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Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Must rifle through 45 boxes for The Herd’s “Here Comes the Fool”.
“Robinson Cano plays a lot harder in those [WBC] games than he does for the Yankees,” Colin Cowherd said on his ESPN Radio show Wednesday.
I like Cowherd’s show a lot. I’m a guest on it sometimes, but I think Cowherd has it completely wrong on Cano.
Colin was making a larger point about how the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico cared more about the WBC than the United States. I agree with Colin on that one. Winning that tournament means more to those islands than it does to the United States.
But did Cano play harder for this country than he does for the Yankees? I didn’t see it. I don’t see it.
I think Cano plays hard most of the time. With a larger amount of games for his country, there would be times where the same lapses we see on occasion in the Bronx would pop up. Cano has great pride in his country, but also in his pinstripes.
Repoz
Posted: March 20, 2013 at 01:55 PM | 68 comment(s)
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1. hee came hee seop'd he choi'd Posted: March 20, 2013 at 02:28 PM (#4392650)that tells me everything I need to know
Yes. Parsed, it means "I'm an idiot, & nothing I have to say could conceivably be worthwhile."
PS -- Just heard a quick blurb on the (non-sports) radio. They said Jeter has discomfort in his surgically-repaired ankle and has to stay off it for another 2 weeks. Anyone else hear this? If true, it's getting almost as dangerous to be a Yankee as it is/was to be a Grateful Dead keyboardist...
This is what ESPN employs.
Yup. Not so much the specifics about staying off it but Nick Cafardo said there was a setback of sorts and that Opening Day was in doubt.
-- MWE
The last, and only time I can think of, Cano not putting in full effort was at the end of his lost 2008, when he got benched for not running something out. The guy has been a model player, and a great player, ever since, and he's one of the most entertaining in the game to watch. The only way someone calls him lazy is if they simply aren't watching him play.
I dunno. Bill Simmons said "If you don't like First Take, don't watch it", and got suspended for it.
It's different if the sound at the end of the word is "'a". not "er". Are you sure you were listening correctly?
Ah, sports talk, the lowest common denominator of dummies...
I'm not sure which half I'm in.
I'm not sure why it was brought up, but Jim Kaat mentioned on a play by Cano that he appears lazy because he's graceful in the field. I'm not sure if that was brought up by a) other people alleging Cano is lazy or appears lazy; or b) Kaat's belief that Cano looked lazy in the field during that game.
My cats are both.
When he's out on a routine groundout, he's out by anywhere from 5 to 20 feet. When Jeter is out on the same routine groundout, he's out by a micro step. And sometimes Jeter even beats the throw.
None of this will show up by studying advanced metrics.
Cano often does appear as if he's not really trying. Now I'm not Proffessor X so I can't say that he is actually lazy, but no one who watches Yankee games would confuse Cano with Pete Rose.
P.S. Yes, I am aware that Cano is well on his way to 3000 hits and a HOF career.
I agree with that but I will say that I've also never seen Cano fail to take a base he could take. For example, last night Hanley Ramirez was rightly chastised by Jim Kaat for loafing on a base hit that should have been a double, I don't remember ever seeing Cano do that.
The other thing in your example is that Cano is just slower than Jeter. He's not a burner so even if he's flying down the line he's going to be out by more than Jeter on an identical play.
Andruw Jones syndrome. Andruw was another guy who did nothing but show up everyday and produce and was rewarded with the 'lazy' tag. People simply suck.
When & where? I haven't checked lately, but Finebaum's been off the air for contract-related reasons (i.e. he refused to reup with WJOX, I think it was, in Birmingham) for a couple of months now & AFAIK has another month to go till his noncompete (or the equivalent therof) is up.
This has probably been mentioned a million times before, but Cowherd and most other radio hosts I've heard just say the same thing over and over again in (sometimes) different ways. Just listen to Cowherd one morning. He has like three total topics, maybe 18 total points to be made, and it takes him 3 hours to do it.
I wonder if there's a correlation between having a pudgy face and being judged lazy (like a fat, spoiled child). In my humble opinion, Jones and Ramirez both have pudgy faces. I don't think I could say the same about Cano.
I have no opinion whether any of the above, or any other player, is actually lazy.
You could be worse. You could be someone who calls into Paul Finebaum.
Seconded. I was glad when Kaat mentioned that, and that's not the kind of thing Cano's ever been guilty of that I've seen. He probably doesn't run up the line as hard as he can on every ball in play, but that's just smart if it lets him play full seasons.
He also talks football constantly, even in the off season, which I don't want to hear.
You'll be happy to know all he says about Vick now is endless harping on his poor decision making and inability to read defense. ie: hes dumb.
Both seem appropriate.
In fairness, the end for Andruw in Atlanta wasn't entirely on the fans. He may have gotten tagged lazy by some before, but most people where willing to live with it. Then he started falling apart. Atlanta fans saw it, nobody was really that sad to see him go. He'd strike down falling to his knees four times in a game, and smile on the way back to the dugout each time. When asked if he considered taking a more balanced swing he'd respond, "I'm a pull hitter, its what I do and what I've always done." Which was obviously untrue.
