Thursday Suchwhat
Scouts On Vernon
Over at the four-letter, Buster Olney has posted his first of a weekly series that will be talking to anonymous scouts about various players in baseball, and the first case on the docket... why lookie here, it's Vernon Wells.
Truth be told, I'm almost tempted to quote the whole damn thing here, because it's all fairly interesting. I'll do my best to pick out a couple of highlights, but trust me, it's worth it to take a look at the full thing.
One scout says: "Vernon Wells can be a joy to watch when playing inspired baseball. However, I can't get over how many at-bats he throws away chasing high fastballs or breaking balls off the plate, even in fastball counts."
Now where have I heard that kind of stuff before? And then here's the kicker...
"This often becomes apparent to me particularly when he's not playing against some of the tougher teams in the AL."
OK, so maybe we already knew this. And maybe we don't really give a shit what anonymous scouts think. But at least it lines up with what anybody else with eyes can see. And there was even some praise in there, too...
Another said: "He's close to a franchise-type of player -- he's franchise-lite. Is he Derek Jeter in his prime, or Alex Rodriguez? No. Part of the reason is that he tends to cruise through part of the schedule. You don't get 100 percent of Vernon Wells every day, for that reason. He paces himself."
Maybe not the kind of stuff you want to hear. But this, this is the encouraging part:
"Late in the season, the Jays center fielder met with a representative from Athletes' Performance, a sports performance company based in Phoenix, and hired a personal trainer who has moved to Texas to work with Wells twice a day. When Wells goes to Florida for spring training, the trainer will go, too, and he will continue to travel according to the Jays' schedule throughout the season."
Quickly
Jordan Bastian gives a rundown of the Jays' options at this point, including needs, trade candidates, plus a look at their top prospects and notes Tallet and Frasor as non-tender candidates.
Scott Carson has posted some stuff about AJ, attached to some rambling thing that I'm pretty sure is about the Jays current predicament. I'm not sure what exactly he's getting at by trashing Ricciardi's draft history, but I'd like to point out something that can never be said enough, really, with regard to his dredging up the name Russ Adams. Um... for fuck sakes, since Tony Fernandez threw down an OPS+ of 115 in 1993 as the starting SS, only Tony Batista's 122 in 1999-- when yes, they were actually fucking running him out there at SS-- and Chris Woodward's 106 (!?!?) in 2002, have been over 100.
I know that doesn't exactly justify making a bad pick, but my fucking god, they still haven't filled that position properly. Can we seriously stop shitting on Ricciardi for trying? Every GM in every sport has a blown first rounder on his resume. Let it go. Ugh.
Layin' Down the Law
Another edition of KLaw Chat this afternoon. Here are your Jays (and Sean Avery) related highlights. . .
Keith Law: (1:02 PM ET ) Sean Avery gets suspended indefinitely for making an off-color (but hardly offensive) comment. Plaxico Burress shoots himself in a nightclub and gets four weeks. That seems right.
Keith Law: (1:10 PM ET ) It just reinforced for me how bush the NHL is - they're not a major league, they haven't been for years, and I doubt they ever will be again. It also proved that the two dead 3-volt batteries I just took out of my daughter's light-up Tinkerbell clip have more power than the NHL players' union. Each.
Keith Law: (2:08 PM ET ) It was crude, but funny, and I still think if that offended you then you're probably offended by things like trees, clouds, and inert gases.
Lou (Smithtown Ny): Mr. Law, I was wondering how serious are the Jays leaning towards a youth movement? and would like to pitch a trade idea to you if you don't mind? - Roy Halladay - Veron Wells to NYY for Ian Kennedy Alfredo Aceves Edwar Ramirez Melky Cabrera
Keith Law: (1:06 PM ET ) That's nowhere near enough. It would only be fair if the Jays also included Alexis Rios, Travis Snider, Tony Lacava, and Emmanuelle Chriqui.
(Sarcasm, friends. Sarcasm.)
Eric (Milwaukee): In all fairness, some of the comments aren't KLawbaiting, it's just "Yankees fans being Yankees fans". Do you think CC and his agents consider things like cost of living and the present value of that 6th year on a contract when making decisions? Or is it simply 6/140 versus 5/100?
