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biggentleben

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Everything posted by biggentleben

  1. biggentleben
    Why would Cesar Hernandez have a bigger price tag? That makes no sense whatsoever....
  2. biggentleben
    Eddie Mathews has said that if he were building a "greatest Braves" list, he'd make Chipper the 3B every single day and not think twice, stating that Chipper was the much better player. I think that does say a lot (and is rare that you have two elite all-time guys at a position that rare in Cooperstown both in franchise history).
  3. biggentleben
    And that could be part of the issue. I think Beltre is a no-crap, no-doubt HOFer right now, let alone with 2-3 more years added on.
  4. biggentleben
    Part of the WAR argument there is also that he gets very little credit via metrics for what he did defensively. The "chopper to Chipper" was a call that was made incredibly often in Atlanta, and his ability to scoop barehanded coming in on a ball and throw with accuracy is something that big league third basemen now talk about emulating from him. However, he played behind guys like Glavine and Maddux, which meant that most of the work was done up the middle for infielders, and he really didn't get a ton of work to display his defensive ability.
  5. biggentleben
    Um. How do you figure never having an amazing year? In '99, he hit .319/.441/.633 with 41 doubles, 45 home runs, and 25 stolen bases (versus just 3 caught stealing), along with posting a 126/94 BB/K rate. He won the MVP in a near-runaway. He hit at least 20 home runs for 14 straight seasons, and in that run, he also walked more than he struck out and posted a .310/.407/.548 line. That's a crazy long peak before injuries really took their toll. To finish that run, at 36, he fought through two trips to the DL to post a .364/.470/.574 season, win the batting title and have a 90/61 BB/K ratio at 36 years old.
  6. biggentleben
    Wow. I can't support that take whatsoever. Third baseman (and would have been a hell of a shortstop had he not had a Kubel-esque injury before hitting the majors) that basically sits only behind Mantle in most switch-hitting all-time lists (outside of compiling ones that Murray beats him in), .300/.400/.500 guy over his career while playing primarily in the dirt, except for when he volunteered to move to the outfield so the team could bring in the most impact overall player available that particular offseason to assist in the team's pursuit of a second championship in his career. Crazy part is that I had a conversation with a scout who has been at it a while and told me that before the knee injury, he wrote up a report on Chipper that labeled him as "Eric Davis/Barry Bonds power/speed combination, but with more patience". Crazy to consider that he actually lost that much athleticism and was still a sure-fire first-ballot HOF guy.
  7. biggentleben
    Chipper's going to get dinged for his off-field life by a few writers, and that's whatever, but I'd not put him in Griffey's class whatsoever. If you want to go on "the greatest #1 pick where who would go #1 was actually a question", then sure...because when guys like Griffey, Harper, etc. were on the board, there was no doubt. Chipper was a Mauer-esque pick for the Braves, eschewing the top-rated guy that season to draft him.
  8. biggentleben
    After losing Fernandez, the Marlins instead chose to go Royals strategy with a staff of 3/4 starters and a loaded bullpen. Their pen is incredibly impressive.
  9. biggentleben
    It wasn't just his cannon arm either. He had incredible range early, the type of athleticism that allowed him to be a consistent 40/40 threat.
  10. biggentleben
    Incredibly hypocritical to me. I voted for Manny because I vote for a guy's performance on the field, however, anyone who voted Manny but not Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa, etc. screams hypocritical to me.
  11. biggentleben
    Young Vlad is probably alongside young Andruw Jones as the most dynamic players I've ever witnessed in 30+ years of baseball viewing. Vlad at the plate was incredible, and his defense was the stuff of legends in right. Jones was more unseen before in the field and had dynamic ability offensively, whereas Vlad's bat was the thing that always stood out to me. Probably part of being AL/NL, but seeing Vlad for so many years made him an easy guy to vote in.
  12. biggentleben
    The biggest drop off guy I'm still dumbfounded by is Lofton. That will confound me until he ends up being put in by the Veteran's Committee as deserved.
