Ignoring a nationwide call for a goofiness cease-fire, Joe Morgan has decided to hold another chat.
Alfonso (Boston): Hello Joe. How much does Manny Ramirez's defense hurt the team? Would they be better off trading him in the offseason so Jacoby Ellsbury could play everyday.Joe Morgan: It seems like when we bring young people up at the end of the year and they get off to a good start, people tend to believe they will play that way for an entire season. You know what you get with Ramirez, a great hitter. And Manny's defense does not hurt them as much as his offense helps them. It is hard to replace players that drive in runs the way Manny does.Ken Tremendous: Joe's not entirely wrong here. I have resisted drinking the Ellsbury Kool-Aid -- although it looks effing delicious -- due to his less-sugary minor league numbers and the fact that historically there is zero correlation between a player's first 40 MLB at bats and his career statistics. (See Pedroia, Dustin.) However. It should be noted that Manny is currently having his worst offensive year since 1994; that he is on the wrong side of 35; that he costs 20m a year; and that while his defense does not quite completely wipe out his offensive contributions, it sure takes the sheen off 'em.
I don't know what the point of all of this is, except that just saying "Manny's a great hitter" isn't quite good enough to pass muster anymore. On a side note, isn't it crazy how little anyone has talked about Barry Bonds since he hit 756? Does he even play baseball anymore?
Frederick (Jackson, Mississippi): Who is more clutch? Gary Sheffield or David Ortiz?Joe Morgan: That is a difficult question because --
KT: -- I'll finish your thought here, Joe. It is difficult because "clutch hitting" is not an
ability, per se, but a random correlation of very few data points whose importance is enhanced by the human inclination to remember the extraordinary and not the mundane. That's what you were about to say, right?
-- both have done a great job in tight situations, but Ortiz has proven to be the best big-game hitter in baseball. I think he has risen to the occasion more than anyone else. I would have to choose Ortiz at this point over anyone else in the game.KT: Oh. Okay. Well, that's another way to go.
I say this a day after Ortiz hit a walk-off 2-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat the DRays (
an .840 WPA, for those of you who love WPA): most evidence seems to suggest that there is no such thing as "clutch hitting ability." There is "clutch hitting". There is the abstract concept of "ability." But there is no "clutch hitting" skill you can learn, in the way that you learn how to hit for power, or control the strike zone, or throw a slider two inches off the black to induce a groundout. Sorry. Take it up with
people who are smarter than I am.
Quick example: I was just now poking around the FoxSports site, and I found this in an
old Ken Rosenthal column:
While center fielder Carlos Beltran is probably the Mets' best offensive player, the most important might be left fielder Moises Alou. "He's one of the very best clutch hitters in our game," one rival executive says. "He doesn't care about the situation or who is on the mound. If he gets his pitch, he'll beat you." Alou's career numbers with runners in scoring position: .307 BA, .391 OBP, .513 SLG.
One of the best "clutch hitters" in the game -- .307/.391/.513 with RISP! That's clutch. Except that career, overall, he is: .302/.369/.517. That's basically the same. In fact, it might be the case that he is simply a better
walker with men on base. And his SLG is actually
lower with RISP.
Enough of that. Let's get to some classic Joe comedy, courtesy of his last sentence:
But Sheffield is one of the best offensive players in the history of the game.
Again, he's not wrong, I guess. Gary is tied for
49th all-time in OPS+. I just like it when Joe gets all hot and bothered about Gary Sheffield.
George (Boston, MA): The White Sox are bringing back essentially the same team next year, and now they'll have the same manager too. Meanwhile they've pretty much mailed it in on this season over the past several months. If nothing changes, what's the chances that they'll play any different next year? Thanks.
Joe Morgan: That is a decision that Ken Williams hgad to make. It was amazing to me that their offesne went dormant to start the year, and then a lack of pitching followed. They are counting on Contreras to rebound, and for Dye, Thome, Konerko to turn it around. What I see them doing is bringing this team back because they have so much money invested in these players. I think they are going to see how the first half of next year's season plays out and then react accordingly to how the team plays.
