Ask Baseball America By James Bailey
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- April 4, 2000
April 6, 2000It's only a matter of hours until I head to my first game of the year. I'm heading for Greensboro for Opening Night to see the Bats take on the Cape Fear Crocs. I finally get to see what the Wily Mo Pena hype is all about. Cape Fear, an Expos team, features Brandon Phillips, Montreal's No. 9 prospect. He seems to have overtaken 1998 first-rounder Josh McKinley as far as a prospect. McKinley is back at Cape Fear for a second shot, after starting the season there last year and moving to the New York-Penn League in June. I'm guessing I'll see Phillips at short and McKinley at second. For my money, low Class A is one of the best levels of baseball to watch. For most players it's their first year of full-season ball and the prospects are still emerging. This is the level where Andruw Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Cliff Floyd and others broke onto the scene as big-time prospects. It's fun when you can be there to see that. I'm writing to find out your opinion of the overall Phillies farm system. Specifically, what do you think of farmhands like Jimmy Rollins, Brad Baisley, Brett Myers, Carlos Silva, and Eric Valent? Also, do you think that Pat Burrell is capable of 40-50 homer power that he has been advertised as? Do you think that Marlon Anderson still has a shot to be a decent to good all around second baseman? Also, is the Phillies farm system good enough to properly develop these players? Dan Starr Philadelphia, PA Eternal Phillies Fan
Don Wiederecht St.Petersburg, FL
Finally, at long last, the season is underway. And with one game in the bank, the Marlins are in first place. Maybe they don't need a new stadium to be competitive after all. Before spring training becomes a distant memory, we've got a followup to one of our questions from last week to start off with. Everyone is so fond of the new cliché "don't put any stock into meaningless spring training stats" Case in point. Your answer to the Chad Allen question included this bit of great wisdom: "Let's hypothetically take two bloop hits away and now he's a .286 hitter with no power. The stats really don't mean much." What if you also "hypothetically" added two shots he happened to hit towards someone who made a good play on. Now he's back to being a .333 hitter. Should we not read anything into Barry Bonds hitting close to .400 this spring. For every case of someone overperforming there is an underachiever. But one truth holds in all this. You have to hit the ball, catch the ball and throw the ball. If you can do it in spring training, you can do it. Maybe not as well during the season, but maybe even better during the season. Todd Young The point I was trying to make, though maybe not as well as I could have since a couple of people wrote in about it, wasn't that Chad Allen has benefited more from bloop singles than everyone else. It was that with such a small sampling of at-bats, the numbers can change pretty quickly with a break or two. And I wouldn't limit that to spring training. If you want to get real excited about any 50 at-bat stretch, be my guest. But I'd be real hesitant to project a season's worth of production off a sampling like that. Here are a few examples to keep things in perspective, using last year's spring training numbers and last year's regular season results: Marlon Anderson, Phillies. Spring: .380 with 10 RBIs in 79 at-bats. Season: .252 with 54 RBIs in 452 at-bats. Sean Berry, Brewers. Spring: .414 with two homers and seven RBIs in 58 at-bats. Season: .228 with two homers and 23 RBIs in 259 at-bats. Karim Garcia, Tigers. Spring: .339 with six homers and 18 RBIs in 59 at-bats. Season: .240 with 14 homers and 32 RBIs in 288 at-bats. Ruben Rivera, Padres. Spring: .333 with 12 extra-bats hits and 15 RBIs in 75 at-bats. Season: .195 average with 143 strikeouts in 411 at-bats. Javier Valentin, Twins. Spring: .450 average in 40 at-bats. Season: .248 with five homers and 28 RBIs in 218 at-bats. I could keep going and list another 20 examples, but you get the picture. A small sampling of at-bats is simply not a reliable indicator of what a guy is likely to do over a long season. Whether that makes it "cliché" to disregard them or not, I'm still going to disregard them. But you're welcome to read into them whatever you like. Will BA be publishing the 25-man rosters for MLB? I know you did the 40-man rosters at the end of the year last year, and would like to find out what the 25-man rosters are now that (in my mind) the season is starting. Or maybe you can point me where to look. Thanks for the great mag/site! Joe Karbowski We will be running complete Opening Day rosters for every major and minor league (full season) team. Since the minor league season doesn't start until Thursday, it will probably be sometime Friday or Saturday before those start appearing on the site. As you can imagine, it's quite a task to get 150 rosters here, input and proofread. But you will be able to find all of that information here. If you just can't wait to see the major league rosters, you might check majorleaguebaseball.com. They have them all, but as of yesterday they weren't all down to 25. I haven't checked them again today to see if they have taken care of that. As for the minor league rosters, some teams have already posted their preliminary roster up on their own Website, but those are subject to change until Thursday. Is Leo Vasquez the A's lefthander the same Leo Vasquez that pitched in 1996 in the Prairie League with the Aberdeen Pheasants? Right after the season, he got signed out of the league, and I have not seen his name until last season in Double-A. One more question, is there any truth to the rumors that the northern