Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Mitchell: Pedroia, Cano and Magical Thinking
(www.huffingtonpost.com)
Pedroiadolia: The psychological phenomenon of seeing wacko images on dirty uniforms.
Read More...The narratives around the two players, however, could not be different. Pedroia is almost the prototype of the over-achieving “scrappy” player. He is a 5’8” middle infielder who does the little things well. This ignores that he was also a second round draft choice who played baseball at a top baseball school. Cano, on the other hand is bigger, more athletic and does not project scrappiness at all. Throughout ...
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< 1 2Some of the players I'm sure are hot. And rich. Like model/fastballer Justin Zoolander, who just signed a 161 million dollar free agent contract. Though not all are human. My cat plays for my team, though he's getting older and will move to left field, with Peter Rabbit taking over in center. Kids stories are a good source for players, and helps get my daughter interested. One of these day's she'll have to take it over from me.
The only person besides Rany who was high on Ichiro was Clay Davenport, who was also the only person who felt that Pujols was worth discussing (as well as Josh Hamilton).
That piece is worth bringing back next time someone talks about how a random collection of Primates could constitute a competitive front office.
Funny; I almost mentioned this myself. I've always felt that Johnson looks like Ruth, but hadn't heard it said anywhere else until now.
Also, Teixeira looks like Joe DiMaggio.
How is the analysis there any worse than what an actual competitive front office would do?
Yeah, he does a little bit. Especially when he was with the Nats and got kinda tubby.
Don't really see it at all.
Damn, I miss "Larry Bowa's" posts; they were one of the highlights of old Primer.
Don't see it either.
Was this the play on which he broke his femur? Which is impressive, in its own way.
It's not; it's pretty much the same as any competitive front office. But player projections and evaluations are pretty much the only advantage the Primer crowd is supposed to have over a real front office, which would presumably have more skills in things like scouting, negotiating, trades, management, etc.
If the best amateur sabermetric minds can't project players any better than a real front office, what are they bringing to the table?
Well, that was also when BP was most worth reading. Of course, times are different now - sabermetrics has been assimilated and we know a lot more about what we don't know. There's not as much room to have a legitimate perspective that contradicts mainstream analysis now. I really enjoyed Kevin Goldstein's work, but I feel like BP lost a bit of their identity when they let the scouts in the door and tried to be all things to everybody, rather than focusing on what got them there in the first place.
14. Chris George, LHP
Sigh...
The "who does Teixeira look like?" sweepstakes ended long ago.
<SIGH>
Not just healthy, durable. Those 276 HBP bounced of Nick/Frank like spitballs off a battleship.
<WEEPS FOR WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN>
Well, they both look like DiMaggio.
:-)
Agreed.
Well, clearly 10-15 years ago there was a wide gulf between actual front offices and what statgeeks could bring to the table. The industry closed that gap... by hiring statgeeks. So _now_ there isn't much of a gap.
The BP discussion referred to is interesting but even if it doesn't show much of an edge even at the time, it's just one tiny slice of an example; I don't think we can extrapolate it out to conclude that even at the time statheads couldn't distinguish themselves in prospect projecting over the insiders. In fact, I thought it was widely accepted that statheads did have a better handle on prospecting at the time. Certainly they had a better handle on player value.
Funny, because when I saw this my mind instantly went back to when the Steelers first became good. They had a wide receiver named Frank Lewis, who was ultimately pushed out by Lynn Swann and John Stallworth because (wait for it) ... he couldn't stay healthy. He eventually had a couple of good years in Buffalo - but what might have been...
-- MWE
I have no doubt that it was widely accepted by statheads.
Loved him as a National, wished he could've found a way to stay healthy. The collision with Kearns in the outfield at Shea Stadium remains the single most traumatic sports injury I've ever seen on live TV. Ugh, I still get shudders.
Just asking for a rotator cuff tear.
I guess the best comp would be the upside of Nick Johnson's hitting talent and the body of Don Baylor.
I think a BTF dream team would be Stars+Scrubs and avoiding signing 2-3 win players to contracts longer than a year. Of course, if you don't get the stars, then you've failed miserably.
Avoid signing 2-3 win players to contracts longer than a year. 2-3 win players are average to above average regulars. In other words pretty good players. In practice this means you don't sign those players, since your competition will offer multiple years, unless you are signing guys like that with injury red flags.
what makes you think that some front offices wouldn't think that a splendid goal?
What makes you think the Marlins don't already know?
The scary thing about Albert Pujols is that it is only one year, and he didn't hold value after promotions. What really drove his figure up was the outrageously good fielding numbers he racked up, Gold-Glove-caliber even after a hefty penalty for the Midwest League-to-majors conversion.
Of course he put up a 157 OPS+ in his rookie year and was one of the most consistent hitters in history, rarely having even a bad month. Nobody was expecting that so I don't ding them for being "wrong" but the not holding value bit was kinda funny. (Less funny are the sample size issues -- that not holding value was 89 PA of 822 OPS at A+ and 15 PAs of suck at AAA.)
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