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So...did DePo end up being wrong about Beltre afterall?
I still don't think that DePo was wrong about letting Beltre walk, especially considering what he signed for (relative value be damned). In light of how Colletti filled the void, however (1st with Mueller, then cutting bait on Betemit after 1 year & sliding Nomar over), letting AB go definitely looks worse than it should.
I would say yes. Granted, a qualified yes. In the sense that compared to market value, Beltre's contract, at this point, is reasonably cheap.
Beltre top 5 HR seasons: 48, 25, 23, 23, 21
Anderson top 5 HR seasons: 50, 24, 21, 19, 18
Beltre top 5 OPS+ seasons: 163, 122, 116, 108, 100
Anderson top 5 OPS+ seasons: 157, 128, 128, 125, 109
Strictly for HRs, yes, I'd go with Anderson, but as an all-around offensive season, Beltre's 2004 was flukier than Anderson's 1996. It's shaping up as one of the all-time great flukes, up there in Norm Cash territory.
I continue to find it amazing that the media basically fired a GM.
I also think it's tough to really put Beltre above Mike Lowell this year or over the last two combined, though certainly you can make a good case for Beltre going forward especially given what Lowell is likely to sign for and their ages. Small quibble there, though.
Being 'second or third best' at a fairly weak position doesn't create the kind of value being described here, I don't think, is the bottom line. That doesn't make Beltre the huge bust often described, but it doesn't make him a great current value either.
Anderson top 5 HR seasons: 50, 24, 21, 19, 18
Beltre top 5 OPS+ seasons: 163, 122, 116, 108, 100
Anderson top 5 OPS+ seasons: 157, 128, 128, 125, 109
Strictly for HRs, yes, I'd go with Anderson, but as an all-around offensive season, Beltre's 2004 was flukier than Anderson's 1996. It's shaping up as one of the all-time great flukes, up there in Norm Cash territory.
Thank you. Yes, Anderson's 96 season was a fluke, but it's not like it was the only good season of his career.
He compared Beltre's contract to the big FA contracts that were signed in the past offseason: Carlos Lee, Soriano, Wells, Aramis Ramirez. He didn't cherry pick the "the worst contracts of the last couple years."
BPro has him at 14 batting runs above average this year, to date. MGL had him at +14 runs / 150 games. Granted this was at the beginning of July. That would put him +28 runs, about 3 wins above average. According to Tango's salary chart, that is worth about $20 million a year in the current market. He will be paid $12 million a year over the next 2 years.
First, Wells and ARam didn't really reach the market, they are in the funny category of 'guys who signed with the home team and thus skew market values a bit' seems to me; Soriano and C Lee are (and were acknowledged by all initially) to be overpays by teams trying to make statements. Maybe those even each other out, or just get tossed out because at some level the market is what it is. If you use other contracts (like inexpensive or midmarket guys) you get a very different picture on $/win comp to Beltre I think. Maybe cherrypicked was too harsh, but I also think it's a bit of a slanted way to evaluate what's left of Beltre's deal, too....remember, there's a ton of risk which has to be accounted for in these big deals, too. Just my take. I generally respect Cameron and agree with his big-picture point here but I think it's a little overstated.
Second, I see zero, and I mean literally zero, chance that any team even in the market would pay Beltre $20 mil a year and don't agree that's what his value is, either.
Over the last two years he's been 52 runs above replacement offensively, or 26 a year...I don't think it's fair to go three back with him, though I suspect teams would still 'peek' at that 2005 season in valuing him too. Anyway, if we take the +14 defense at face value (I personally regress the defensive values a bit because there's a lot more uncertainty in the accuracy of the metric than with offense, but that's just a personal thing) we get 4 wins above replacement. So, that would suggest 2/$31 using Tango's chart vs 2/$24 as signed. And, of course, if you drop the defense a couple runs that 'profit' shrinks as well.
