Davenport on Aviles via Rany
by jonfmorse on Jun 20, 2008 1:22 AM EDT
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PrintSometimes, we simply lack the in-depth statistical analysis we so deeply crave, and are forced to extrapolate off-the-cuff based on what we think we know given previous data.
Rany on the Royals: A Hero is Born
And that's the one thing which really made the whole "AVILES NOW" argument so difficult; our friends at Baseball Prospectus -- read: Rany -- hadn't even deemed him worthy of a player comment in this year's book, and thus they hadn't even bothered to run PECOTA on him, just a bare-bones EQA/VORP line in a lineout: .243 EQA, 12+ VORP.
Taking into account his activity in Omaha this season, however, Rany finally offers us Aviles' Davenport Translation: .273/.304/.495. Yes, that's a .799 OPS. (Rany then hedges, expecting a regression to around .760, but the former is a real number, while the latter is - apparently - just an off the cuff supposition.)
So, I come before you to offer a mea culpa. Prior to the callup, I didn't think it was a great idea, because there's such a dropoff between the PCL and the AL that Aviles just didn't look that impressive. The problem with that, of course, is that different skill sets result in different translations. Two hitters with 1.000 OPS can have wildly different translations to the majors, and since we didn't really have that information directly available to us, it was all just guesswork. But looking back at Aviles' lineout in the 2008 BP... three things become apparent.
1) Aviles' EQOPS last season in Omaha was a hair over .700, while Callaspo's PECOTA projection was for an OPS of around .722. Simply put, we were overrating Callaspo, and underrating Aviles' revised EQOPS based in this season's performance in Omaha. All along, we should have recognized that -- as a hitter -- Aviles was currently projecting to be a better bat than Alberto. (This in no way, however, alters the main point NYR, NHZ, and I were making; since AC is likely our 2B of the future, he DOES need more playing time.)
2) Aviles' EQSLG was .414. That, being brutally straightforward, exceeds Pena's OPS, which in and of itself pretty much made any question of Aviles > Pena an entirely indisputable point. Regardless of whether Aviles was actually going to be good, Pena was so bad that Moustakas might have been an improvement if we'd called him up straight from Burlington and said "sink or swim, kid".
3) Aviles isn't that bad a fielder. He may not be a very good shortstop, but apparently he's actually an above-average 2B (+7 FR), despite all the errors. That's an indication that while he's clearly a downgrade from Pena, he's competent enough that the "butcher" tag was probably unwarranted. We should have seen he wouldn't cost enough runs to warrant giving Pena any PT at all over him once he was called up, except as a late defensive replacement.
So, I take it all back. We should have called Aviles up pretty much right when people started calling for it. In other news, Rany also expects -- not hopes, but expects -- Pena to be sent down for Butler once the interleague swing ends, figuring nobody's going to try and steal him off the waiver wire. I would argue that there's little point in playing Gload rather than having Butler up now, especially since Hillman -- in a fit of brilliant decision-making -- has decided he doesn't want Pena playing at all, but I can sort of see the rationale.
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PECOTA and DT's
1) Aviles’ EQOPS last season in Omaha was a hair over .700, while Callaspo’s PECOTA projection was for an OPS of around .722. Simply put, we were overrating Callaspo, and underrating Aviles’ revised EQOPS based in this season’s performance in Omaha. All along, we should have recognized that - as a hitter - Aviles was currently projecting to be a better bat than Alberto
At what point did Aviles project to be better than Callaspo? Going into this season? I don’t know why. Certainly not based on the stats. PECOTA didn’t do a projection for Aviles, but if they had, it would have been worse than Callaspo’s and probably by more than a little. So, not knowing that Aviles would finally explode in AAA, how is it that we should have known that he’d be better than Aviles. Quite frankly, we still don’t know which player will hit better in the majors.
And I want to say a word about Aviles’s Davenport Translation of a .799 OPS. That basically says that based on historical precedents, his huge PCL numbers translate to that number in the majors. That is not, however, a prediction of how well he’ll hit in the majors. His PECOTA projection going into this season wouldn’t have been anywhere near that. I would bet that regardless of how he hits this year, his PECOTA projection for next year won’t even be as high as .799. PECOTA knows that players with his statistical profile by age and level very, very rarely become that kind of major league hitter.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
You're (inadvertanly, I'm sure) straw-manning me here.