Keith Law: (1:28 PM ET ) Depends on the agent and player. I know we ran into trouble in Toronto because Canada's top marginal income tax rates are so punitive - we had to come in about 10% higher than a typical offer from a US team just to be at par.
Mike(San Diego): To Kevin in Mass: Maybe [Dustin Pedroia] wasn't trying to gauge a team with a huge contract. Maybe he just LIKES to play in Boston and doesn't feel the need to be greedy. Boy, wouldn't that be refreshing.
Keith Law: (1:47 PM ET ) Mike, apparently, is a big fan of making sure that billionaires like John Henry keep as much of their money as possible.
Jonathan (Tampa, FL): How does Klaw's imaginary HOF ballot look when filled out? I'm guessing: Henderson, Raines, Blyleven, Trammell, and McGwire?
Keith Law: (1:50 PM ET ) Exactly right.
(Exactly right.)
Keith Law: (2:20 PM ET ) Yes, I'm a small-Hall guy. But the BBRAA includes too many writers who want to use their votes for "look-at-me!" purposes, taking an unqualified player like Jim Rice or Jack Morris and then building a campaign around him with the writer at the center.
Corey (Chicago, IL): Travis Snider looked really good in September - future star?
Keith Law: (2:17 PM ET ) Absolutely, top 10 prospect in all of baseball.
Yani(Toronto): Keith, what is the ceiling for Brett Cecil?
Keith Law: (2:17 PM ET ) Absolute ceiling is a 2/3 starter. Hoping they'll be cautious about his innings this year ... career reliever, converted to starting, so far so good, but he threw a LOT of breaking balls in college and was used heavily and strangely.
Posts
39 comments:
Consider:
1) JP got hired to do something very specific - cut costs and focus on
an immediate rebuilding of the franchise; Therefore,
2) JP basically HAD to take a college player that season; Therefore,
3) The only credible argument that can be made is that the Jays should
have drafted Swisher or Mark Teahen instead of Adams if they were
taking the positional player route. And:
4) To get from Adams to Teahen, there were far more college failures
than successes. The next two college positional players selected were
John McCurdy @ 26th and Jeremy Brown @ 35th - two Beane failures.
There were 9 college pitchers taken between Adams and the end of the
round that failed. Further, none of the 6 positional players from
college in the 2nd round have played in as many games as Adams.
Backward-looking, you go to pick #80, Curtis Granderson, before you
can fault JP again. So the return the team got from Adams appears to
be fairly average (if not higher) relative to the college-age
positional players that were realistic alternative options.
Bottom line:
Among comparable alternatives, Adams wasn't such a bad pick. You need
to expand your thinking to high school players and college pitchers if
you want to fault JP (which isn't really fair because it would involve
him doing something that ran against the reasons for his employment
with the team).
With Wells, Rios, Johnson, Negron (who was too young to write off as a
19-year old in 2002; dude actually had a decent AA season last year
with Chicago as a 25 year old) and Gross all in the system or fresh to
the big leagues (not to mention Cruz and Stewart, both 28-years old
and theoretically entering their primes), it may not even be rational
to fault him for not taking ANOTHER outfielder in Swisher.
In 2001 and 2002, the team used Chris Woodward, Homer Bush, O-Dog and
Alex Gonzalez in the middle infield. Clearly, the middle infield was
the weakest positional area of the system, with O-Dog the only middle
infield prospect in the system that fit JP's mold (I exclude Felipe
Lopez and Cesar Izturis for obvious reasons, chief among them, JP's
correct assessment that they werent that good), taking the best middle
infielder was really the smartest thing to do. I don't think you can't
use the 'draft the best available college player' argument here
because JP really wasn't hired to do that.
So, yes, Doc, Rios, O-Dog, and Wells were solid pieces in the system
JP inherited that ultimately panned out very very well. But, so what?