  13. biggentleben
    Then again, you get into BALCO. That's not MLB-related. That's again outside of the MLB. Not a failed MLB test, but something outside of it. If baseball wanted the information strong enough (as they showed with their illegal activities in Florida), they could have gotten it to punish Bonds. They did not do that, and depending on who you believe about the BALCO case (my sister-in-law's divorce proceedings and two of the subsequent custody hearings are sealed until the children are 18, so there are lots of things that can be completely innocuous that end up sealing court records), Bonds was there discussing the deception and what he saw of the defendants, never actually implicating once that he took anything illegal. Mantle has a legit discussion about a doctor using pure testosterone as part of an injection he gave him on a daily basis for over a year. Not a PED, not even a steroid, but pure testosterone. The doctor admitted it to multiple people in his life, however he is no longer alive to give credence to or refute the story. Should we then remove Mantle? In all seriousness, it has about as much carrying power as BALCO.
  14. biggentleben
    However, there have been many people who have refuted the "leaked" list with many of the names on that list, so there is not definitive proof. That list was never officially given to the media by MLB or the MLBPA, so neither side has ever stated that the names on that list are even accurate. Some players have admitted to things or have done further damage by getting suspended since, but that's a whole other thing.
  15. biggentleben
    Bonds never failed a test. What he has said/done outside of the game, just like Schilling (as little respect as I have for his political stances), should have no bearing on his candidacy. If he was found guilty by the game, and he was in the game while testing was around, then there'd be something to claim, like with Manny, but that stance with Bonds also falls short as well.
  16. biggentleben
    LOL! Yeah, responding to my own post about the deal wasn't the best way to clue in what was going on!
  17. biggentleben
    Good news is that many of those types are losing their votes each year.
  18. biggentleben
    The worst part is that people like that send in a blank ballot and skew the percentages...
  19. biggentleben
    Rangers sign Josh Hamilton to a minor league deal. Angels still paying him ridiculous amounts of money...
  20. biggentleben
    DeFreitas was a scout for the Indians and Yankees for a decade or so. He has a rep for being very keen on bats and able to spot them well. Nick is a guy who worked as an independent scout for a number of years as a "side job" while being a full time lawyer.
  21. biggentleben
    They really pushed it forward, but it was in place before that, a scouting offshoot of the Perfect Game program. Rubio made the place into what it is today with his eye for scouting talent, which is what got him picked up by the Cardinals for a supervisory job straight out of the gate rather than a "boots on the ground" sort of scouting position. Their podcast was one of the best in the business before Rubio left to return to BP before then being hired by the Cardinals. Interestingly, he's a huge Cubs fan, so moving to the Cards will be interesting for him.
  22. biggentleben
    BA has tremendous scouting sources, but they're still sourced stuff. Law is, for better or worse, doing a lot of the work himself, and he relies on what he has seen, so if he hasn't seen a guy, he often will underrate him (or if he saw him in a bad time), but I will give him all the credit for being one of the few guys actually doing the scouting in person, both at the minor league level and collegiate level (even high school level pre-draft). Longenhagen was Law's protege at ESPN before going to Fangraphs, and in my mind, he's got the best eye in the business. He's swamped as really the only guy, however. I like what MLB puts out, but I find that I get as much or more from the Road to the Show podcast as the Pipeline podcast as far as actually learning anything about players. Callis/Manuel are often regurgitating what sources have told them, and they can get a strong bias when they get hooked in tight with a source in one org because that team's guys get huge mention in overall lists. Callis and the Yankees has always been that issue. BP is a mixed bag due to their solid scouting staff but often using writers who ignore the scouts on the ground who have actually seen the players and just going by numbers rather than finding out more info. 2080 has really done a solid job of establishing themselves as well. Best way about all of it - take a dash of everything and season your prospect pasta. Too much of any one will spoil it.
  23. biggentleben
    I'll debate that. To use our incoming commander-in-chief, "they have the best words". It has become quite evident to me that they are sourced a lot of their information, and not always are those sources accurate. Anyone having Zack Bird still on the Braves top 30 at midseason is obviously reading very different sources than anyone inside the team or anyone who has watched him pitch in the last two seasons. I truly respect their work, don't get me wrong, but like many guys who hit the top end of the profession, their job is more reflecting the work done under them now than it is being out and doing the scouting themselves anymore, and that is showing in their work to my eyes and ears.
  24. biggentleben
    After transcribing over 50,000 words of interviews for the piece, my final version of my look into what happened to offense in the "steroid era": https://calltothepen.com/2017/01/17/mlb-exactly-happened-offense-1990s/
  25. biggentleben
    $6M for one, which says a lot about how much of a mystery Thoracic Outlet Syndrome still is for major league teams.
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