KT: They're going to see how the team plays, and then react accordingly to how the team has played. This innovative strategy of baseball management is called: "Baseball Management." The White Sox invented it.
John (Chicago, IL): Joe, who do you think, in your opinion, is going to represent the AL in the World Series this year and why? I like Boston because they have the best run differential in baseball and their pitching top to bottom has been statistically the best all year. What do you think?KT: Hey kids! New to our site and want to know why we think Joe Morgan should be fired? Check out this fun answer!
Joe Morgan: Well the run differential means nothing. It is like OPS, it mean nothing in the grander scheme of things. (...)Run differential "means nothing." The number of runs a team scores, as compared to the number of runs it gives up, means nothing. Nothing at all. It has no bearing on how good a team is. How could it? After all, it is simply a measure of how many runs a team has scored and how many runs the team has given up. What could that possibly tell anyone about anything? I mean, let's look at the teams with the best run differentials in the AL.
Boston
New York
LA Angels
Cleveland
The four worst teams in the league!
Look, run differential isn't perfect. Every year, teams have terrible run differentials and make the playoffs. The Padres and Twinkies had no business winning their divisions last year. The Snakes have no business winning this year, based on RD. But in general -- let's just all use common sense, here -- the number of runs a team scores and the number it allows should roughly correlate to how successful that team is. Just as, say, a statistic that combines a player's on-base percentage and his slugging percentage should correlate to
how good a fucking hitter he is. Why is that controversial?
BTW: if you guys are super into math and want to read about Poisson distributions and revised exponents in the Pythagorean theorem application to ExWL,
go here. (Warning: NSFW!!!!)
Francisco (Jalisco, Mexico): The A's have had a little success in the past, but wouldn't you say that this year proves that Billy Beane's approach simply doesn't work?KT: Hmmm. Legit question or Joe-Baiter?
Joe Morgan: I do not think you can just take one year and prove it. But I have never thought anyone could reinvent the wheel as far as how the game is played. Once you get on the field, everything that has gone on for 100 years does not change; and that means outscoring your opponent and pitching well.And since you are more likely to outscore your opponent if you don't do stupid stuff like bunt and hit-and-run and stuff... it seems like you and Billy Beane are on the same page, Joe!
I do not think this one year proves anything, but the As playoff failures over the years demonstrate that you cannot win it all under that approach. A. What approach?
B. Four division titles in seven years.
C. The A's playoff failures do not demonstrate anything except that once you get to the playoffs, anything can happen. Anything. The Reds swept the A's in 1990 despite the A's being hugely favored. Billy Beane had nothing to do with that. Kirk Gibson hit a home run off Eck. Dan Gladden hit a grand slam. Ozzie Smith and Scott Podsednik won games with HR. The A's have a payroll of just under eleven thousand dollars every year, and given that, are far more competitive than they should be.
Because of the way they put their team together. How can anyone dispute this?
This year just proves that they lost a lot of good players over the past few years and it has finally caught up to them. But I think they have been reevaluating their approach. At one point they only wanted to draft college players, but this past draft they have drafted some high school players, and I think that is a good approach.
KT: They didn't only want to draft college players. They looked at some motherhumping data and concluded that college pitchers tended to be better bets to succeed than high school pitchers, so they erred on the side of drafting college pitchers.
You didn't read
the book. You hate the book. You think Billy Beane wrote the book. Shut up about the book unless you man-up and read it, you dummy.
Andrew (Hoboken, NJ): Hi Joe - Always a pleasure reading these chats. I was wondering what you thought about Robinson Cano's future development? He has shown he can put up some great power/rbi numbers for a second baseman.Joe Morgan: He is one of the guys that since the first time I saw him play I knew he was a great player. I do not see him everyday, but for him to be a superstar he needs to keep a high level of concetration, and some people seem to think he does not always concetrate as much as he should. KT: dak yelled at me for being too priggish in
my assault on Mike Pagliarulo's grammar and syntax. But I have a for-reals question: does Joe think the word is "concetrate?"