league is interested in setting up "The Northern Lites League"? It was in a local newspaper, but I have not seen anything of it since. It was to locate into some of the more popular Prairie League cities such as Regina, and Minot. Thanks Neal Woloschuk That is indeed the same Leo Vasquez. He went 11-2 with a 2.22 ERA for Aberdeen in 1996 and his contract was purchased by the Mets on Sept. 13 of that year. He played two and a half seasons in the Mets organization before moving to Oakland along with outfielder Terrence Long in the Kenny Rogers trade last July. I asked our independent league expert Mark Derewicz about the second question and he said he believes the league will be called the Northern Star League. It is scheduled to begin play in 2002 and is in no way at all affiliated with the Northern League. March 30, 2000 Four days to go until the real Opening Day. There are some interesting cuts burning up the transaction wires. You could field a full lineup of young players who had regular jobs last season that have now been told to report to the minors, or even flat out released. Your Triple-A all-star team might look something like this: C-Ben Davis, Las Vegas; 1B-Doug Mientkiewicz, Salt Lake; 2B-Marlon Anderson, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre; SS-Mike Caruso, Charlotte; 3B-Dave Hollins, Durham; OF-Chad Allen, Salt Lake; Todd Greene, released; Randy Winn, Durham; P-Carlos Castillo, Charlotte; Jason Johnson, Rochester. Okay, I cheated a little with Hollins. He's not young, but the team needs a little veteran leadership and I can't find any other third baseman for the club. I thought it would be fudging too much to throw Mike Lamb in there, though it did look at the beginning of the month like he had the inside track on the Rangers' job. Coincidentally, our first couple of questions deal with spring training decisions. Why do teams continue to place so much emphasis on spring training stats? It sure seems foolish to make personnel decisions on 30 at-bats or 30 innings. If Eric Gagne looked ready for the show last year, why throw that out the window because of a few bad three-inning outings? Or why keep a John Roskos on the basis of a few at-bats (many probably vs. minor leaguers) when nothing in his track record would lead one to believe he's for real? Allen Telgenhof Charlevoix, MI I'm in complete agreement with Allen that spring training stats are not to be taken too seriously. Though they are available in several places on the Web, the only time I consulted them all spring was last week when I had to look up Roskos' numbers for this column. But I wouldn't assume that too many managers out there are reading much into them either. I was reading a story on the Florida Sun-Sentinel site in which Marlins manager John Boles was talking about one of his young players. He said that he doesn't care about the result of the at-bat, he cares about the at-bat itself. If a player collects four bloop hits in a game, in Boles' book he's 0-for-4. Meanwhile, if another player lines out hard four times, he's 4-for-4. That makes a lot of sense to me. There's an old saying about it being a long season and everything evens out, etc. But that's only true for the long season itself. For a short 50-60 at-bat season like spring training, a few breaks can really inflate a guy's batting average and a couple of mistakes can kill a pitcher's ERA. It would be foolish for a team to base their personnel decisions solely on the stat lines that come from the Grapefruit or Cactus leagues. Statistics can lie, or at least exaggerate a little. But if a pitcher is getting crushed, like Ed Yarnall or Eric Gagne this spring, that's going to set off an alarm for a manager whether he reads the stat sheet or not. Gagne looked great last fall, but if he's not getting it done now, the manager needs to consider whether he's likely to get it done in April. Maybe he's not throwing with the same mechanics or the same confidence he had last September. Maybe there's some other factor. But the bottom line is, if he doesn't look like one of the five best starters the Dodgers have at this point in time, they need to make a decision about where to send him. Also, if you're going to write off a spring training performance because of the competition (minor league pitchers, etc.), you can't put too much stock into a September performance for the same reason. You've got a lot of minor leaguers getting their feet wet in September and the veteran players on half of the teams no longer have the incentive of a pennant race to draw out their best effort. I'm not sure what John Roskos will do if given a real chance this season, but it's not really fair to say the guy has nothing in his track record to prove he's for real. What's your definition of for real? I don't think he's a legitimate .600 hitter, but the guy is a career .295 hitter in the minor leagues. That's a better track record than a lot of guys have when they get to the major leagues. That it took a phenomenal spring for him to get his foot in the door shouldn't be a knock on him. But at the same time, people need to be realistic in their expectations of what he'll do in the long season. I was shocked when I saw Chad Allen of Minnesota was sent to Triple-A. He had a pretty solid rookie season and was hitting .333 this spring. Why did they send him down and who is going to start in left field? David Chivvis Like I said, don't put too much stock into the .333 average. Allen was 14-for-42 this spring (just referenced the stats for the second time) with no home runs. Let's hypothetically take two bloop hits away and now he's a .286 hitter with no power. The stats really don't mean much. I wish I could find it now, but I remember reading a story before spring training started in which Twins manager