To me, that suggests he has some value but not the kind of value I see you describing. I am not certain anyone would pay him 2/$31 frankly, either, in part because the teams valuing defense properly is not necessarily large at 3B, in part because of media issues about him 'being a bust,' and in part because of 'fear of 2005' downside fears. That again gets at the tricky issue of 'value' vs 'market value' really, but that's part of the argument he's making too. Maybe Theo would sign him at twice that value to pair with JD Drew in the ultimate "guys I tried to sign in the past but failed" move...who knows.
Anyway, taking all that together I see a guy who is wrongly written off as a bust by the national media, but also someone who isn't quite the asset he's described as being in other quarters either. Put it this way: if Adrian Beltre were put on the trade market what would he bring, do you think? Certainly, he'd bring something...I agree he has positive value. But I'm not sure the return would be all that inspiring, either. Maybe we'll find out.
Sure, besides A-Rod.
I was simply stating his value this year, not what I believe his "true" value is. Obviously he has been better offensively this year than the last 2 years. I would agree that he is between 2-3 wins above average, basically between $15-20 million a year. A big part of his value lies in his defense. So, how much you value him depends on how good you believe his defense is.
As for his "market value", ie what teams will pay him, vs his "value", unless we have privy information as to what GMs think about him, there's no way to tell. After all, Carlos Lee's "market value" is $100 million / 6. If you agree with UZR that he is horrible, -21 / 150, then he is merely a league average player.
It basically breaks down as:
A-Rod
The healthy NL East troika
Aramis Ramirez, Lowell, Figgins, Beltre
Glaus
The median AL 3B (of guys with 99+ games) is at 102, the worst is 46, the next-to-worst 88. The NL median is actually lower, 96, and the bottom two are 71 and 57. So on the whole I don't know how different the leagues are.
I notice Braun being absent from that least. Ryan is at 159+.
He is the regular third baseman for Milwaukee and has a chance to qualify for the batting title needing about 90 more plate appearances. So I think he should be considered as part of the mix......
1) Wes Helms
2) Abraham Nunez
I've got him as being about two wins better than average or four wins better than replacement. To me, that's a star. Others may see it differently, I guess, but there isn't exactly a plethora of four win players running around.
A guy getting paid what Beltre is who puts up a .330 OBP simply is not a star...
Making a value judgment based on a number that measures one skill seems a little rash, no? Ivan Rodriguez has a career .340 OBP despite playing a huge majority of his career in Texas, and he's easily one of the five best catchers of all time and pretty obviously a star.
There are many ways to add value to a team. OBP is certainly one, but to say that anyone with a .330 OBP can't be a star doesn't seem to add anything to the discussion.
I also think it's tough to really put Beltre above Mike Lowell this year or over the last two combined
I'm guessing that if the Mariners and Red Sox had swapped those two straight up two years ago, you'd be on the Beltre side of this argument simply due to the effects of their home parks. Safeco is death to RH hitters, while Fenway is pretty kind to them. I don't think the difference between the two is enormous, but I'd argue that it's there.
That doesn't make Beltre the huge bust often described, but it doesn't make him a great current value either.
If I'm right that he's a four win player, then the Mariners are going to pay him $3 million per win each of the next two years. The market value for a win in free agency last year was a little over $4 million, and the value of a win - ignoring market value, including all players including pre-arbs - was about $2.5 million. When you have a player acquired via free agency who is earning closer to the average $/win mark than the market value $/win mark, I think it has to be classified as a bargain.
Wow, the AL 3B suck. There are four better ones in the NL East
You'd have a hard time convincing anyone, much less me, that Ryan Zimmerman is a better player right now than Adrian Beltre. Better value? Obviously. Better in a couple of years? Probably. Better right now? No.
That leaves Wright, Chipper, and Cabrera. Wright's obviously better - no argument here. I love the guy and compared him to Scott Rolen when he was in A-ball.
Chipper and Cabrera are both better overall, as well, but there's a good case to be made that neither of them are really third baseman. They're both consistently rated among the worst defensive players in baseball, and I think everyone is just waiting for Miguel Cabrera to go through the buffet line one more time before he completes the inevitable move to first base. At this point, they're both at about the same point where Jim Thome was in 1996 - great hitters who are best served playing another position.