Eric (NYC): It seems like there aren't any more "great" teams out there this year, just a lot of mediocrity. In your opinion, what was the last truly great team?KT: Definitely a Joe-Baiter, I think. "There are no more great teams" is one of Joe's go-to nonsenses. Along with "Gary Sheffield is great," "They need to be consistent." "I am on the Hall of Fame Committee so I don't like to talk about who should and should not get into the Hall of Fame," and "Dave Concepcion should definitely be in the Hall of Fame."
Joe Morgan: It did not just start this year, it has been this way for a bit. A lot of good teams out there, but not many great teams. An great team has no weaknesses. All teams these days have weakensses, most of the time it is starting pitching. The last great teams I think were the Yankee teams that won all those titles. I think Boston, when they won the title were clsoe to beaing great. But I do not see any teams out there right now who I would call complete. The Yankees look great at times, but then they hit these big loosing streaks and that is not what great teams do. So I agree with you that there are not any great teams out there.KT: Wonderful. A Gettysburg Address for a new generation. Bumbling, ramble-y, riddled with typos (sorry, dak), fact-less, nonsensical, exclusionary (didn't the 2002 Oakland A's win 103 games with some pretty good starting pitching?), halting, and bafflingly choppy. Well done, all-around.
Jerry (Red Bud, IL): Are the Cards officially out of it? Will this weekend's series with the Cubs only give them the ability to play spoiler?Joe Morgan: I do not think anyone is out of it. KT: Hear that, Astros?
And they are in a position where they have to sweep the Cubs, and Milwaukee has not been consistent, so if they can sweep the Cubs who knows what can happen.
The first "consistent" in the whole chat. He's improving.
The Cards have hot a rough spot but it is still not impossible. But going back to Yogi, you just never know.
All of Joe's answers could be pictorially represented by a picture of himself shrugging with the caption, "Who can tell?"
Joe Morgan: Yesterday I was asked if A-Rod hits 62 home runs would he be considered, in my mind, the legitimate HR season record holder, because he would have done it without any suspicion of steroid use. My answer would be no. It is what it is, and those number that were put up by Bonds and McGwire are there. There has not been any proof about what these guys did, only speculation. So until there is proof I cannot take those numbers away from those guys.KT: Grand jury testimony, delivered under oath, does not count as proof. Our judicial system has been upended.
Great chat today. I really enjoyed your questions. I am looking forward to next week, when maybe we can discuss this A-Rod question then.
KT: Why not discuss it now? You're already chatting now, why not--
...
Joe?
...
Joe?
Labels: a's, concetrate, food metaphors, joe morgan, joechat
If you've been living under a rock or something and are like totally not hip to important things that are happening in the world, allow me to inform you that former mediocre New York Yankee Mike Pagliarulo
has some kind of scouting website.
It appears to be co-run by someone named Adam, but for the purposes of this blog entry, I am going to assume it is designed, written, and executed by Pags and Pags only. Because that is funnier.
Call us crazy, but where else in the world can you find an industry where a small market GM leads the large market companies?
1. You're crazy.
2. I would imagine there are a lot of them. Lots of large companies are influenced by, and steal ideas from, small companies. Apple's design team blows Microsoft's out of the water. JetBlue and Southwest were, for a while, running rings around much larger airlines. Most people refer to the product that allows you to record TV shows as "TiVo" and not "TimeWarner HD Cable DVR" or something. Sometimes Miramax and FineLine and Paramount Vantage and stuff win Oscars while Universal and Warner Bros. make clunkers. Should I keep going? Or do you want to talk about baseball?