Tom Kelly basically said it was time for some of his young players to realize how fortunate they were last season. He was really upset about his team's overall lack of effort in September, though he was at somewhat of a loss to explain it all. The upshot of the story was that Kelly was saying no one should expect to win a job this spring just because they had one all last summer. And true to his word, Kelly told three of his 1999 regulars to pack their bags for Triple-A. Along with Allen, first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz and catcher Javier Valentin were sent to Salt Lake. Allen was somewhat of a surprise last year when he made the club after having played at Double-A New Britain in 1998. In fact, he was the player we featured when we did our Opening Day Surprises last year. You might be able to get away with calling his rookie season "pretty solid," because he did keep his head above water and manage to hold onto the starting job all year. But, you're not going very far with a left fielder who hits 10 home runs and drives in 46 in 481 at-bats. The Twins are apparently going to take their chances with Butch Huskey in left field this year. In 95 fewer at-bats last year, Huskey hit 12 more homers than Allen and collected 31 more RBIs. For my money, he's a step up for the Twins. I've got a question here about Tigers future superstar Jeff Weaver. Recently Tigers manager Phil Garner said he would send Weaver to the Triple-A Toledo after spring training and use a four-man rotation for the first two weeks of the season given two off days. I understand how this would help the Tigers by opening up an extra roster spot. What I do not understand is that Garner said the move was to help rest Weaver's arm, which suffered through dead periods toward the end of last year. Meanwhile Garner said Weaver will get a couple of starts down at Toledo. What I do not understand is, isn't two starts in Toledo just the same as two starts in Detroit? I mean aren't innings just the same anywhere you throw them? Why does Garner feel that this will somehow rest Weaver's arm when it will be used just the same, if not more, just in a different uniform? Thanks, Jared Silver I don't think innings are the same anywhere you throw them. Especially if you're throwing them under what are basically rehab conditions. Weaver can relax in Toledo and get a little work in without the stress of trying to be perfect on every pitch. As long as he's not completely bombed, he knows he'll still get the call in mid-April when the Tigers need a fifth guy. It's also easier to keep a guy on a pitch count in the minor leagues than it is in the big leagues. If the Tigers want to contend this year, they know that every game counts. If they want to take it easy on Weaver and give him a couple of 70-pitch starts, they can do that at the Triple-A level and not worry so much about what that does for the team's chances of winning those games. I haven't seen any specific pitch limit the Tigers have targeted for Weaver, but you have to guess they're not just going to turn him loose in Toledo. You answered a question about A.J. Hinch and the big discrepancy between his minor league and major league numbers a few days ago. Could it be that a lot of catching prospects with solid offensive ability tend to struggle a bit longer when they make the big leagues than comparable prospects at other positions? Now I can't back this up from the limited resources I have, but I can name several catchers who have followed this pattern over the last decade or so: For example, Todd Hundley, Mike Lieberthal, Darren Daulton, to a lesser extent Eddie Taubensee and Brook Fordyce. Each of them struggled vs. major league pitching for several seasons before becoming an offensive force of sort. Do you run studies about things like this? Maybe it's the added responsibility for a catcher who reaches the major league level compared to other positions. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. André Bonn, Germany There is a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that shows catchers do often mature later than other position players. They have a lot more to learn at their position than a left fielder or a third baseman does, and much of their effort is put into learning how to work with a pitching staff and call a game. While many catchers must marvel at Ivan Rodriguez, inside they have to hate the guy just a little. At 19, IRod was handling a big league staff and hitting well enough to earn the starting job in Texas. Getting to the big leagues as a teenager is a major accomplishment for anyone, let alone a catcher. I wouldn't go so far as to call this a "study," but let's take a quick look at the ages at which some of the other full-time catchers out there first found their offensive stroke:
Yeah, it's debatable whether some of those guys have every really found their stroke, but I tried to look at them relative to themselves. Hinch, remember is still just 25, so A's fans can take heart in knowing that he's still younger than many major league catchers were when they figured it all out. Directory: mlb mlb -> By Ken Gurnick mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> 2010 – What’s the name of the umpire whose errant call cost the Tigers’ Armando Galarraga a perfect game in 2010? (Jim Joyce) gabp mlb -> Wednesday, September 23, 2015 headlines: Verrett stumbles in the fifth as Mets lose to Braves 6-2 mlb -> All-Star History In what city was the first All-Game played? (Chicago, 1933) Baseball & Pop Culture mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips mlb -> The Impact of Television Revenue on Major League Baseball mlb -> Los angeles dodgers clips Download 1 Mb. Share with your friends:
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