Their combination of offense+defense at third is still better than Beltre's, but I think it's pretty clear that neither one of them is really a third baseman, and almost certainly won't be for much longer.
If you use other contracts (like inexpensive or midmarket guys) you get a very different picture on $/win comp to Beltre I think.
The point of the post wasn't to say that Beltre is a better value than guys like Ryan Zimmerman or Garret Atkins. The point was to show that Adrian Beltre is currently making less than what Adrian Beltre would make if he wasn't under contract beyond 2007. The constant references to him being overpaid are simply not true, because there's no way the Mariners could sign him for 2/24 if he was available this winter. Adrian Beltre's salary is a bargain relative to Adrian Beltre's market value - that was my whole point.
Second, I see zero, and I mean literally zero, chance that any team even in the market would pay Beltre $20 mil a year and don't agree that's what his value is, either.
I don't think anyone said that a team would. I think something between 5/75 and 6/100 is more likely.
Put it this way: if Adrian Beltre were put on the trade market what would he bring, do you think? Certainly, he'd bring something...I agree he has positive value. But I'm not sure the return would be all that inspiring, either. Maybe we'll find out.
Barring another Bavasi blue-light special, the Mariners won't be parting with Adrian Beltre this winter. It would take a pretty substantial offer to get a four win player off a team that needs as many four win players as they can get.
Little Nicky Punto: OPS+ 46.
Wes Helms: OPS+ 71
Abraham Nunez: OPS+ 57
I think of Beltre as actually being what people say Eric Chavez is: "young veteran," great fielder, some pop. I'd rather have Beltre than Chavez, because he's been healthier and isn't a platoon player. Similar skill set, though. So I'd put him on that Chavez/Aramis Ramirez level. He's worse than the guys who are better than that, and better than the guys who are worse than that ;-) (I'm not sure why you think it's so automatic Zimmerman is one of the latter group, though. They're both .330 OBP, high-.400 SLG [their stats would have looked identical a couple of weeks ago], great fielders in tough parks to hit in. I think they're quite comparable right now.) And he's paid fairly; I have no problem with that.
I noticed the other day that Adrian's double play total was down relative to other years. Aberration, pitching staff, the second baseman can't turn two or some other "X" factor? Because as usual whenever I see the guy he's cat-quick over there.
Thanks.
Harvey
Road Stats:
Beltre .295/.330/.567 .897
Lowell .282/.345/.432 .778
Well, I have noticed that Lopez has been in and out of the lineup. And lack of continuity at second base can impact double plays obviously.
Likely just random fluctation. Adrian is an amazing third baseman.
Regards,
Harvey
I’ve seen Cano play a lot, and I’m not even sure he’d be a productive Triple-A player. Let’s start with his defense; it’s brutal. He has terrible footwork and simply lacks any kind of instincts around the bag. There’s no way you want him playing up the middle. He might have the raw speed to not be awful in left field, but that’s about as kind as I can be regarding his glovework. Offensively, he’s a fastball hitter. He sits dead red on every pitch and waits for a mistake. Any good breaking ball or offspeed pitch will have him out in front. He’s mostly a gap hitter, lacking the power to drive the ball consistently over the wall. To add insult to injury, he’s also a terrible baserunner.
In his prime, I think he could hit .280/.320/.400 while playing awful defense. Yipee.
-David Cameron, February 20, 2005
. Bat Fld TotRodriguez A NYA 3B 30.8 3.2 34
Wright D NYN 3B 25.8 4.3 30
Cabrera M FLA 3B 21.5 2.5 24
Lowell M BOS 3B 17.0 5.2 22
Jones C ATL 3B 19.0 2.2 21
Ramirez A CHN 3B 15.6 4.6 20
Figgins C LAA 3B 16.9 3.1 20
Zimmerman R WAS 3B 13.9 4.8 19
Braun R MIL 3B 16.8 1.3 18
Beltre A SEA 3B 12.7 2.8 16
Harvey, this is one of the reasons I thought that Ryan was so bad with the leather. I haven't seen him play. I have spent the last seven months in an apartment that did not have daily games on the available cable package and so have been at the mercy of ESPN.