Where else does a business with half the budget dictate protocol for the “super powers” except in the business of baseball?We're in troubs, here, Pags. This sentence is all over the linguistic map. I think what you mean to say is: in what other industry does a "company" (team) with half the budget of other companies (teams) with which is it competing, control the way business is conducted within that industry. Instead, you just wrote the word "business," and then wrote a bunch of phrases with no antecedents or referents ("half the budget," "super powers") and then wrote "business" again. Not make word-goods you wasn't.
(BTW: For the
answer to the question, see the answer to the previous question, because this is just a rephrasing of the previous question.)
In the case of the Oakland A’s and GM Billy Beane, quite a phenomenon exists throughout a majority of the monopoly consisting of major league baseball teams. This is painful. Pags, sweetheart -- have you ever read...anything? If you haven't, you should. If will help you communicate better with your audience. This sentence appears to have been first "written" in sign language by a Russian chimp, and then translated into English by a Chinese businessman who learned English from old soap operas.
It seems that what Pags
wants to say -- but tragically cannot, because he writes like a fifth grader trying to fake his way through an oral report on salamanders -- is: "What makes Billy Beane so great, anyway?!" Which is an excellent question. That has been answered many, many, many, many times.
Billy Beane is a great GM because he found a way to keep the A's competitive in MLB, despite a payroll far behind those of several other teams. He did this by using cutting-edge statistical analysis to find players with undervalued skills who had been overlooked by other teams. He drafted these players (or traded for them), paid them rock-bottom prices, and watched as his army of nerd robots won many division- and wild card titles. If this sounds familiar, it's because
everyone in the world has been talking about it for like six years (or more), and because it was chronicled in the book
Moneyball by Michael Lewis, which is very good, and really has nothing to do with anything that anybody now thinks it has to do with.
I sincerely doubt that anyone reading this blog has not read
Moneyball, but if you haven't, you should, because it's quite good. I am also going to go ahead and bet that Pags has never read
Moneyball. I might even...yes, yes I believe I am going to go ahead and guess that Pags has not completed an entire book since he polished off
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, when he was seventeen.
There are a few teams (Toronto, Boston, NY, and Texas) who rely on statistical formulas and hire knowledgeable front office personnel at a cost of $50K to $500K, who create and analyze – something!
They analyze baseball players. Did you really not know this?
We aren’t sure what that “something” is and they certainly aren’t talking about it, especially to the media.
That's because it's a crock! They're full of it! They aren't really doing anything, these nerds. They have like mob-style no-show jobs. Hang on...come to think of it...I never heard any generals give interviews explaining how we were going to attack Baghdad. They're crocks too! They should be explaining that to us in the media! Also, where is the explanation of the formula for Coke? That should be available to me, from the media, via some people who work for Coke. If it isn't, I will assume that the people who make Coke are frauds who are just taking money and not making any actual product. And to answer your next question, no, I will not be dissuaded by the purchasing and consuming of Coke.
Sincerely,
Pags
Quite possibly, the statistical masterminds are creating retirement accounts and special offshore businesses for these highly paid decision makers.
I have said this before, but it's worth reiterating. Jokes definitely work best when they are formed as long, drawn-out sentences with lots and lots of extra words.
Example:
Bad Joke: Take my wife -- please!
Good Joke: For one example, why don't you take my wife -- although, my wife is so annoying and vexing and irritating that when I say "take my wife" what I actually should be saying is, "Sir -- if you are going somewhere far away, take my wife...please!"
Let’s take a closer look at the genius whose numerical formula positions his team 14 games behind in the American League West and without the ability to muster a .500 record.
Yes, let us. And to do so, I will quote from one of the comments found below this post on Pags's site. (And I will add, in bold, the payroll of the team.)
2000: 91-70 (division title) (32,121,833)
2001: 102-60 (wild card) (33,810,750)
2002: 103-59 (division title) (40,004,167)
2003: 96-66 (division title) (50,260,834)
2004: 91-71 (59,425,667)
2005: 88-74 (55,425,762)
2006: 93-69 (division title) (62,242,079)
2007: 69-72 (79,366,940)
You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2006? $194,663,079. You know how many more games they won than the A's? Four. You know what the Yankees' payroll was in 2001? $112,287,143. You know how many more games they won than the A's that year? Negative seven more. That's how many more.
