Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Cabrera, Trout Both Had MVP Cases But Triple Crown Means Something
(www.baseballamerica.com)
Read More...DENVER—The biggest joke about the American League MVP vote was all the moaning and groaning about the results.
The Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera is the 2012 AL MVP. The Angels’ Mike Trout is the runner-up.
That’s no disgrace. Trout’s in high cotton, too. Cabrera, however, won the award. And the final tally was decisive, with Cabrera outpointing Trout 362-281.
Among the most vocal critics was Keith Law of ESPN, a one-time analyst in the Blue Jays front office who now is quick to proclaim his ...
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1. John Northey posted on October 26, 2012 at 06:40 AM # hit 0 | hit 0Howard is powerful and can hit the ball a long, long way but his contract is a millstone and with his poor defense and baserunning he has to have a 850+ OPS or he just isn't worth keeping let along paying $25+ million to. If you could get Hellickson for him then you'd be nuts not to take the deal. Of course, the odds of the Rays taking on a contract like that is 0% given they cannot fill their park with a winning team.
Like a month ago there was a story about some idiot assistant GM who had the idea to put their prospects through 3 days of what was purported to be Navy SEAL training. Now it turns out that one of their top prospects was injured during the training and the Pirates apparently attempted to cover it up.
edit: link to the discussion of the original story here. Apparently Huntington gets credit for the idea as well, not just the assistant. And here's a link to a summary of the injury story. And here's a link that says Mark Appel, who the Pirates failed to sign this year, retweeted a story about it. There is some thought that this will hurt Pittsburgh's ability to sign players and Appel taking notice is presented as evidence in favor of that idea.
D'oh. I think it's hilarious they give the players long lists of what they can't do so they won't get hurt and then they decide SEALs training is a good idea.
Gregory Polanco was not injured during the training - he aggravated an existing ankle injury, after he had been cleared to participate. The Pirates issued a statement that was not at odds with the facts but which wasn't exactly forthcoming, either. They handled it badly, to be sure, but that's not the same thing as trying to cover it up.
-- MWE
Perhaps. It seems clear that they tried to obfuscate the role their new training regimen played in Polanco's re-injury.
Call me crazy but that sounds like injuring something. You can injure something that's already been injured. Disregarding whether it was a good idea in the first place it also raises questions of why somebody who was already injured was cleared.
If the SEAL training is all that kept us from signing a bust-waiting-to-happen like Appel, it's already paid for itself.
It was a sprained ankle, which he re-tweaked while running. Have you ever sprained an ankle, and then twisted it a bit after it's almost-totally-healed? Just like that.
It was a sprained ankle, which he re-tweaked while running. Have you ever sprained an ankle, and then twisted it a bit after it's almost-totally-healed? Just like that.
Why would you even consider firing a GM for something like this?
With 20 years of "bust" adequately describing the whole franchise, is it the uncertainty that vexes you so?
I don't know. I think most of the local baseball media spent the offseason drinking paint thinner, and they totally forgot how to write actual baseball stories. The press coverage over the last six months or so has been hilariously stupid.
It's not like military PT is going to be anything particularly stressful on professional athletes (I'm sure they weren't doing real SEAL training, e.g. swimming in freezing water). The US military must put tens of thousands of total couch potatoes through it every year.
Appel just isn't that good a pitching prospect. His fastball doesn't have much movement, and you can see it for miles because of the mechanics of his delivery. For months leading up to the draft, I said that the one high-profile guy I didn't want them to take was Appel (but that we were lucky because he'd probably get chosen before our pick). Well, ####.
If the Pirates hadn't taken a swing at Appel, they had a pre-draft deal in place with David Dahl, who totally destroyed rookie ball and looks like a future star. So yeah, when it comes to the entire Appel experience, I'm filled with rue.
It's even dumber than that. The hugely successful Pittsburgh Penguins did the exact same SEAL training a year before that, and nobody in the media said #### about it at the time.
This isn't about rational analysis. It's about looking for stuff that sounds stupid and using it as a causus belli to smear the guys in charge of the team. For what purpose, I'm not sure.
"ALRIGHT MAGGOTS. I WANT TO SEE YOU JOG AROUND THE OUTFIELD 5 TIMES."
For the military, at least, the point is for it to be psychologically stressful. To break down individualism and foster group cohesion through group effort, shared suffering, and a common "enemy", the DI.
Also, what is physically stressful for a bunch of regular recruits should be a breeze for professional athletes. Art Donovan tells a story about how the college football players infuriated their DIs in WWII b/c the PT was so easy for them, compared to the practices they were used to.