The team and its system had basically been so destroyed by Gord Ash
that they were paying a lot of money ($80 million) for the privilege
of drafting in the top 15 picks. Moreover, it's not clear to me that
JP has failed with his top draft picks either. He's already given us
Aaron Hill, Shaun Marcum, and Lyle Overbay (ok, not really, but I'll
go with Wilner on this one) through the draft and, at this point in
time, there's no reason to believe that Travis Snider, Adam Lind,
Casey Janssen, Jesse Litsch, Brett Cecil, JP Arencibia, and David
Purcey will fail. Compare this to the productivity the team was
getting in 2001 from the '95 - '01 drafts that Ash oversaw, even
including trades (which is prob a net negative for trading Mike Young
for Esteban Loaiza). In the 2001 season, Ash's drafts had produced
Esteban Loaiza and Billy Koch. That's it. Three years later, one would
be able to add Hudson (late round pick in '93 - no way did Ash have a
hand in the 43rd round pick), Reed Johnson (17th rounder), Hinske
(through Koch... but that can be credited to JP since Koch was done by
then and he stole Hinske from Beane), Wells, Rios, and Halladay. So JP
looks alright for now.
Well said.
He's way off on the Avery thing. It was a mindless stunt, not even a response to a question. And his delivery was terrible. He clearly wasn't committed to his half-assed punchline. Fuck him.
Lloyd go stick a barber pole up your ass!!!!
LAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!
dustin parkes' last post was douchetastic.
lol his chat today was really bad, its not usually this bad. Its mostly a bunch of 12 year olds asking Keith about their ideal trades..
Does Law not realize that Burress was only suspended 4 weeks because that's exactly how many weeks are left in the season, and that the Giants have made him inactive for the playoffs? Burress was effectively given an indefinite suspension.
Fuck off Parkes
dis that Vernon Wells article really tell us anything we didn't already know? the trainer part is encouraging however.
If you're gonna take the private email I sent to you (which, i point out, you ignored) and post it as a comment, at least have the courtesy to use the name I always use!
I thought about this some more today, actually... Faulting JP for picking Adams falls along the same general lines as faulting him for not snagging A-Rod last off-season...
I liked the franchise-lite part. That's probably a good description of both Wells and Rios. Is Snider a franchise player through and through? Time will tell. I think he'll attain that status if he ends up being a 900 OPS guy.
As for Adams redux, those are reasonable points, but there is an obvious flaw in the argument that "JP needed to rebuild the franchise quickly." The point (made crystal clear by hindsight) is that you can't control the pace of rebuilding by bidding only on college players. The number of impact players in each draft is so few that a GM had better focus on the player(s) that have the highest potential - college or high school. If you just choose collegiate types to accelerate the "rebuilding" process, you end up missing out on a lot of the best talent. Which is exactly what happened with the Jays. At least the GM finally figured out that his strategy needed to change, although it's interesting that no one ever pointed this out to him at the time.
I thought I addressed that when I wrote "I don't think you can use the 'draft the best available player' argument here because JP really wasn't hired to do that."
(I edited that just now to convey the message I meant to relay - typing on a blackberry isn't easy).
To expound on my point, I don't believe that JP circa 2002 would be able to justify his existence/hiring in Toronto had he drafted a high school player (particularly a pitcher). You aren't being realistic if you think that the front office paid a chink of dough for one of Billy Beane's top aides only to have him do the exact opposite of the model that had worked so well in Oakland (remember, too, that the '02 draft was before the release of the Moneyball book).
And while I agree with you that drafting Snider was a wonderful decision (that no one could have realistic expected to have borne results as rapidly as seems to be the case), I would point out two things:
a) The farm system in 2006 was very different than the system JP inherited.
b) The payroll/philosophy for the team was different in 2006 then it was in 2002.
If hypothetically JP had been hired in '06 with the philosophy that justified his offer in '02, I personally believe he would not have taken Snider and would have, instead, gone for Antonelli or someone like that.
My point is that JP shouldn't be excused for implementing a benighted draft philosophy, no matter how much "sense" it made on its face. I was always a bit baffled by the idea of restocking the farm system with college players, with a view to diversifying at some point down the road. Now, I could understand this approach if Rogers had said, we're only giving you enough money to scout college players. Not sure if the scenario was that extreme.
I think what happened is that Beane had had some success with the college approach in Oakland. He and DePodesta identified some advantages to focusing on college players (for one thing, the computer-friendly A's front office discovered that there were a lot of college stats that could be crunched to reveal previously hidden value). Ricciardi carried that philosophy with him to Toronto, but he was either a bit late to the party or unable to execute the draft strategy especially well.