We weren’t arguing whether Aviles was a better option than Pena in March. We were arguing it in May. I was perhaps unclear when I said “all along” and “currently”; I meant “all along” as in “throughout the raging debate” and “currently” as “at the time we were having it”.
And yes, DT’s ARE predictive, to the extent that they attempt to illustrate how well the player WOULD HAVE hit in the majors based on that performance. That’s their entire purpose for existence. Through 6 weeks at Omaha, Aviles’ performance was indicative of someone who would be hitting with a .799 OPS in the majors through that point this season, which vastly exceeded Callaspo’s PECOTA projection of .722 for this season. The question of whether he could maintain that performance was, of course, still an open one, but I know that I certainly did not think his Omaha performance, however inflated, even projected to be that high. My entire point in the second paragraph was aimed at the fact that other guys with similar OPS numbers in Omaha have previously only DT’ed out to around a .700 OPS. Aviles, somehow, was a hundred points above that, which indicates something in his peripherals (non-homer XBH + straight BA, perhaps?) points to a better MLB performance than, say, Brazell.
And I emphasize “this season” because your last point again sets up a strawman (and again I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s inadvertant); we’re also not talking about next season or the future. We all know and have agreed that Aviles is only a short-term solution unless he’s really figured something out and goes Uggla on everyone. For this season, however, he quite clearly is the best option… and in mid-May, we could have seen that had we understood what his Omaha performance this year was telling us. We were arguing that even his current numbers didn’t indicate he’d be remotely worthwhile, and in that respect we were wrong.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
Clarification
I was perhaps unclear when I said "all along" and "currently"; I meant "all along" as in "throughout the raging debate" and "currently" as "at the time we were having it".
Thanks for the clarification. It makes more sense to me now.
And yes, DT’s ARE predictive, to the extent that they attempt to illustrate how well the player WOULD HAVE hit in the majors based on that performance
That’s why I think they are descriptive, not predictive. Major league equivalents describe equivalencies; they do not predict how well a player would/will perform in the majors, unlike PECOTA which attempts to do just that.
My entire point in the second paragraph was aimed at the fact that other guys with similar OPS numbers in Omaha have previously only DT’ed out to around a .700 OPS. Aviles, somehow, was a hundred points above that, which indicates something in his peripherals (non-homer XBH + straight BA, perhaps?) points to a better MLB performance than, say, Brazell.
I don’t think this is an accurate interpretation of Davenport Translations. I believe that all DT’s do is figure out the empirical translation of a minor league’s stats to the majors and plug the player’s raw BA/OBP/SLG into that to convert it into the major league DT. I don’t think it delves into more detailed factors, which is what PECOTA’s algorithm does. Craig Brazell’s DT from his 2007 AAA season wouldn’t have been much different from Aviles, as they had similar BA/OBP/SLG.
For this season, however, he quite clearly is the best option… and in mid-May, we could have seen that had we understood what his Omaha performance this year was telling us. We were arguing that even his current numbers didn’t indicate he’d be remotely worthwhile, and in that respect we were wrong.
I don’t know that his DT’s based on 6 weeks of AAA play proved that he was likely to have a .799 OPS in the majors or that he’d necessarily hit better than Callaspo, even with his PECOTA projection. Those were both very relevant pieces of evidence which were to be given their proper weight and consideration, but they were not dispositive in and of themselves.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 20, 2008 3:19 AM EDT up reply actions
Brazell was a REALLY bad example on my part, sorry.
Which I would have known had I remembered that they actually DID write a player comment for him, and his EQ3 was .274/.305/.546. Of course, he also wasn’t anywhere near Aviles’ OPS in Omaha last year. He was over 100 points higher.
No, a better example would be Berroa, whose OPS in Omaha last year was exactly two points higher than Aviles, but whose VORP (which, per the introduction to this year’s BP IS a Davenport translation of their MAJOR-league VORP based on their minor league stats) was a few runs lower. You are, however, apparently correct that the actual EQBAvg, EQObp, and EQSlg figures are translated as-is. Which is why Berroa’s EQ3 is essentially indistinguishable from Aviles’.