Now, a sentient human with a central nervous system and the ability to process information and engage with his fellow man might look at this data and say, "Billy Beane appears to be a talented GM." Here is what Pags gets from it:
The A’s are bad!
Just to clarify, he's talking about this year. Which: yes, they are, pretty bad. They have also sustained injuries to 41 of the 40 men on their roster. It's kind of a wash, really, 2007. But Pags seems to want to forget all of the years referenced above in order to "prove" his "point," which he evidences with the following fun PowerPoint-style bullets:
- They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
- They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
- They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
- Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
- Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
I know I say this a lot, but I think this is the shittiest writing I have come across in my 54 years of deconstructing sports journalism. I just described it to Mrs. Tremendous as "a treasure trove," and she rolled her eyes and kept on doing exactly what she was doing. But I could tell she was more into it than usual.
Let's go PagsPoint™ by PagsPoint™.
They cannot “contend” in a four- team division, resulting in a sorry state of affairs.
They are not contending this year. Correct. Is this the only year you have heard of? Do you not know that there have been other years? In four of the last seven, they won the division. What a sorry state of affairs. And who are you to use the phrase "sorry state of affairs" anyway? Fucking T.E. Lawrence?
They fired a manager from 2006 who carried them to the playoffs because their genius (Beane) felt a new manager would help enhance team communication. This piece of information was reported in spring training.
I'll say right now that dealing with managers has never really seemed like Billy's strong point. That weird "Macha out, Macha talking to Pittsburgh, Macha back in" thing from 2005 was painful to watch, and I don't know how anybody thought that was going to work out. So, I guess: Beane: not great with managers. Point Pags.
They use assistant GM David Forst to critique and interrogate manager Bob Geren to second guess the lineups both before and after games.
Man. I just...this isn't English sentence construction, man. Get an editor. Or, just, maybe hire a high school kid to rewrite your stuff or something. You've got back-to-back infinitives, for god's sake.
Look. This is the way Billy Beane runs his team. He wants certain guys playing in certain situations. If you take the A's managing job, you play by his rules. You know what allows him to wield that kind of power? Four division titles in seven years.
Forst uses OPS, OBP, LLBean, FYI, and SOB as a system of analysis. Astoundingly, no one else uses this championship formula.
In the pantheon of smugly ignorant acronym use, this takes the cake. LLBean is a terrible "nerdy acronym" joke for many reasons: like, that it's not an acronym. And that it appears in an article attacking Billy Beane, which gives one the impression the author is too dumb to think of two different things at the same time. FYI is boring. SOB is a term not heard much by people under fifty. And the whole thing -- the collection of five acronyms; two real, three unfunny and fake -- is referred to as a "system of analysis." Pags, seriously bro, if you had any idea how sophisticated their actual systems of analysis were...dude. Bro. Your effing head would explode.
Other general manager disciples such as Epstein, Cashman, Daniels, and Richardi have larger money blankets than Billy Beane, but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy when he flounders and produces a product void of luster.
This may be the most wonderful sentence I have ever read. This sentence holds the English language by the throat, pushes it against a wall, and slashes it across the face with a broken beer bottle.
"Other general manager disciples"
Disciples of what? Or whom? Epstein came from San Diego. Cash has always been a Yankee. Jon Daniels worked in Colorado and then for Jon Hart in Texas. Ricciardi -- that's how you spell his name, BTW -- is the only one you could actually call a Beane "disciple." But you didn't call them Billy Beane disciples, I guess -- you just called them "disciples." Sort of covering all your bases there. Nice work.
"have larger money blankets than Billy Beane"
It's time to play: "Has Anyone Ever Heard This Phrase?" I have not. Please write in if you have, and let me know where. This is what I imagine. But I'm willing to listen to other explanations.