I once misspelled my own name, but that's because I was drunk at the time. I'm still a pretty good authority on spelling my name.
Beltre seems to have taken his throwing to another level this year, in my totally subject humble opinion. This guy can gun the ball to first flat-footed, moving away from the diamond, charging home - it makes my arm hurt just watching some of these throws.
But I'd say A-Rod is going to get the GG.
I notice Braun being absent from that least. Ryan is at 159+.
He is the regular third baseman for Milwaukee and has a chance to qualify for the batting title needing about 90 more plate appearances. So I think he should be considered as part of the mix......
Right, he was just under the cut-off I had ... but we must also consider his glove, which as discussed in the other thread has been somewhat lacking ...
In 2004 Beltre was 25, if you believe his birth certificate. Many players through the years have developed at that age, including a former Pirates LF who currently plays for the Giants. So why did Beltre not "stick" at that level, while Barry not only stuck but improved on what he did at 25? How can you tell the difference, at that given point in time?
Examining Beltre's data at the Hardball Times, I note one big thing: his % of fly balls which became homers was 22% (2005-07 about 12%). Line drive percentage has no big variance tho. A .334 batting average is sort of inconsistent with 87 K's. I could see Beltre regressing a little bit, say to .300/30, but instead he dropped all the way to .255/19.
I don't have Barry 1990's fly ball % data or anything, and his K/W data is virtually identical to what it was in 1989, so that doesn't appear to be a reason for the improvement. Can someone with access to even better metrics chime in here?
Naturally, Cano didn't appear to be a future GG-caliber 2B when he was in the minors. But he was good enough that he was only slightly below average even when he first came up. And what David wrote was manifestly stupid; Cano had just come off a year where he had shown excellent ISO as a 21 year old in AA and AAA (as well as decent plate discipline, which Cano seems to be refinding in 2007). Combined with Cano's excellent K-rate, I don't think any intelligent observer could have concluded that Cano "could hit .280/.320/.400 " "In his prime". Then again, I doubt many would call David Cameron "intelligent".
You could pick one judgement out of anyone's career and find something that in retrospect reads as suspect. I am quite confident that should one sift through your posts or other public utterances there are things present that some would term as "dumb".
I look at the totality of one's work. And David Cameron has consistently demonstrated an ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. To dismiss his opinion based on a single "data point" would be ill-advised.
Correct, I find David quite intelligent. And not just in things related to baseball.
And these remarks come from someone who finds David's general persona to be less than enthralling. So if you are going to dismiss me as one of his USSM "fanboys" you would be gravely mistaken.
I suggest you find another post to scratch.
Regards,
Harvey
Because his 2004 season was so far and away better than his career numbers. He increased his SLG by 200 points, doubled his season high HR total, increased his BA and OBP by 60 points, doubled his RC/27... anyway you want to compare his 2004 season to his career before then, he dwarfed it. Barry Bonds' age 25 season, by comparison was much, much closer to his career levels than Beltre's; it was a progression not a spike so great it immediately screamed fluke.
I look at the totality of one's work. And David Cameron has consistently demonstrated an ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. To dismiss his opinion based on a single "data point" would be ill-advised.
Correct, I find David quite intelligent. And not just in things related to baseball.
I guess you're right, Mr. Wallbangers. I guess I took it too far. Allow me to rephrase:
David Cameron is that obnoxious sort of fellow who's mildly intelligent but is convinced he's a genius and brags about it all the time, and in the course of it says an astonishing amount of idiotic stuff. He is a net loss to the sabermetric community.
Is that more clear?
Just a nit to pick, but the legality of Beltre's birth certificate is pretty well documented. He signed at 15 with the Dodgers, who were later found to be in possession of a doctored birth certificate saying Beltre was 16 at the time.
Also, for an Joba Chamberlain fan: rise above it, man.
Well, it is clear that you find his contribution sub-standard. Therefore, ignore it.
And it will be your loss.
Regards,
Harvey
Where on earth did this come from? Just a random act of belligerence?
