Lastings as of last winter.
Milledge plus Heilman, of course, is not the same as Milledge alone.
That was a fascinating thread to revisit, by the way -- a lot of interesting thoughts about the value of a pitcher, and of a prospect. Haren -- whom I argued hadn't yet put up even a 120 ERA+ season -- now has, of course. Milledge -- who hadn't yet proved he could hit major league pitching and make adjustments -- now has (at least to me, if not to some others). I think both of them have actually enhanced their value substantially over what it was a year or so ago.
I think Russlan is absolutely right, by the way: the willingness to take the Haren deal posed in that thread didn't reflect anything at all negative about Milledge. It meant people really thought a lot of Haren . . . a POV I didn't share quite as much at the time, scared off in part by the high HR rate.
I don't see the comparison between Gomez and Ochoa being fair at all. Gomez is pretty much Ochoa 2 years earlier at each stage, which is an enormous gap in prospect years.
Jefferson was never any good.
That's a pretty low bar for Prospectdom,
I've changed my mind on Gomez before, and I may do so again, but I gave you where I stand now
After low-A my reaction top hearing that many in the Mets thought he was their best prospect, was "ugh, what do they see in these guys"
After AA, I was actually impressed, he'd been awful the first half, turned it around on the second half, the transition fro A to AA is hard- that's where a lot of prospects stumble- Gomez was better in AA than he'd been in low-A
Then I saw a lot of him on the Mets last year and I'm back to "ugh what do they see in this guy?"
He could be a quality regular CF, but I don't think there's "a good chance" of that. (Good chance in my mind being somewhere around 25%)
Sam, I think you're awesome, but you're probably the only one who thinks Milledge's value is higher now than before. Fairly or not (and I agree a lot of his trouble are related to the "he listens to rap and has dreadlocks- burn him" bit), Milledge is seen as more a risk this year and the sheen is off a little bit. If the rumors are to believed, the Mets are clearly shopping him (witness Heyman today). Moreover, the Mets themselves seemed to think that playing Shawn Green over him was a good idea - deflating the idea that they think he's some kind of star. I think Milledge will end up being an .850 OPS RF type which is a good player (.850 OPS and playing great CF defense would be a star, but I don't think even you would argue that Milledge is a great defensive CF), but he is not the uber-superstar you think he will be.
And, as I said, if you think he was rushed and too young and raw to be playing in the majors, then why would you base anything at all about his long-term potential on what you saw in his performance in 2007? You really just have to throw that out in evaluating him as a function of his being thrown in by necessity to a level of competition for which he wasn't ready, and not assume it says anything at all about what he's capable of with additional experience and instruction.
That is, if you really truly believe he was rushed. If you're going to give that any real meaning, it has to be in terms of saying he was overmatched by the vastly greater experience of the pitchers he was facing. The kid just needs ABs -- and to at least try to implement the lessons he learns from those ABs -- before we can make any judgments, one way or the other. Maybe he can't make the necessary adjustments. Reyes did. Milledge showed last year he can. The jury is totally still out on Carlos Gomez.
French tanks were technically superior to the German models, but the French tanks lacked the mobility the German tanks possessed. The panzers were built with the aggressive pursuit tactics the Germans were developing at that time in mind, as well as the entire combined arms approach. The French tanks were intended solely to support the infantry as direct fire support weapons. The French never anticipated being dominated from the air as well as by precision (for the time) artillery strikes. The French were prepared for set piece battles that would involve head-on charges against prepared positions. Of course, the Germans intended otherwise, and the speed with which the Germans drove through the French defenses caused the French generals (almost universally of poor quality) to "freeze", allowing great numbers of French troops to die in place or give up on their own and take flight. It was this top-down decision making that doomed the French. The local German commanders had a larger degree of autonomy within the confines of the mission objectives - hence, you have a Rommel outrunning his logistics and infantry to force river crossings and keep the French reeling.
The Germans had unity of purpose - the troops were professional, well-trained, experienced and motivated. The French troops were none of the above. The French simply weren't prepared and hoped they would be able to fight the last war (not sure why). The German advantage at all levels (tactical, operational and strategic) was enhanced by inter-service (the French AF did little to prevent German domination of the air and the even within the army there was no agreement on how to fight the war) and inter-Allied rivalries (the French eyed the British with suspicion, fearing they would retreat from the continent entirely at the first opportunity, while the French and British knew the Belgians would capitulate quickly). The French sent their best troops to the Maginot line and north into Belgium. The Germans struck through the Ardennes against second and third line troops who were poorly trained and motivated. The British were prepared, I would argue, to fight a different battle than what transpired, but they lacked a Poland to get it right. Poland showed the Germans several flaws in their doctrinal thinking and the Wehrmacht spent the intervening time period training (hard) and putting right the errors that had cropped up. The British wanted to conduct mobile operations, but their tanks were outmoded, lightly armed and not as mobile as they thought (as comapred to German tanks) and the British combined arms approach lacked the coordination the Germans had (mainly through practice). The British were also poorly led at many levels - the effects of the regimental system that promoted connections over competence.