Anyway, my overall point is not, and hasn’t been, “Damn, we’re fools, we should have known he’d be awesome.” It’s “Damn, we didn’t have an important piece of information from this year.” I dunno about you, but MY feeling on Aviles back when we were all embroiled in the argument was that he’d be lucky to post a .650 OPS in KC, and I was basing that on his base numbers from this year. Had I seen a DT pegging him at almost .800, I’d never have argued against it.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
For instance
Let’s say that Brian Buchanan goes on a tear over the next month and a half and raises his current .282/.323/.427 to .300/.375/.600 (if Craig Brazell can do it, then Brian Buchanan can do it). Let’s not fight the hypothetical by debating the likelihood, let’s just go with it for the sake of argument. If he were to do that, his DT would be about .790. Let’s say Teahen has a .750 OPS at the time. Considering that Teahen’s PECOTA projection going into the season was about .780, would those three pieces of data (Buchanan’s DT, Teahen’s OPS and Teahen’s PECOTA projection) be sufficient for you to conclude that Buchanan is likely to hit better than Teahen for the remainder of this season? I think the answer is clearly no, because of the other things which should be taken into consideration like Buchanan’s age and history. Not all PCL players with great stats are equally likely to continue to perform well in the majors.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
Absolutely not
Because the difference between .790 and .780 is negligible, as opposed to the difference between .799 and .722. (You may note that at no time did I even bring up Callaspo’s actual OPS.)
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
A couple points
The DTs for minor leaguers have been available at Baseball Prospectus all season—there was a discussion about them about a month ago. Of course, the earlier in the season you go, the less value the DTs provide as the sample size shrinks to 150, 100, or 50 ABs.
NYRoyal is right in that DTs are not designed to “predict” how a player will hit or would have hit in the majors. They are a one-size-fits-all translation to provide reference points for comparing past performances across leagues. They provide good information that have many uses, but one of them is not predicting that a guy with X EqOPS after 50, 100, or Y ABs in the PCL is going to do the same or would have done the same in the majors. A guy who cannot hit major league breaking balls can still post monster minor league numbers (and impressive DTs) because he is not facing major league breaking balls.
Callaspo does not even have 100 ABs on the year yet, so you cannot draw any real conclusions about how he would hit in regular playing time. If you want to use DTs for him, use last year’s DTs for his time in AAA: 294/363/430 (793 EqOPS). For comparison, Aviles’ unadjusted line last year was 296/333/463 (796 OPS) [no DT available], and his adjusted line this year is 273/304/495 (799 EqOPS). Even if you go to the DTs, “Aviles was currently projecting to be a better bat than Alberto” is not really an accurate statement.
by Gopherballs on Jun 20, 2008 12:29 PM EDT up reply actions
I repeat:
At no time have I ever even addressed Callaspo’s actual OPS this season. It offends me that I’ve had to say this twice in two comments, to be frank. Callaspo’s actual OPS, compared to his PECOTA projection, is abysmal, and even giving it a moment’s attention wouldn’t have been a fair comparison in the first place.
Second, Aviles’ DT last year is certainly available. It’s in the book, and I included it in the post.
Third, I don’t need to use DTs for Callaspo; he’s got a PECOTA projection.
Lastly, see above for “currently”.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
The point is that you cannot use DT and PECOTA interchangeably, which is exactly what you are doing
And going out of your way to make a big point that you are not addressing Callaspo’s actual OPS is the equivalent of the politician saying “I am not going to address those photos of my opponent walking into a hotel at midnight with a younger woman who is not his wife.”
I dunno about that analogy,
but the DTs and PECOTA are hardly interchangable.
A mind without purpose will walk in dark places.
Ridiculous analogy
since I had to point out that I did not address Callaspo’s actual OPS because you both referred to it as if I had. I mean, what, would you rather I had used .693 for Callaspo instead of .722?
And I’m not “using DT and PECOTA interchangably”. If I were doing that, I would be saying “Aviles projects to be an .800 OPS guy.” What I said was that Aviles was hitting at a level which translates to a .799 OPS, while Callaspo was projected to a .722 OPS. Period. Full stop.
You know, even the BP guys will occasionally say things like “Shlabotnik’s got a translated EQA of .295, and I just don’t understand why he’s not being called up to replace Kramden and his .250 EQA.” I dunno, maybe they don’t understand their own metrics. The purpose of DTs is to put the performance in context to a neutral major league ballpark, adjusted for regression. It’s so that we can look at a guy with a 1.100 OPS and see that it translates to .800 in the bigs.
From the book: “VORP for minor leaguers is computed using their translated rates of production, and so should be considered their major-league equivalent VORP, not their VORP relative to the minor league the actually played in.” Emphasis mine.