"but they don’t use their blankets to warm Billy"
Excellent. Just excellent. You make up a term, and then one second later you use the term in a different metaphorical context -- an extremely tortured metaphorical context, mind you, because: how could these "money blankets" be used to 'warm" Billy Beane by other GMs? Are you saying that they don't like loan him money? Or something? Or are you saying that they don't metaphorically "warm" him with praise? This is fucking gibberish.
"when he flounders and produces a product void of luster."
My favorite part. What a finish. When he flounders and produces a product void of luster. Void of luster. Billy Beane has produced a product void of luster! Is this product...a watch fob? A set of plus-fours or spats? Perhaps an improperly polished saddle for tomorrow's hunt? No -- it's a baseball team! Surprise!
The fact is that the A’s will never win a World Series relying upon their current statistical formulas. The Oakland franchise is not structured to win a World Series.
Pags! Guns blazing! Prove it.
Sadly, Billy Beane doesn’t know this nor do his disciples.
That is sad. Those guys are just toiling away on their sophisticated mathematical modeling projects, working as hard or harder than anyone else in baseball, trying to level the playing field by outsmarting the other teams (many of whom have adopted and co-opted their methods) to compensate for (in some cases) their severely limited resources. And all that time, they don't know that they're doomed to go championshipless...forever. And they're being told this by Pags, who wrote this article from the stern of his 22-foot fishing boat ("The Yank Pags"), off the Gulf Coast, while pounding his eleventh Miller Lite.
Fundamental baseball wins championships and fundamentals aren’t found in the statistical formulas used when signing players for the Oakland franchise. They don’t get it, yet the “disciples” will revel in the notion that Billy B. says, “Joba Chamberlain is going to be a star”…………Now there’s a big time prediction!
I had to read this four or five times to understand it. I believe what PagsBone is saying: Oakland's mathematical modeling doesn't take "fundamentals" into account. Then there is a missing chunk where he would say that Beane is stupid for using these formulas, currently represented by the near non-sequitur "They don't get it." Then he adds that Beane's disciples think he's so great and point to predictions that Beane makes -- like that Joba is going to be good -- as evidence of his genius, when in fact, argues Pags, anyone in the world could have seen that!
Everything about this paragraph is wrong. The ideas behind it: wrong. The execution: virtuosically bad. A new bar has been set.
So, we ask, who will get fired this year? Will it be Bob Geren, Bob Schaefer, or David Forst? We know it won’t be Beane.
Toronto has a formula for drafting college pitchers who are unable to throw above 90 mph. Boston has Bill James-500K, the best fantasy baseball statistician in the game. He consulted in the JD Drew deal, totaling $70 million, but won’t admit it.
This makes it sound like Toronto has a specific desire to draft pitchers who cannot throw hard. I don't think that's true. I think they probably use a different set of criteria for guys who throw below 90 -- a formula involving K/BB rates, and BABIP, and the kinds of things you would want to know about a soft-tosser.
"Bill James-500K" sounds like a robot. Learn the difference between dashes and hyphens, dummy. Also, he is the opposite of a "fantasy" statistician. A "fantasy" statistician cares about things like RBI, runs, wins (for a pitcher) and stuff. Bill James does not. And yes, I am sure he did consult on the JD Drew deal, and I'm sure if you asked him he would admit it. On what basis are you saying he will not admit it? Did you ask him? Has anyone asked him? Is he publicly throwing other people under the bus for that deal? No, Pags, my man, he is not, I don't think. I could be wrong, but I don't think he is. I think that everyone in the Red Sox organization would say the same thing about that deal: disappointing so far, but it's a five-year deal, and you can't judge the success or failure of anything based on 15% of its eventual total.
The Yankees have two confidential statistical guys who are well dressed and very quiet. They both share an office near the PA announcer and are capable of telling the GM how many changeups Edwar Ramirez has thrown at AAA.
What does any of this have to do with anything, positively or negatively?
Daniels isn’t sure which part of the hierarchy is on his side.