ANyone who does this sort of thing qith regularity will be right and will be wrong.
David, you've read enough to know that is nearly 200 runs wrong wrt Chipper. BPro couldn't miss anyone further. PBP analysis makes Chipper about average or slightly above over his career.
Cabrera, okay - he's bad, but Chipper is a solid defensive third baseman.
Well, let's see. Beltre is sitting at 1400 or so, at the age of 28. He'd have to keep cranking out 160 hit seasons until about the age of 39 to make it. Possible, but not likely.
Wright has 600 hits at the age of 24, so he's behind, but not by as much as might appear. He's averaging about 180 hits a year, so if he keeps that up for the next four years, he'll be at 1300 or so by the end of his age 28 season. If he's 100 behind Beltre at the same age, but averaging 20 more hits a year, he will catch and pass him by his early 30s, and then have enough time to have a somewhat better chance.
As the better hitter/player, Wright has the better shot, even though Beltre had about a two-year head start.
Sorry Chris - I should have been clearer. I was talking about present day fielding ability. I have no doubt that Chipper used to be totally acceptable as a third baseman, but I don't believe that he's that guy anymore. At 35, it's natural to lose a step or two, and his injuries certainly haven't helped his mobility any.
For what it's worth, Beltre is something like 12-for-10 when I'm in attendance this year. I think I've seen four of his homers in a total of five games. Therefore, I think he's the best player in baseball.
A perfectly reasonable conclusion.
I think David and others make a good case for #2 to be yes. His hitting has improved and his D is still great. I would love my team to have him on that deal.
On question 1, I don't think it's quite as clear. If we're looking back at that contract in the context of its time, I don't it's fair to compare him to guys that signed this offseason. You'd have to look at guys who signed when Beltre did, and I seem to recall his being one of the biggest contracts out there. Drew got 5/55+ an opt out, Renteria got 4/40, Delgado got 4/54, and Beltran got 7/110. At 6/72 (isn't that what he got?), Beltre was near the top of the heap. Has he played like a top free agent since? No, he hasn't, but he's closer than I thought before reading this.
I was responding to what rfloh said about $20 mil, not you actually. I do think that there's some need to believe a team would actually offer something in the range of Tango's chart if one is citing it as was done eariler, even recognizing there's a level of market inefficiency at work sometimes.
I also question whether anyone would offer him the contract you suggest, but it's not impossible (see, as I noted above, JD Drew).
Making a value judgment based on a number that measures one skill seems a little rash, no? Ivan Rodriguez has a career .340 OBP despite playing a huge majority of his career in Texas, and he's easily one of the five best catchers of all time and pretty obviously a star.
There are many ways to add value to a team. OBP is certainly one, but to say that anyone with a .330 OBP can't be a star doesn't seem to add anything to the discussion.
Since Pudge Rodriguez is not a 3B, I don't think he's really much of a comp. I can see how you read it, but my point was about a 3B being paid a multiple of league-average salary and what is a reasonable expectation.
I do think what I said is accurate (though I didn't do a study or anything) about a 3B, anyway. Can you name one with an OBP of .330 who is paid a significant multiple of league-average salary and was also a legitimate star in terms of value? I don't think it's the current version of Beltre, but maybe someone can come up with one who legimately was...great glove, high slg, maybe some speed might get you there, I concede. And yes, Beltre has those things to a degree too...just not enough that I can see.
What's embedded there of course is a point several have made, including you, which is that the definition of a star is a big part of this. I want a bit more than 3.5 to 4 wins to be a star, and so that's the real issue.
On the park factors, the last data I have handy here is the Bill James Handbook splits from two years ago. They have Fenway as a 97 for RHB average, Safeco a 98. Power-wise, Fenway is of course much better for RHB...118 vs 78. So, it's a consideration as you note but I'm not sure it gets you as far as you do, I guess.
Also, someone posted the 2007 road stats, here are the 2006:
Lowell 310/352/514
Beltre 283/343/462
So, who knows...road splits are a bit of a funny dataset to begin with.
And though I believe he overstated the case a bit here, I also think David Cameron is intelligent.