I really can’t believe I’m getting ragged for saying “I was wrong.” Truly a momentous occasion.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
But you were right!!!!!!!!!!111
Around this place, you should expect disagreement from someone for any comment you make, mea culpas included.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 20, 2008 7:43 PM EDT up reply actions
And don't ever apologize
I’m sorry, that’s just the way I am.
OMG Banny. FWIW I am only crdtng u w/3 runs allwd bc of DDJ OMFG
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 21, 2008 1:05 AM EDT up reply actions
Same here
I was partially disagreeing (which is usually about as much agreement as one can get from me)
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 20, 2008 11:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Not trying to rag you
just trying to nail shut an analytical trapdoor so we do not have to keep repeating the same discussion everytime someone cites a DT for a minor leaguer in the future.
In your original post, you cited Callaspo’s projected 722 OPS from PECOTA and “Aviles revised EQOPS based [o]n this season’s performance in Omaha” for the proposition that “Aviles was currently projecting to be a better bat than Alberto.” The problem here is that (1) a DT is not a projection like PECOTA, it’s a translation, (2) if you are going to use DTs, you should compare DTs to DTs, not to a PECOTA projection, and (3) in any event, posting a minor league DT higher than a PECOTA projection does not mean the hitter with the higher DT is “currently projecting to be a better bat.” A DT does not mean the hitter would have posted his translated line in the majors - I think you get this, because your original post correctly notes that “different skill sets result in different translations.” While Aviles posted a 799 EqOPS for his two months in Omaha this year, a PECOTA projection for him (even if it included his excellent numbers from this year) is not going to be 799 OPS - it is going to be much lower, perhaps lower than a 722 OPS. We see this with Callaspo as well because as noted above, his EqOPS in AAA last year was 793, but his PECOTA projection was only 722 OPS. The difference between a translation (a standardization of how a player has performed in the past) and a projection (how we expect a player to perform now and into the future) is a subtle one, but quite important.
This is not to discourage the citing of minor league DTs—they convey some good information. But they should not be used as a stand alone proxy for how a player should perform (or would have performed) in the majors.
If the main objection is simply to me using the word "projecting"
then alright.
Here’s the thing. Several years ago, I played in a PBEM Strat league, and there were BP writers in the league. They themselves suggested that one could use DTs to create cards for players who hadn’t yet debuted and maintain realism. That, more than anything, is why I continue to contend that a .799 EqOPS does, in fact, mean that the player has performed in such a way that… urgh. Not that one should project them to put up a .799, but that the context of their performance is such that if they’d been in the majors and not done anything differently, .799 is what you’d get from that performance.
There’s a logical disconnect here, I think. PECOTA does not look at just one season’s data and project from that, nor does it actually project from one’s stats. The entire system is designed to take a player’s history, generate similarities to other players, and regress against what those other players did. Indeed, what Alberto Callaspo did in AAA last year is completely irrelevant to the actual calculation of his PECOTA projection; it is merely a data point with which to compare him to other players, and the calculation of the projection is then based on what THEY did the following season. It isn’t “Callaspo did this last year, so he’d do this this year in the majors.” It’s “Guys whose careers have progressed in similar fashion to Callaspo did this the following year.”
The result is that PECOTA is insanely accurate across the board, and has a tendency to be accurate for a great many players, but it also bombs pretty badly at times.
Anyway. The point about comparing DTs to DTs is valid, but the actual comparison should be Aviles’ 2008 Omaha EQA and Callaspo’s 2008 KC EQA. Had we looked at that, we’d have seen that they had similar EQAs last season in AAA, and that this season Aviles (had) a .269 EQA and Callaspo (has) a .246 EQA. (I don’t know what Callaspo’s EQA was back when the argument was raging, but it was probably around there since he was already mired in his slump.) Is Aviles really 23 points of EQA better than Callaspo? Probably not.
But that’s a pretty big gap, and the logical conclusion is the point I was trying to make all along… which was not “Aviles is a better player than Callaspo and we should have seen it” but rather “We sold Aviles short by basically arguing that he couldn’t hold Callaspo’s jock.” There’s a strong argument that they’re effectively the same player OPS-wise - Aviles with more power, Callaspo with more OBP - and there’s still a strong argument that Callaspo needs more PT in order to prepare for his future job as our second baseman. But there was absolutely no justification for determining that Callaspo deserved major league playing time while Aviles doesn’t (at least in the short term).