Andruw's demise could only have been one of a couple of things. 1) He ate himself out of playing shape, 2) He refused to believe his critics when his play started deteriorating, 3) He didn't care that he was getting worse, 4) He was 2-4 years older when he broke in, (putting his collapse after 30 and giving his career arc an entire new perspective)
Also young Andruw got yanked rather infamously mid-game by Cox for dogging it on a play. That did seem to get the point across and I don't know that you could say he ever dogged it after that, but obviously Cox felt the point needed making.
I'd hazard a guess that at some point before the next WBC USA players will come out in some way/shape or form and at least indirectly criticize the "I don't care about the WBC" type MLB fans.
On Cano, yeah the lazy tag is stupid reflection of how easy he makes most plays look (and that he's a pretty bad runner for a middle infielder) . but it's not entirely untrue that Cano cared at least as much for the WBC as the World Series, which would obviously mean he'll look like he's playing harder than the vast majority of times in the regular season too.
Let's flip this the other way around, would anyone in their right minds say "Cano obviously care more about the playoffs than the regular seasons" as a criticism?
reached base on error/AB, for career:
Cano 1.0%
Jeter 1.7%
So yeah, you may have something there. Not that it doesnt show up in stats though.
On the advanced baserunning, both Cano and Jeter score an excellent 45% at XB or advancing one more base than batter.
Also the pt. about hitting balls to the left side has an obvious counter, right hand batters who hit balls to the left side also have longer to get to first base. I dont recall seeing any obvious lefty/righty splits in this data, but I didnt do a systematic study.
in my opinion, it seems obvious. That speedier runners are going to have more close plays at first. Doesnt that stand to reason? More close plays at first are going to result in being safe on close plays. Being safe on a close play, might be a hit, might be an error. But at least it will be a positive increase in reaching base on error. If the ball beats you by 10 steps then there's a lot more chance for the first baseman to recover on a juggling catch or a wide throw. It just seems this way to me,perhaps you have another way to look at it?
They all do this. Right now we have march madness and baseball about to start and instead I have to listen to radio guys in DC talking about the financical penalty the Redskins took for getting around the salary cap. WHy is this in the news? Because the owners are having their annual convention in wherever and the sports writers are there looking for stories to keep us interested in football in the offseason. "Oh did you hear what the Giants owner said about the skins? Arent you outraged?"
To throw some numbers at this I used a 600 at bat season. In such a season Jeter would reach on an error 10 times while Cano would reach 6 times. However, if you assume that all ROE (simplistic of course) are on GB then Jeter is reaching on an error in 10 of 348 chances (600*.58) for a rate of 2.9% while Cano is reaching at a rate of 2.1% (6 of 288 chances). This accounts for a bit less than half the difference if my thinking and process is right. Using at bats as the denominator Jeter reaches on an error 70% more often than Cano, using ground balls as the denominator it's about 38% more often.
The state of sports radio is sad. You have Francesa, who thinks you're wonderful if you agree with him. Steve Sommers, who makes you want to throw the radio out the window, and the Dan Patrick name-dropping festival. And they are better than the rest.
All true, although Cano being a LHB has a half-step advantage on getting down to first which could have an impact as well.
I also wonder if you'd want to include infield singles, not just ROE.
]Name Outs Err GO% FO% SO% ExErr ErrFDerek Jeter 3859 114 47.0 27.9 25.2 66.9 1.705
Otis Nixon 3831 124 51.3 30.6 18.1 73.4 1.689
Manny Mota 2631 93 55.7 32.7 11.6 59.8 1.556
Rey Sanchez 3627 102 51.9 34.2 13.9 66.7 1.529
Mickey Stanley 3855 127 47.9 37.5 14.6 83.5 1.520
Bob Horner 2781 89 37.1 44.5 18.4 58.7 1.516
Rondell White 3276 91 42.7 32.7 24.5 60.6 1.502
Joe Girardi 3131 89 48.9 31.7 19.4 59.3 1.500
Wil Cordero 3131 85 36.9 38.8 24.3 58.5 1.453
Willie McGee 5471 161 53.6 23.8 22.6 111.8 1.440
Stan Javier 3794 102 45.8 32.1 22.1 71.5 1.427
Greg Gross 2743 86 52.8 38.1 9.1 60.5 1.422
Cesar Tovar 4130 126 45.1 45.0 9.9 89.8 1.403
Jose Vizcaino 3816 102 48.5 33.8 17.7 72.8 1.402
