FanGraphs Audio: John Jaso and Geoff Baker
Episode 182
David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA), curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks both to Mariners catcher John Jaso and Seattle Times beat writer Geoff Baker.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 28 min. play time.)
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Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Geoff Baker doesn’t hold an ounce of credibility with any intelligent sports fan in Seattle. What a shame his name should besmirch this otherwise respectable website.
Unfortunately, I tend to agree. I am conflicted as all get out!
With all respect, a comment such as your distances you from intelligent sports fans, and just intelligent people in general.
I say so because as an intelligent fan of Seattle sports, you do not speak for me. I say so because such a statement is easily dismissed as not accurate and that of one who has difficulty expressing themselves in a positive way.
Baker is an idiot. His theory that teams don’t need to have budgets and should spend whatever is necessary to put a winning team on the field, regardless of their revenue stream is just idiocy.
Fuck Geoff Baker.
That is just disrespectful – you can disagree with someone without having to call them names or toss F-bombs.
Frankly, people are more likely to value your opinion if you back it up with an intelligent argument rather than a couple of swear words.
I agree. Closed minds should come with closed mouths. But I do respect their decision to show such a limited depth of thought.
Geoff Baker is a douche
Fangraphs should know a lot better than to feature Geoff Baker.
So nobody read Geoff Baker’s blog before doing this? That should cure anybody from wanting him on this site.
Bakers not that bad, he’s just a better fan than he is a sports analyst. He loves the Mariners, even if he can be a little pessimistic about them, but hes had to watch them be unwatchable more closely than regular fans do for a very long time. His skepticism is warranted.
Geoff does not “love” the Mariners. He is not a fan. It’s his job to cover the M’s and he doesn’t pretend to be a fan. He’s not even much of a baseball fan. He prefers hockey and football.
While I know Geoff is a big hocey and football fan, he is also a huge baseball fan as well. His teams, naturally are the Expo’s and Jays and he has a passion for them just like we have for the M’s.
I think he does a great job, and while I don’t always agree with him his coverage is pretty detailed and he backs up his work.
Geoff Baker has admitted many times that he is not a big fan of baseball. That he wouldn’t go watch a game on a day off because “would a Microsoft guy go into the office on his day off?”
He is sadly wrong about most of what he is saying. And a lot of it is just patently wrong headed. Blaming player performance on veteran presence? There is absolutely no correlation imaginable.
He doesn’t blame young player performance on a lack of veteran presence. He cites a lack of quality veteran players as an area of weakness for the team, and he’s right. A fangraphs readers might say what he means is “The Mariners have poor depth due to inexperience and under performing starting players.”
Is it possible they have too many white players?
Why would that matter?
unbelieveable comment…..what does race have to do with talent? Nothing, unless one looks for race in such matters.Which might make one racist in their views.
@Erik, @Hi Hard One, that comment isn’t racist… it’s a reference to an article Baker wrote while he was still in Toronto that called the Blue Jays the “white Jays”, citing their lack of notable black or hispanic players. It’s been widely regarded as his biggest failure. It’s an anti-Baker joke.
Thx 13….didn’t know race was something to joke about
Once again, it was a comment about an article Geoff wrote, not race.
And what’s wrong with joking about race, anyway?
Sorry, but the Geoff Baker bashing here is ridiculous (and quite mature too – i.e. the commenter who wrote “Geoff Baker is a douche” really added to the conversation here).
For a more balanced view, those of you who aren’t familiar with Geoff Baker’s work might want to go over to the Seattle Times site and check out the depth and quality of his work. While he does on occasion hold a different opinion than Dave Cameron, that doesn’t make him wrong (unless of course you’re Dave Cameron or one of his fanboys).
It’s truly amazing how people who call themselves fans of the Seattle Mariners, one of the worst run franchises in sports history, hate the one voice in the mainstream media in Seattle that actually ha the balls to take the team to task. I find it bizarre.
People, there’s more than one opinion out there. Stop the hating.
Thanks for commenting, Geoff!
Unfortunately this is the most immature comment thread I’ve seen on FG, which is usually filled with intelligent responses (or don’t say anything at all). The rude comments here are really an embarrassment for FG.
You can disagree respectfully with Baker, gentleman. Virtually none of us care for the veteran grit argument, but Baker has done alot of work over the years to bring quality multimedia blogging to the M’s fans.
Adults on here know he is a good guy with an old school take.