This is completely unnecessary.
This makes you look even more like a jerk. I'll blame it on the Yankees who are so evil they turn their fans into whiny little #######.
If I cared if people thought I was a jerk, I wouldn't write abrasive things on this website. I will, however, point out that no one has addressed the substance of my criticism-that Cameron made an unsupported assertion about a Yankee prospect that has been proven wrong, and he never admitted his mistake or attempted to identify how he went astray. I'll also point out that I'm hardly the only member of the sabermetric community to hold these feelings about David Cameron; I may, however, be the only one with a sufficient lack of social graces to air my thoughts publically. Lastly, I'll point out that Cameron puts Matt Tuiasasopo (sp?) in the "projected regular" category of his "Future Forty"; this in spite of the fact that Tuiasasopo is inferior in virtually every statistical category to "non-prospect" Robinson Cano at the same age, at the same level. I am shocked, shocked, that Cameron is biased when it comes to prospect assessment.
Take that.
Keith, I'd actually like to get some of your perspective on this...I've never played baseball, don't claim to be a scout, etc. but I had seen Cano play at the point these comments were made and he looked like a good defender. Error prone? Yes, but he had good range and made more than his fair share of plays. In addition, he had been named the best defensive 2B in the '03 FSL and the best defensive 2B in the '04 EL. So, why or how could someone arrive at the conclusion that he was AWFUL defensively?
I think you mean Jon Papelbon=Clint Nageotte.
You know whose numbers look similar to Beltre's? Brooks Robinson. For his career, Brooks has a .322 OBP (lgOBP of .324) but that's dragged down by a lot of bad numbers at both ends of his career.
Right now, at age 28, Beltre has a career line of .272/.328/.461, OPS+ of 108. Through age 28 (1965), Brooks had a line of .283/.330/.420, OPS+ of 107. At that age, Brooks also had 6 Gold Gloves, an MVP, and two 3rd-place MVP finishes. Beltre has no Gold Gloves (that surprises me) and the one 2nd-place MVP finish.
Now, I was born in Baltimore in 1968, so I am genetically required to believe that Brooks was the greatest third baseman of all time. How close is Beltre to Brooks? Was Brooks a "legitimate star in terms of value"?
The voters seem determined to give it to Rolen and Chavez every year, NTTAWWT
Frankly, I think it's a credit to Dave's intelligence that he hasn't responded to your over-the-top personal attacks. You clearly have an axe to grind and no interest in having an honest exchange of ideas.
Well, sure he was. But remember, that .330 OBP he had then wasn't as much of a millstone given the offensive context of that time as a similar OBP is 35-40 years later. And he was Brooks Robinson with the glove. So there you go. I wasn't born in Baltimore, and I'm quite certain he wasn't the greatest of all time. But he's superior to Adrian Beltre, and certainly a legit star.
I've always liked Beltre, and it makes me happy to see him continue to play well. I think he has a very strange career path. He's gone from extremely overrated (1999-2000, when he burst on the scene to talk of him as a surefire HOFer) to underrated (thanks to an injury that pretty much wiped him out and totally crashed all the talk of him as a star) to overrated (when people were proclaiming that his unbelievable 2004 was him establishing a new level of play) to extremely underrated again.
When I was back home for a few weeks in Washington in May I watched every M's game I could and was reminded of just how good a defensive player he is. Combine that with solid offensive numbers and I really do think you've got a star-level player. However, everyone remembers how bad his 2005 was and talks about him like a bust.
No, he's not one of the 5 or 6 best third-basemen in the league and his contract sure looked like a mistake for a while, but given the market and his improvements I have a lot of confidence that he'll end up being worth it.
One other thing: a big reason that people believed his 2004 wasn't a fluke was that injury. We saw his obvious talent as a 20/21 year-old and imagined what his 22-24 years might have looked like in a normal career progression. If you believed that, it wasn't really that far out of line. Of course, no one expected him to ever duplicate that season again, but some .300/30 HR seasons didn't seem at all unreasonable.