I hope my thought process, and the actual purpose of my mea culpa, are clearer now.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
Stats be damned..
If any of you had actually seen Aviles play this year, you would have been calling for his call-up as well. He just looked dialed in at all times. His outs were shots. Whether he’ll Uggla or not I don’t know.. but guys, come on, stats only go so far and I could give you time and time again where projections are completely worthless. These are still humans. More things besides physical ability come into factor…
And all please pray for Scott Kalitta’s family. I hate auto racing. I think its moronic and futile. But the wreck that cost him his life was one of the worst things I have ever seen. Nobody should have to go through that and no family should see it. Times like this really make us take “sport” into consideration…
Stats vs. seeing players in person
Stats are useful in evaluating players. The opinions of scouts and other front office personnel who have seen players in person is also useful in evaluating players. The opinions of a player’s talent/abilities/skills/tools by fans and amateur scouts like me, you and the rest of us who had a chance to see a guy play in person isn’t worth much. I don’t think that either of us is qualified to scout players.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions
I wouldn't say that.
I think a fan who has watched a lot of baseball over a period of years can evaluate by eyeball. Maybe not as well as a professional scout, but well enough to be able to tell when someone’s going to be good (or bad). The big difference between now and even 20 years ago is that (a) we can watch dozens of games a week on television, thus improving even more our ability to SEE things which scouts look for and (b) the published word on the topic has also exploded, so we know what to LOOK for in order to see it. You take someone who watches baseball all week, even on TV, and then park them in a good seat in Rosenblatt, they’re going to know who’s good and who sucks.
I mean, let’s keep in mind that Squiggy is now a part-time Mariners scout.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
exactly
I played American Legion, college ball (at Missouri State, SMS then) and a couple seasons in Independent Leagues. You learn who has the talent and who is just getting everything they can out of themselves. Aviles has both.
This makes my point very well
The odds are massively stacked against Aviles. Retro looked and looked for SS’s who came to the majors at age 27 and actually hit well and had a long major league career. He didn’t find one. Not one. But a former small college player and fringe minor leaguer watches him play and is confident that he’ll be good enough for a long major league career? Fans don’t make good scouts.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions
First...
What’s your definition of hititng well and a long career? Second I said he’ll play 8-10 yrs. That could be a backup job at age 34-35. Will he star for all 8 of those years? no. But I think a career 275-280 hitter with an 760-800 ops at a middle infield spot will solidify him as a bat off the bench/3rd middle infielder for a contender, or a starter for a poor team like the Royals or Giants. That’s an average to slightly above average career. Perfect year or two stopgap for these Royals.
I don't think we could find one who managed even a .750 OPS
Nor more than a couple who lasted even 5 years in any role.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 6:38 PM EDT up reply actions
In fairness
My search was only limited to guys that slugged .400 their rookie seasons. I have no doubt there are several shortstops that slugged less than .400 and were rookies at age 27 and stuck.
As for 2B, rookies who slugged .400 or more at age 26/27
Dan Uggla
Junior Spivey – decent player for a few years
Homer Bush – didn’t do much
Dave Stapleton – 1980s player, lasted only four seasons
Cotton Tierney – 1920s player was quite good, but lasted six seasons
Bill Kenworthy – 1914
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
by RoyalsRetro on Jun 23, 2008 10:34 AM EDT up reply actions
Something occurred to me, though.
It seems like the guys who fit the 27-year-old rookie shortstop profile are scrappy guys without much power. Aviles isn’t similar to them, so the comparison may not be entirely apt.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
I hope that's right
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 6:38 PM EDT up reply actions
I wholeheartedly disagree
I think a fan who has watched a lot of baseball over a period of years can evaluate by eyeball. Maybe not as well as a professional scout, but well enough to be able to tell when someone’s going to be good (or bad).