To his credit, JP seems to have figured out a few things and revised his approach accordingly. Ironically, however, the most successful high picks in the last couple of years have been college players: Cooper, Arencibia, Cecil, Mills. The touted HS players (Ahrens, Jackson, Tolisano, Eiland) have struggled. So who the hell knows. Overall I like the blended HS/college approach (while looking for undervalued players wherever you can find them).
We're sort of going in circles here.
But I guess my point is that neither you nor I TRULY know what JP was "allowed" to do back in 2002 relative to what he's been able to do in recent years. Nor have I ever seen it mentioned anywhere that it was actually part of the "plan" (if there was one) to exclusively use top picks on college players in the early years and then diversify down the road. That's not to say you know this to be the case, just that I have not (and I spend way too much time reading about the team so I like to think that I am fairly in-the-know).
I also have no idea what Corporate or the division heads told JP with respect to his ability to allocate scouting resources. Anecdotally, I do recall reading in "Chasing Steinbrenner" (a book by a Boston beat writer that follows Epstein & Ricciardi) that JP advised his scouts to rank a trip to the mall to catch a movie above scouting a high school game, to give you a sense of the attitude the team had in the early days of JP's tenure. This suggests more a focus of values than resource allocation.
Perhaps it's a function of your opinion of JP's role in Oakland. DePodesta was senior to JP. But your comment implies an opinion that JP was very much out of the higher echelons in Oakland, which I was not aware was the case. To the contrary, I was under the impression that the reason JP was hired was so that he could do in Toronto what he had done (as a junior to Beane) in Oakland. Which is why I don't think it's relevant to hold something against him that ran against his raison d'etre, especially in light of the performance of Adams compared with likely alternatives. Which was what I told someone privately last week or so.
But you bring up an interesting point when you suggest that Ricciardi failed relative to Beane. Is that really the case? If you look at Ricciardi's top picks from '02 - '05 and compare them to Beane's picks (yes, Toronto picked earlier... but had fewer picks), JP actually looks pretty good. So to me, your use of the word "benighted" to describe the adherence to a strategy that had produced exceptional results in Oakland and has thus far served the Jays fairly well (and we can argue about this) is a bit harsh.
Sorry for the length.
so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for lyle underbay, what about ryan shealy? he had a heck of a september (950 ops) and the royals have jacobs now with kila somebody in the wings. low cost mencherson replacement..?
1. Early in his tenure, JP as much as said that he was focused on college picks (who have more of a track record and require less time to develop) to "restock" the system. As far as I can tell, that's called a plan.
2. The notion that JP wasn't "allowed" to draft more promising players because they were in high school seems ridiculous to me. JP is the GM. He can draft whoever he wants. Now, if he lacked the resources to scout HS players, that's a different story.
3. If the 2002 draft reflected JP's values, and not a corporate mandate, those values look a bit questionable in retrospect, don't they? If I'm a university president, and I decide to fire half of my recruiters, then recruit students from only 5 of 10 provinces (to save costs), and my competitors end up with a deeper pool of talent, wouldn't it be fair to take a second look at my approach (even if I never called it a "plan")? I think this is what happened to JP, so eventually he modified his approach, and the results have improved.
why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil greene? All it took was some dude named mark worrell.
Khalil is an above average defender and a .800 ops hitter outside of PETCO.
The Jays are straight FUCKED. For fuck's sake.
"so, um, in the search for a platoon partner for lyle underbay, what about ryan shealy? he had a heck of a september (950 ops) and the royals have jacobs now with kila somebody in the wings. low cost mencherson replacement..?"
LYLE UNDERBAY, baha, you crack me up.
true, we need the shealy. or sign manny/bonds.
"why in THE FUCK did the jays not trade for khalil greene? All it took was some dude named mark worrell."
Because he makes 6.5m this year and our payroll is likely to be in the 90m range, and there's no way it's a good idea to spend the majority of our free dollars on Khalil Greene, regardless of his OPS on the road. This wasn't about the cost of acquiring him, it's about the price of keeping him.
What is the BBRAA?
Substitute "Retard" for "Writers". It's a lil joke Law started awhile back that has taken off in the blogosphere.
Baseball Reporters Association of America
You honestly think Khalil Greene is an improvement over Scutaro/McDonald?
His OBP last year on the road: .225
I shit you not.