The Khalkhin Gol (1939) battle was studied by most major militaries (see Alvin Coox's outstanding history of the battle, Nomonhan) but most considered it a small scale battle between second class militaries and not at all applicable or even original. Flanking movements are a basic staple of military tactics. Most outside observers noted the terrain was unique to the area and felt that had an impact on how the battle was fought. I don't know that I would base anything off of this one particular battle. It was impressive that amidst the blood letting of the purges that the Soviets were able to conduct a fast-paced mechanized battle, but in the end it took brute force by the artillery and infantry to defeat the Japanese, not so much the armor support (which was limited in the hilly terrain where the major Japanese defensive positions were located).
The Japanese thought little of the Soviets and did not anticiapte the overwhelming response for some desert land in Mongolia. Secondly, while the Japanese had tanks and artillery they were outmoded and undergunned (a Japanese officer commented after the battle that size did matter - the Japanese tank guns were the size of little boys members while the Soviets were as big as grown men [sic]). The Japanese anticipated being left alone to hold their positions (ignoring the Soviet response from 1938). If the Soviets did attack (which they did before Zhukov arrived, unsuccessfully and half-heartedly) the Japanese felt confident of being able to hold off the Soviet forces with little problem. The Khalkhin-Gol excursion was a maverick move by the Kwantung Army and once in motion, was little supported by the Kwantung Army or Tokyo. The Japanese only deployed one division plus a few additional artillery units.
The Soviets threw in their B team, so to speak, but still outclassed the Japanese. Most of the armor were BT series light tanks that were useless just two years later, but sufficient against the pitiful Japanese armor. Once Zhukov started the battle he had a manageable supply line (including rail links) and was able to use his mass of force to simply overwhelm the Japanese, particularly his advantage in tanks and artillery. The air war was a draw - neither side was able gain even local air superiority save for brief time periods. The Soviet flanking maneuvers were made on a very smale scale (brigade and regimental level). It takes a whole other level of training and competence to perform those maneuvers on a divisional, corps or army level.
It is interesting to note that although the Germand and Soviets trained together in the 1920s (secretly), the Germans gained the most inspiration from inter-war British authors, especially Lidell-Hart. The Soviet approach, which died with Tukhachevsky and Triandafillov and Saavin was deep battle - that is not what Zhukov practised at Khalkhin-Gol, but it was the Soviet approach starting in 1943 as Zhukov (and others) regained their equilibrium and gained confidence and experience. Deep Battle was a series of deep penetrating armor columns covered by local air superiority that gave up flank protection in order to disrupt the second and third echelons of the enemy forces. The US Army adopted Deep Battle as its current method of war in the 1980s.
Ochoa was overhyped, Jefferson was overhyped, Gomez (IMHO) is being overhyped. That was the comparison. Jefferson was of course a more similar type player to Gomez.
Jefferson hit .320/.402/.441 in low -A
.288/.393/.396 in high A
.277/.365/.385 in AA
and .290/.363/.379 in AAA (Tidewater- IL)
Gomez hit .275/.331/.376 in LOW-A
.281/.349/.423 in AA
.286/.363/.414 in 140 ABs in AAa (New Orleans PCL)
1: Gomez was younger at each level
2: Jefferson was BETTER at each level- which fact is somewhat obscured by the change in offensive environments over the last 10-15 years which has effected the minors as well as the majors (not to the same degree oddly enough).
Jefferson of course hit .216/.276/.326 in a 900 PA MLB career and is regarded as a total bust, but saying that he was never any good is somewhat false. As a prospect he was regarded in 1985/86 in virtually the same way the Mets brass regard Gomez. What's eerie was that the Mets in 1985/86 like the Mets now had a directly comparable and distinctively superior CF prospect in addition- in 1985/86 the Mets had Dykstra, now they have Milledge.
Why did many in the Mets organization prefer Jefferson over Dykstra- despite Dykstra's superior performance to such date? Because Jefferson was more athletic and Dykstra was a pain in the a$$ and they had concerns about his "character"- sound familiar?
What happened 20 years ago? Dykstra broke camp with the Mets, but the MSM story was that he was merely keeping CF warm (as a platoon partner with Mookie)until Mr. CF of the future had a full year under his belt (Frank Cashen always SAID he wanted his prospects to get a full year of AAA). Dykstra was on fire the first half of 2006, became a fan favorite and Jefferson became expendable.
If I am the only one, so be it. If the Mets can't get full value for Milledge because his perceived value has dropped because of idiotic BS, Omar should hold on to him. More specifically:
1) Of course they are shopping him. They think they need a starter, and Milledge is their best trading chip. Who the hell else are they going to shop, Ruben Gotay??? The Twins are shopping Johan Santana, too, but he's pretty darned good . . . .
2) The Mets thought playing Shawn Green was a good idea. Willie Randolph also thought pitching Guillermo Mota in important games was a good idea. So what? Milledge was also hurt much of last year, so you have to keep that in mind when looking at how many ABs he got. The fact that Randolph thinks his job was to instill some sort of lesson in professionalism to Milledge instead of winning games is one of the many reasons Omar would have been 100% justified in firing him, had he chosen to do so.