Even the best professional scouts have a difficult time determining if a player is going to be good or bad. Every scout has a spotty record because it is inherently difficult to watch a guy play in HS, college or the minors and determine if his talent/skills/tools to succeed in the majors. And as difficult as that is for a professional scout or anyone in a MLB front office, I trust the scouting opinions of experienced, knowledgeable fans much, much less. I hear fans talk all the time about liking a guy’s swing, stance, approach, pitch recognition, etc. But there are lots of guys in the minors with good stances, swings, and approaches at the plate. There are lots of very athletic guys who sure look like they’ll be good players, and never are. It’s very difficult to look at a player and have a good idea if he’ll be a decent major leaguer. The average, or even well above average fan isn’t qualified to watch a minor leaguer play and reliably make that kind of evaluation.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 11:25 AM EDT up reply actions
We'll probably never agree on this
because I am vehemently opposed to the idea that just because someone is a professional observer, they’re inherently more qualified than an avid observer. It’s like saying Roger Ebert is more qualified than you to determine what is and is not a good film just because he gets paid to watch movies and give you his opinion.
(It’s different than, say, a doctor or lawyer or biochemist. That requires technical training. Maybe my opinion will change once Harvard starts offering post-graduate degrees in Scouting.)
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
Differences
It’s like saying Roger Ebert is more qualified than you to determine what is and is not a good film just because he gets paid to watch movies and give you his opinion.
The difference is that what is a “good movie” is entirely subjective. I can like a movie that no one else likes (and I have). But we’re not talking about something subjective. We’re talking about an ability to recognize major league talent in a minor leaguer. That is something extremely difficult. It is even difficult for trained and experienced scouts. If it is difficult for them, then why would I think that avid fans would do a good job of it? And avid fans may have a lot of experience watching baseball games, but how much experience do they have in evaluating minor league talent? I don’t think that anyone and everyone who loves baseball and has watched a lot of baseball games is qualified to be a scout or can reliably evaluate minor league talent.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions
Uh... err, no.
What makes a good film is NOT subjective. What makes an enjoyable film certainly is, but there’s a reason film schools exist.
And really, the argument that it’s difficult for “trained and experienced scouts” actually works against you. “Trained and experienced scouts” are wrong most of the time, which means their “training and experience” must not be worth all that much in the first place.
Never mind that most “trained and experienced” scouts are neither. The higher levels of a given team’s scouting department are, but most of the rest are just guys who’ve played and/or watched a ton of ball. Seriously.
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
Huh?
What makes a good film is NOT subjective. What makes an enjoyable film certainly is, but there’s a reason film schools exist.
By art school standards, I’m sure there is some kind of very vague standard of what makes a good film. But I can consider a movie good and it can be perfectly good for me even though no critic or anyone else thinks it is good. But if I like some minor league player, me thinking he’s good doesn’t increase his chances of success.
And really, the argument that it’s difficult for "trained and experienced scouts" actually works against you. "Trained and experienced scouts" are wrong most of the time, which means their "training and experience" must not be worth all that much in the first place.
That something is very difficult doesn’t mean that just anyone could do it. Do you really think that intelligent, knowledgeable fans could go out and be good or even average MLB scouts? Definitely not.
Never mind that most "trained and experienced" scouts are neither.
Experience varies, but they are all more experienced at scouting than we are. But they do train these guys, with the probably exception of guys who played for a long time. There are training courses and certification programs.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Because you know
statistics certainly aren’t the way we measure how well humans play baseball. Nope. Never. Good grief.
A mind without purpose will walk in dark places.
Look, you basement-dwelling nerd
if you’d just go WATCH a game once in awhile instead of playing with your little numbers and formulas, you’d learn to appreciate the game and how it’s played!
Sarcasm™. It's the new gravy.
If I go watch Tyler Lumsden, will it make him good?
If so, I’ll fly to Omaha.
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions
(grumble)
I notice you didn’t so it for St. Justin. I WANTED him to fail.
OMG Banny. FWIW I am only crdtng u w/3 runs allwd bc of DDJ OMFG
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 22, 2008 7:18 PM EDT up reply actions
Sorry, that should have read
You WANTED him to fail.
NOW it’s hilarious
OMG Banny. FWIW I am only crdtng u w/3 runs allwd bc of DDJ OMFG
by Matt Klaassen on Jun 22, 2008 10:12 PM EDT up reply actions
There are some things that even the average lunk-headed fan can see
This is just my opinion. I could easily be wrong.
by Scott McKinney on Jun 22, 2008 8:19 PM EDT up reply actions
L. Ron Hubbard
Almost certainly thought they were.
http://www.hubbardcollege.org/mgmtsystem/index.html
I used to be an A's fan until they left town and got good.
by philofthenorth on Jun 23, 2008 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions
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