Remember, the guy is still only 28 and he's having a very nice year. If he's able to play at anything close to the 2006/2007 level for the next few years, he could hit age 33 with over 2000 hits, and well over 300 HR. 3000 hits is not totally unreasonable, nor is 400 HR. For a top-notch defensive 3B that has the definite whiff of a Hall of Fame career.
To be sure, that's a lot of "what-if"s (and I wouldn't be surprised if he fades into uselessness by 2010 either), but if that does happen I think it would be hard to call 2004 such a fluke, even if he never comes close to putting it all together for six consecutive months again.
The important thing to remember about the contract the M's signed with Beltre was his age (25) at the time. Most of the baseball fans on the blogs and discussion boards felt that it was a reasonable contract in light of his age. It's a very different issue than if you're talking about players in their 30's. It was felt that even if Beltre underperformed relative to expectation, that because he would be in what is normally a players' peak years, he would still be a good value. That has basically been the case;
Well, drawing from my own experience I do know that prediction/projection is an imperfect science being performed by imperfect people. When you do that, you're going to be wrong on a frequent basis since baseball is the most unpredictable of sports (62nd round draft pick becomes first ballot HOF catcher; first round 'can't miss' phenom misses by a mile).
If I went back to own up for every missed prediction/projection I ever made for the purpose of publishing it I wouldn't have time to cover anything current.
Mistakes--even big ones--are a given and when you write about the game; looking silly on occasion is an occupational hazard. Heck, I wrote back when Barry Bonds signed his last 4 year deal that it would be a terrible deal for the Giants to make:
I missed that bad boy not just by a mile, but by exponential light-years. Some days you tame the tiger, some days you're an entree. Quite frankly, when I indulge in prognostication I'm wrong more often than not and I have nicknamed myself "Nostradumbass" in columns many, many times.
I'm sure David knows he goofed badly on that. But to re-visit every wrong conclusion made isn't productive. It may give satisfaction on some visceral level when a person feels obligated by someone to admit that he missed but is it really necessary? The evidence is obvious that he was off; you know it, I know it, David knows it, anybody who read that blurb on Cano knows it so why is it necessary to take the time to confirm what is already common knowledge? If we were so good at prediction/prognostication we wouldn't be writing, we'd be retired living off our sports gambling winnings.
If David posted: "I goofed on Robinson Cano" would that make everything all right? Does it change anything? Has some 'greater-good' been achieved? Does that mean he has to also post "I goofed on [insert player name or baseball scenario]" on every mistake he has made and is obligated to continue to do so as long as he writes?
I remember the excellent point made here a little while ago that it's a good thing nobody has a Retrosheet on their lives so every mistaken memory can be unmasked and the culprit publicly chastised for having the audacity for making a statement off the top of his head rather than going back and researching; checking and double-checking whether he had bacon-and-eggs or Captain Crunch for breakfast on the morning of June 16, 1977 before stating what he ate that day.
Wishing for somebody to admit a mistake in order to enjoy a moment of vindication reflects as badly on a person as one not publicly admitting a years-old error on a relatively minor issue in grand scheme of things--all the more so in an activity where mistakes, even big ones, are as common as Paris Hilton's sex-partners. It says more about how person views another than it does any feality to truth and accuracy.
Best Regards
John
Yes.
Sickels did and we left him alone with the whole "Melky sucks. He can't hit." thing. Look, dammit, Melky, Cano, and Wang are all awesome and we will not rest until everyone who doubted them along the way is vanquished or, at the least, offers a mea culpa. Perhaps a fleshing out of why they doubted that someone who had just finished being a roughly league average AAA hitter at a young age and with an unlucky BABIP would...maybe, one day, be a productive AAA hitter. An explanation of why a guy who was a former SS with, presumably good range, and a collection of best defensive player at his position awards was a horrific defender headed for 1B...
A word of advice: Paragraphs.
Actually, Beltre's season is about as good a match for his preseason projections that you'll find. The 4 systems featured on Fangraphs have him hitting between .271 and .284, he's at .280. The OPS is from 779-833, and he's at 826. The Marcel projection is probably the best of the four. He's very smart for a monkey.
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