What hierarchy? And why is this relevant? And what does it mean? And what point are you making?
Put quite simply, this is MONEY HAUL, the worst-spent dollars in major league baseball. This economic virus tows the leaders of the industry, the envious fans and executives in love with our national pastime.
This is the end of the blog entry. Fantastic. Economic virus? Envious fans? (Of what, one might ask.) And how is anyone's love of our national pasttime affected by this? And why is this money ill-spent? The Yankees, Red Sox, and A's have phenomenal records of success in the past decade. If the Pirates, Royals, and Orioles were using these methods, attack away, friend.
Sometimes -- and I know this is crazy -- I feel like Mike Pagliarulo isn't the smartest guy in the world.
Labels: a's, billy beane, mike pagliarulo
Rarely-cited, but truly beloved on this blog, Jenkins is the author of one of the all-time greatest articles in FJM history. Today he has some less egregious, but still silly, thoughts on the A's and Mark Kotsay.
Reflecting on the A's 2006 season, through all the fine moments provided by Frank Thomas, Huston Street and Milton Bradley, I always come back to Mark Kotsay, the consummate ballplayer.
In some ways, Jenkins is correct. As we point out in our glossary (click link at the top of the site), Kotsay is in many ways, at this moment in time, your prototypical "decent" baseball player. He has put up WARP3's of 5.4 and 3.0 in his last two seasons, both of which included 20-40 games missed to injury. He's a very good fielder and a decent hitter, when healthy, but next year he will be 31 and the days of WARP3's in the 6-8 range are probably over. He's like: not bad.
Struggling privately with his tortured back and some issues with manager Ken Macha, Kotsay was always good for the running catch, the double to left-center, the rally-triggering jolt of energy.
He was good for a whopping 7 HR and a line of .275/.332/.386 in 502 AB -- exactly, weirdly, the batting title qualification number. He hit into 18 DP. And as for doubles, he was "always good" for 29 of them. Eh.
With some guys, you peg them as ballplayers within a couple of warmup throws: George Brett, Buddy Bell, Derek Jeter, Torii Hunter. Kotsay is in that class.
Correct. He is in the "class" of "ballplayers," in that he has a major league contract guaranteed by the players' union's CBA. As for comparisons to Brett, Jeter, and Hunter...not so much, these days. Hunter is the same age and was worth 3.3 wins more to his team last year. And he hit 31 HR.
I'm not sure how good any of those guys' warm-up throws are, to be fair.
It's a crushing development for the A's, losing Kotsay for some three months.
I don't think so. They have a lot of good outfielders. I wouldn't call it "crushing." And weirdly -- and this is where Jenkins really kicks it into high gear, idiot-wise -- neither would Jenkins. Because even though he himself labeled the loss "crushing," and even though he presumably had access to a "delete" key, and ample time to use it, just four sentences later he writes this:
It definitely hurts the A's, but there's nothing wrong with a starting outfield of Bradley, Nick Swisher and Shannon Stewart.So...not "crushing," then?
When Kotsay and Bobby Kielty return, their outfield will be in excellent shape again (we're assuming that Stewart is free of the foot problems that bothered him over the past two seasons). Some of the younger outfielders, like Ryan Goleski and Travis Buck, will get a longer look. So...definitely
not "crushing," in that they also have Milton Bradley (29 years old, higher WARP3 than Kotsay last year in fewer games) and Swisher (26, stud, 8+ WARP3 last year) and Stewart, who stinks a little, but not much more than Kotsay, and Kielty, who is nothing to write home about but is roughly as good as Kotsay has been recently. And while Goleski is no great shakes, if Buck hits his 50th percentile predictions, he'll be more valuable than Kotsay was last year, and he's only 23.
In any case, this is the A's way: They survive. They regenerate. They lose talent with fightening regularity, all the while retaining their highly respectable status in the American League.
That is to say...it will not in any way be "crushing" to lose Mark Kotsay for a while.
Labels: a's, bruce jenkins, mark kotsay