Total fucking overrated sack of shit.
At this point, is Russ Adams at SS really such a bad option?
-Russ A.
.225!! You can't make that shit up.
Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from other sources and the JP ass-kissing-with-tongue-out vibe at Drunk Jays Fan? Calling out Jamie Campbell for kissing ass, when that's all this blog does day in and day out? Lame shit!
Ryan...
What the fuck are you talking about? I'm probably the biggest non-Anonytard critic of the DJFs here and I assure you, they are not JP ass kissers.
And recycled content...that's kinda what blogs do. DJF takes those sources and provide their own unique insight, wrong or not, it's definitely interesting.
Thanks SP. Also Ryan, perhaps you've noticed that FUCK ALL IS HAPPENING right now. We don't have much to work with here.
Parkes, fuck off, you know nothing about baseball. leave the analysis to others that understand the game. Khalil Greene is a decent SS, very underrated by stupid fucktards like you. You don't have a .800 career OPS on the road by fluke, you assbastard.
"Anyone getting tired of the recycled content from other sources and the JP ass-kissing-with-tongue-out vibe at Drunk Jays Fan? Calling out Jamie Campbell for kissing ass, when that's all this blog does day in and day out? Lame shit!"
wow, parkes>>>ryan.
hahahaha dude tells parkes he knows shit then pulls out a .700 ops on the road stat. glad the message boards are back to hilarious.
Judging by what the Padres got for Greene I'm pretty sure Parkes isn't the only one who thinks that he's an overrated sack of shit.
Hey Ryan go fuck your mother for me.
Keep up the good work guys, your doing an admirale job bringing content in an really slow time.
Parkes, fuck off, you know nothing about baseball. leave the analysis to others that understand the game. Khalil Greene is a decent SS, very underrated by stupid fucktards like you. You don't have a .800 career OPS on the road by fluke, you assbastard.
Holy shit, just how much of this shitbag's cock are you going to suck? This is amazing! Keep it up!
8:50,
While drafting players out of college is certainly a plan, drafting players out of college in years 1 thru 4 and then switching to high school players is an entirely different plan. I questioned whether the latter was a defined reality.
Further, #2 point contradicts your #1 point and is not relevant. It's akin to saying "JP is the GM. It's his job to sign the best available players. He should be fired for not signing A-Rod, trading for
Santana, etc..."
Of course he's the GM. But if his job process was anything like any senior manager that I know, he was told to present a plan of how he plans on winning if he were hired. Id bet my left nut that the only reason he was asked to present said plan (as opposed to mgmt seeking a more traditional, less Moneyball-ish GM) was because upper mgmt wanted him to say how he was going to build a contending team quickly at a low price. This entails drafting college players almost exclusively.
As to your third point, see my comments above about Russ Adams and the '02 draft. Then go to www.thebaseballcube.com and look at the draft
results for the top rounds of the '03 to '05 drafts. I would like to a hear a convincing argument how the picks of JP have underperformed those made by Billy Beane. Heck, throw in '02 also if you want since the average Beane pick hasn't exactly panned out that great.
Parkes, his OBP was bad last year. He also suffered an injury (this is well documented, check it out). Additionally, are you putting more weight into his 50 game away sample, inwhich his OBP was .225 and SLG was .317 to be more indicative of his true value, or his career .318/.434 (including his shit year) of his true value? Making this claim would be akin to me saying that Vernon Wells would be a .400 slugger after 2007 because he slugged .396 at home and .409 on the road that season, but we all know this would be a completely ridiculous thing to say, right? So why the different standard when we are talking about different players? (This is a legitimate question - is history littered with players who NEVER recovered from a wrist injury? I don't know.)
He also is considered a well above average defender (ie, better then Scoots).
You guys can shit on him, but he is NOT a bad short stop. Even if he never achieved the levels people thought and just reverted to pre-2008 form, he'd be a fine acquisition. At 6.5 he is not overpaid. See Renteria, Edgar for this definition. Greene is also entering his age 29 season, which means he should have 2-3 good years left. You guys are seriously, seriously, underestimating him. He's not the 2nd coming of Ernie Banks, but he is a reasonable risk acquisition, where the upside is an above average offensive and defensive shortstop to hold the fort down till (we pray) J. Jackson is ready.
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