| 9:07 |
: So, look, I’m always late. I know this about myself.
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| 9:07 |
: I was going to be a minute late today!
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| 9:07 |
: Then Cover It Live wouldn’t let me log in and I became seven minutes late.
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| 9:08 |
: So blame them for 86% of your annoyance
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| 9:08 |
: Now let’s have us a baseball chat
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| 9:08 |
you know what they say better 7 minutes late than 1 minute late |
Now that Alex Rodriguez‘ career has quite possibly come to an end, it’s time to put it into some sort of historical perspective. He’s not just the player whose career is apparently ending in disgrace, with any number of emerging subplots. He’s also the Miami high school wunderkind, the Mike Trout of his time in his Seattle days, and guy who signed the biggest contract in baseball history – twice – with the Rangers and Yankees. He resides near the top of many all-time leaderboards, but at the same time his career can be seen as a disappointment.
He’s a paradoxical character who has been a consistent elite performer, but seems to be loved by no fan base, and has been derided for his postseason output though the numbers aren’t much different from those of Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson or Derek Jeter. He just might be the most universally hated superstar in US sports history. Let’s take a step back from all of it, however, and with as a critical and unbiased an eye as possible, assess his career and see where it fits within the history of the game. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet published his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Milwaukee Brewers.
It goes without saying that, in composing such a list, Hulet has considered the overall future value those prospects might be expected to provide either to the Brewers or whatever other organizations to which they might someday belong.
What this brief post concerns isn’t overall future value, at all, but rather such value as the prospects from Hulet’s list might provide were they to play, more or less, a full major-league season in 2014.
Other prospect projections: Arizona / Baltimore / Chicago AL / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Minnesota / New York NL / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Toronto.
Alex Rodriguez sued Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association on Monday as part of an effort to overturn his suspension. That suspension became effective on Saturday when arbitrator Frederic Horowitz issued a decision on Rodriguez’s appeal and reduced the slugger’s penalty from 211 games to the entirety of the 2014 season — 162 regular season games and any postseason games the Yankees might play.
Click here to read Rodriguez’s complaint and arbitrator’s 33-page written decision, which is attached as Exhibit A to the complaint.
Despite not having a 1st round pick again in 2013 due to signing Kyle Lohse, Milwaukee keeps adding players I was fond of as amateurs. The bad news is that the Brewers still remain one of the weakest farm systems in the game. The cupboard isn’t as bare as it looked the last couple of years. I think the overall level of tools and raw talent has noticeably increased. In particular I think Milwaukee did a good job this year in scooping up a couple players who dropped in the Draft in Devin Williams and Tucker Neuhaus. Both those players were high school draftees, as was the team’s top pick in 2012 – Washington State prep catcher Clint Coulter. Yet one thing that struck me about this org. is how many of their top prospects are from “off the beaten path” kind of backgrounds. Three of the most exciting players in this system are Victor Roache, Mitch Haniger and John Hellweg. Roache came from Georgia Southern University. Haniger was taken from Cal Poly while Hellweg went to junior college in Florida. Sure, some of their top players came from traditional big schools and that’s to be expected. Jimmy Nelson played for the Alabama Crimson Tide and a few years back Milwaukee took two college pitchers in the first – Texas’s Taylor Jungmann and Georgia Tech lefty Jed Bradley. As someone who watches a whole lot of amateur and college baseball my curiosity was piqued: How often do 1st rounders come from smaller schools? Also, how often do these players succeed?
Read the rest of this entry »
Mitch Haniger had an outstanding first professional season. The Milwaukee Brewers outfield prospect banged out 52 extra-base hits between two levels. That number is even more impressive given that two-thirds of his at bats came in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League. Overall, the 23-year-old [as of December] hit .264/.348/.431.
Originally drafted in 2009 by the Mets out of high school, Haniger opted to play college ball at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. In his junior season at Cal Poly, he hit .346 with a 1.064 OPS. Milwaukee then selected him 38th overall.
Haniger finished up his 2013 campaign in the Arizona Fall League with the Surprise Saguaros. He discussed his game, and the decision to bypass the Mets, during the last week of the AFL season. Read the rest of this entry »
Milwaukee’s system has a few intriguing names but lacks both impact talent and depth. The organization has had a lot of bad luck with high draft picks in recent years but found value in later rounds. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben and Sam discuss hypothetical questions about Mike Trout, Barry Bonds, Mark Mulder and more.
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I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about athletes in other sports who might hypothetically be able to make a decent transition into baseball. It’s something I think everyone’s thought of at least a few times before, and the first thing that came to my mind was that hockey goalies could and would make for good backstops, since they’re highly skilled at keeping things moving quickly from getting right past them. I know, for example, Dan Wilson used to be a goalie, so it’s not a surprise he was also a good defensive catcher when it came to blocking low pitches. It requires pretty obviously the same kind of skill.
Yet, while it’s clearly important for a catcher in the majors to be able to block challenging pitches, it’s also true that, in the majors, there isn’t a lot of spread in skill. Which means there isn’t a lot to be gained by being particularly excellent at preventing pitches from flying by. Last year, by our measures, the A’s were baseball’s worst pitch-blocking team, and it cost them 5.5 runs. The Cardinals were baseball’s best pitch-blocking team, and it gained them 6.4 runs. From worst to best, it’s a spread of about a win, which makes it maybe an unjustifiable thing to be concerned about one way or another.
Episode 414
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he provides very compelling status updates for ongoing situations.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio after the jump. (Approximately 33 min play time.)
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