Deivi Cruz 2916 71 46.6 39.8 13.5 50.7 1.400
Chad Curtis 3039 77 39.7 38.0 22.2 55.1 1.397
Miguel Tejada 3122 75 41.4 38.9 19.7 53.8 1.394
Gary Disarcina 2876 72 52.2 37.1 10.6 51.9 1.389
Scott Fletcher 4029 108 48.4 38.2 13.4 77.8 1.388
Roberto Clemente 4526 146 54.0 25.4 20.6 105.7 1.381
Where:Outs - number of outs made
Err - number of times reached on errors
GO% - percentage of outs that were ground balls
FO% - percentage of outs that were fly balls
SO% - percentage of outs that were strikeouts
ExErr - expected number of errors based on league rates
ErrF - error factor (Err / ExErr)
And the lowest:
Name Outs Err GO% FO% SO% ExErr ErrFDarren Daulton 2792 29 30.6 43.4 26.0 56.2 0.516
Mike Lowell 2264 21 28.5 50.7 20.8 40.5 0.519
Jim Gentile 2169 25 32.7 37.0 30.2 48.2 0.519
Mo Vaughn 3957 37 32.5 31.3 36.1 70.8 0.523
Mike Epstein 2180 25 31.1 39.4 29.6 46.6 0.537
Ernie Whitt 2893 33 38.6 44.4 17.0 57.6 0.573
Bobby Murcer 4967 62 34.3 48.7 16.9 107.0 0.579
Bernie Carbo 2036 26 38.7 31.4 29.9 44.6 0.582
Henry Rodriguez 2272 26 27.8 36.9 35.3 44.1 0.589
Jim Dwyer 2101 26 31.5 49.4 19.1 43.6 0.596
Darrin Fletcher 2918 34 38.1 48.3 13.7 55.5 0.613
Greg Walker 2143 26 36.3 39.5 24.3 42.4 0.613
Carlos Delgado 3656 39 30.3 35.7 34.0 63.5 0.614
Franklin Stubbs 2027 25 27.8 41.3 30.9 40.5 0.617
Sid Bream 2353 30 38.3 42.5 19.1 48.3 0.622
Jason Giambi 3408 37 29.7 43.5 26.9 59.1 0.626
Ken Henderson 3440 48 36.0 41.8 22.2 76.3 0.629
Andy Van Slyke 4222 55 35.6 39.2 25.2 86.5 0.636
Jeromy Burnitz 3617 42 29.8 37.2 33.0 65.8 0.638
Boog Powell 5004 70 39.7 35.8 24.5 108.7 0.644
Tom did take it further. finding that park and base/out situation had provable impacts. He also eliminated the "fielder's choice, no out recorded"
At the end of it he was left with Gene Tenace, Bob Horner, Glenn Hubbard, Rusty Greer, Wil Cordero, Rondell White, Reggie Sanders, Otis Nixon, Jimmy Wynn, Alex Rodriguez, Robbie Thompson and Greg Vaughn topping the list for reaching on error.
And Tim Foli, Mo Vaughn, Larry Herndon and Dick Groat as the least likely to reach on error.
He did demonstrate that speed mattered, but it's pretty clear the single most important factor is being right-handed. IOW it's completely predictable that Jeter would reach on error more frequently than Cano. He's faster, but more important he's right-handed.
As I've noted before, the audio on my car stereo went out in late September when a guy gave me a jump-start but initially cross-connected the cables. (I'm lucky that's all that happened; the guy at the car parts place where I went after that to get a new battery told me that there was every good chance the other guy had fried his alternator.) I haven't listened to 5 minutes of sports (or any other) radio since, & while that can be inconvenient at times, I think overall my quality of life has improved considerably. Throw in the fact that I also don't get cable or the local newspaper (they fired me as metro editor, so I'm not about to give them 1 red cent of my money), & it's almost like I'm living in a noise-free zone.
Which I sometimes think is why I come to BTF -- for the noise.
The flip side to the righthanders' edge in ROE is they also tend to compile more GIDP. Jeter, for instance, is 20th all-time in GIDP with 269.
Cano, however, hits into a lot of double plays as well, with more than 3X as many GIDP as he has ROE.
Their teammate, Ichiro, was one of the types who combined the best of both worlds, with far more ROE (112) than GIDP (69). However, the numbers indicate he's lost a step, as he's grounded into 22 DP while only reaching on error 14 times in the last two seasons, removing him from the rarified group of players with a ROE:GIDP ratio that exceeded 2:1 (I don't know how many others beside Brett Butler populate this club. I don't know how many other people besides me are aware of its existence).
ESPN's weekend late night guy Bob Valvano is, to my ears, the best national sports radio host. Insightful, incisive and fairhanded, he doesn't need to resort to the cheap gimmicks used by Cowherd and his ilk. I don't recall him ever taking a cheap shot. Plus, his show is fun. I wish he did "straight" talk radio.
You're welcome.
Yesterday afternoon the DC sports station, at 5:00 in the afternoon, spent a good 30-45 minutes discussing possible ways to fix the Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl!
How about 5) His body could only take playing 150+ games a year, regardless of health, for ten years and, in the eleventh, all that playing hurt caught up with him.
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