3) Milledge won't be a GG center fielder, but he is better there than he is in the corners. Any team that needs a CF will do fine with Milledge.
4) I don't think he'll be an "uber-superstar." But I think he'll be about what you suggested -- an .850 OPS guy, but with decent CF defense rather than being a corner outfielder. That's a darned good player. Very, very valuable.
Bernie Williams hit .252/.381/.443 in the Eastern League at age 20
He hit .281/.409/.414 at age 21 in the Eastern League- in 1990- do you know what league Averge in the EL that year was? .250/.315/.345*
I'm not exxagerating, his OPS was .823 and the league was .665 or so- AND according to DAN S AA was tougher relative to MLB then than it is now.
Williams was much better than his EL PEERS, Gomez was not.
* Just an aside, the Redsox had a AA 3B who hit .333/.422/.457 in the worst hitters' park of a league that hit .250/.315/.345. Having no clue as to what they had, said 3B was traded for an over-aged loogy...
I'm pretty sure when Amit posted this:
He meant to suggest that Milledge's season last year -- also age 22, and better with the bat -- should be seen as pretty impressive by comparison. I don't think he was meaning to compare Williams to Gomez so much.
Ditto...
EXCEPT- his propensity for getting hurt and missing games is starting to worry me
has he ever gone through an entire season without a DL trip yet?
Same guy who plays left if he's not: Alou. ;-)
As for RF . . . oy, that's a toughie. Probably somebody they sign off the scrapheap?
This is the worst offseason to acquire free agents.
You already are.
I think Victor Diaz is available
:-)
Will be 26, career .256/.309/.487 in the Majors,
Hit .321/.371/.546 in AAA last year (271 abs), then tallied 9 HR in 104 mlb at bats
then got released...
has conditioning issues, may have an injury issue now*, and allegedly has an attitude problem
I don't think he'd cost much more than league minimum, I'd rather take a flier on Victor than some of the seasoned veterans now available.
*Speaking of injury issues- Alex Escobar managed to get 51 ABs in 3 minor league levels in 2007.
When he's been able to get some consistent PT the last few years he's produced: slugged .472 in the IL in 2003 (after missing a whole year); in 2006 hit .302 .434 .504 in 129 minor league ABs in 2006 (he missed all of 2005); and .356/.394/.575 in 87 MLB at bats in 2006.
If he could just have stayed healthy for more than 2 years he obviously would have made the Alomar trade an absolute loser- as it was it was a draw since while Alomar did nothing for us, none of the guys we gave up have made us regret it either.
But hell, if you have a hole in RF, you're really not trying. You might not find a star, but you can always find someone decent. Green often frustrated me, but he wasn't a disaster. Jenkins is a pretty decent player, at least if you platoon him. There's guys like Luke Scott, Ryan Church, Matt Murton most likely available. It's not a big deal; you can always find somebody to play there.
But, whoever it is probably won't be as good as Milledge, even next year. Still, I do think Omar's '07-'08 plan is to trade some young guys for an ace SP, and that at the very least means a high probability of a Milledge trade. I've read repeatedly that that's his plan, and there's certainly nothing in his actions to make one think otherwise -- one could easily have justified trading for a C or a 2B, but he did neither, and he's "gotta do something" as the saying goes, so IMO, he is saving the ammo for a pitcher. I just hope they can get away with trading Gomez rather than Milledge, because although I don't think Gomez is nearly as bad as JPWF does, I think Milledge is much more proven and doesn't have any lower a ceiling, so I just don't see how Gomez is at all preferable.
nobody does as far as I can tell.
He's bad, but not quite THAT bad, he has 132 Ks and 32 BB in 446 MLB at bats.
He has stretches where he actually walks at a decent clip and doesn't K too much, and then stretches where yeah, he looks like he could do 200/15.
There are minor league sluggers out there who really would, most likely, put up a 200/15 K/bb if given the chance, Diaz isn't one of them. For instance, one time Met "prospect", Craig Brazell would probably get closer, he has a career (minors) 741/161 K/bb mark. (Victor's minor league numbers were 569/161).
He has stretches where he actually walks at a decent clip and doesn't K too much, and then stretches where yeah, he looks like he could do 200/15.
Other than that mystical April 2005 when Diaz walked 15 times in 80 PA, he has always posted poor k/bb ratios in the big leagues. Last year, he struck out 33 times against 1 walk. I think he'd strikeout 200 times in a season if given an everyday job. He might walk a little more than 15 times but I am not confident about that.
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/tsn_berardino_inside_dish_teams_not_biting_on_upton/
Where I suggested that Mets fans were foolishly overhyping Humber and were nuts for not being willing to trade Humber for BJ Upton. I was roundly chastised by the Mets faithful who were convinced that Humber's solid half-season in AA meant he was a top prospect and ready to join the rotation. Wouldn't you like to go back on that one now?
I'll add two more
A War to Be Won, Murray and Millett - as good a general history of the war out there, save for...
A World at Arms, Weinberg - the definitive general history of the Second World War
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main