Yeah, Law had one or two showdowns with Mike Missanelli, a Philadelphia sports radio personality, after the Howard extension was signed. Missanelli was very dismissive of the opinion that the contract was a huge overpay, well in excess of what Howard would get on the free market, and continually specualted about the huge dollars the Yankees or Red Sox would throw at "the preeminent power hitter of his time" or some such thing.
The other popular local meme after the Howard extension was that his power made him a "game changer" ... it may have been an interview with Missanelli in which Klaw made a great quip, something along the lines of, "Yes, Howard is a game changer in big situations. He forces the opposing manager to literally change the game by bringing in a lefthander to completely neutralize him."
But maybe I'm not seeing something here.
It can't be actual SEAL training, no company would sign off on the liability. The initial course has something like an 80% drop-out rate.
I'd guess it's something like regular basic training, but they use former SEALs as DIs to get the "brand".
Yeah, my question was kind of stupidly phrased. I guess it went to how rigorous this stuff really was. I hadn't noticed the link to the earlier discussion at the time.
I'm not ready to go off the deep end on Dahl yet. You're in an environment where teams are averaging nearly six runs per game, and while Dahl led the league in just about everything he wasn't *that* much above and beyond. We need to wait and see what happens when he gets to a full-season league.
-- MWE
Was he able to stay in the military, or was he disabled?
It's the latter. Flipping tires and group-carrying telephone poles and the like.
Fair enough. As always, Mike, I'll defer to your judgment on prospects.
You're not necessarily down on Dahl, are you? Just cautious.
It would be fun to see what a truly elite hitter could do in Coors. It's kind of alamring to realize that Dahl is actually younger than the Rockies franchise.
Then Tony La Russa clubs them to prepare them for their major league fates.
Yes, just cautious. I wouldn't have been unhappy had the Pirates drafted Dahl.
As always, I like to remind people of Mitch Einertson.
-- MWE
Caution is certainly warranted for players with success at very low levels. This is probably picking nits, but I'm not sure Einertson is the best example -- he had his own flags, beyond just age/level/environment. Comparing to Dahl, for example, he had a substantially worse K-rate, less implied athleticism (SBs, 3Bs), and was overly HR dependent (as opposed to Dahl's more appealing 2B/3B/HR splits). Dahl has his own flags (BB rate is just okay, high BABIP), of course, but I'd feel much about about him than Einertson given the nature of the flags.
Of course. I use Einertson only as a reminder of what can happen when you don't look for those flags.
-- MWE
Whereas Jamie Moyer is older than all but five franchises.
The email quoted in the link which is quoted from Kovacevic specifically says that Polanco opted out of the seal training because of the injury. Polanco and a teammate clearly state he took part in the training and re-injured himself there.
"Polanco was NOT injured during that workout. He actually injured his ankle during the season. He opted out of those workouts, as he has continued to battle swelling but no pain."
Also the original injury was in mid-August ... and he still has swelling?
The hugely successful Pittsburgh Penguins did the exact same SEAL training a year before that, and nobody in the media said #### about it at the time.
In fairness, hockey is just a wee bit more physical than baseball. And anything that keeps those guys from getting drunk and banging their heads against a wall is a step in the right direction.
Let's not exaggerate here. Jamie Moyer isn't even older than all the expansion franchises! He was created a year later than the Mets, Astros, Angels and Senators/Rangers.
"A DONUT?!?! WELL PRIVATE, YOU ARE GOING TO STAND THERE AND EAT THAT DONUT WHILE THE REST OF THE PLATOON EATS THOSE DONUTS OVER THERE ON THAT TABLE!"
The guy who comes out with the bat donut is guaranteed a spot on the roster.
What could possibly go wrong?
This is how Billy Butler trade rumors get started.
And that doesn't even quite capture the full stupidity of it all. The Penguins actually did this first (I believe) three seasons ago. They decided it was such a raging failure that they went back and did the same training regime again the following year. All the contemporaneous reports from the players at the time were overwhelmingly positive. They all (or at least all of them who spoke publicly) loved it. Kovacevik certainly knows all this, what with him being a former Penguins beat writer and a huge hockey fan and all. Especially since there were stories about it in both papers in town and on all the local news shows.
There are hundreds, literally hundreds, of pro and college sports teams that have gone through this type of training. Just a few weeks ago Coach K put the Duke basketball team through a similar training session. But he's obviously a complete moron who knows nothing about coaching elite athletes, so who cares what he did.
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