Anyway, now I’m going to listen to the podcast. Not sure how many of the commenters here did, but perhaps I’ll be coming back swearing and pulling my hair out too.
Just make sure you go over there to check out his work on one of the weeks he is actually working. It is pretty hit or miss…gotta take those vacations…
Thanks for the audio, Carson and David. I found myself agreeing with Geoff Baker through a lot of that interview, he seems more reasonable than his blog posts usually are.
A few oddities though. His description of why the m’s kept running out Olivo (to get his awful bat going), just made no sense. This particularly in light of his views about Brendan Ryan getting playing time while hitting terribly. Also, his advocacy for signing ‘mid tier vets’ as I recall it, involved a lot of braying for a Prince Fielder signing.
Geoff Baker is a great writer. Just because you guys are part of the saber crowd and don’t agree with what he always says, does not mean you guys need to slam him. He does hard work. I tend to agree with a lot of what he says. Maybe because he is pointing out that the future is not very bleak does not mean he is wrong. When you guys talk the way you do, it makes you lose credibility as a fan with knowledge.
What a bunch of intellectually challenged people on here. I am sure everyone is passionate about their thoughts and eager to express them, and I am all for it. But somewhere along the way most of you seem to have forgot what the concept of respect is. Everyone has an opinion, and it is just as valid as my own because I respect the fact that everyone has their own point of view. If they are intelligent they can articulate thier views in a way that will invite positive discussion and interaction than I am all for those who want to say whatever they wish whether it is clash of thoughts, personal disatisfaction with a player, or in this case a writer. Lack of giving credible arguements belittles your position and mocks your intellect. Words loke “douchebag” & “fuck” are the works of a childish and unenlightened mind……attacks such as “sadly wrong” and “has no credibility with anybody” should be substanciated in some way (and by the way, you do not speak for me as you claim to), structure your phrase with intellect and examples and perhaps people may wish to engage you in an intelligent discussion. Have a position you have actually thought deeply about…… but I don’t think that is your goal. I believe the goal of alot of folks here is to simply make themselves feel good about themselves while inflicting actions upon others that they would scream about if the tables were turned.
As far as Geoff, he’s a nice guy who I don’t always agree with. When I don’t and feel so moved, I actually send him an e-mail which he will respond to.
That is called respect……some of you should learn it.
Begin by respecting yourself by holding yourselves as accountible as you do everyone else.
Just my opinion
I haven’t heard someone trying this hard to sound smart in a long time
We should respect the guy who spent the entire winter dragging up the divorce proceedings of a particular Mariners owner in a way to support his incorrect claim that sometimes teams just need to spend $200 million dollars on a FA to start winning??
I’ve been reading Geoff Baker and his blog for the last few years. I’ve also read Shannon Drayer’s blog, USS Mariner, LookOut Landing, Larry Stone and others.
I enjoy reading his stuff over all the others. He reports on ownership, management, finance, performance of the team and doesn’t seem to have an agenda.
And that guy works hard! Don’t like to see all the BS so I had to put my two cents in.
This is coming from a dude that was banned from commenting on his blog:)
Well said Lenny!
Geoff Baker’s agenda is getting hits on his blog.
That’s not an agenda, it’s a business model.
Ugh. Turned it off when it got to the Kyle Seager bit and Geoff started whinging about the Mariners’ free-swinging ways when David complained about Seager’s lack of walks.
Seager hasn’t walked very much at all, and a whole lot of people are pointing at that and criticizing him. It used to be that too many people undervalued walks; now too many people have an unhealthy obsession with them. The man is running a 123 wRC+ while playing the fifth-best defensive third base in the majors per DRS. He has been worth more WAR than Miguel Cabrera, and it isn’t very close. Kyle Seager’s contact skills this season have been so absurd that he does not need to walk to be a successful hitter. Stop it with the walks fetishism!
By the way, the Mariners’ O-Swing% is fine. They aren’t hacking at all; in fact, their 27.9% O-Swing beats the league by 1.2% behind only the Twins, Athletics and Indians. Their Z-Swing is middle of the pack. Their contact rates are middle of the pack. You want to know why the Mariners aren’t walking? Their Zone% is by far the highest in the AL. Higher than the second-highest team by 1.7%. The Mariners aren’t walking because opposing pitchers aren’t throwing them as many balls as every other team sees.
Huh. It must’ve dropped during the series against the Rockies. Colorado’s pitchers didn’t do themselves any favors.