Highlighting three posts, articles or stories you should be reading this week...
1. Daniel Moroz of Camden Crazies had this post about developing plate discipline for Beyond the Boxscore:
I don't think it's an uncommon experience for a fan to wonder about a certain player on their favorite team, "man, that guy has a lot of tools... if only he'd develop some plate discipline!" I know I've had it (*cough* Adam Jones *cough*). How often do those young guys actually improve though? Off to Baseball-Reference's trusty play index for a quick look!
I won't spoil it for you but it does tell us what to realistically expect form Adam Jones. Oh crap, I think I gave it away...
2. Adam Sobsey of Durham-based Indy.com says farewell to former Oriole first baseman and all-time Durham Bulls home run leader Chris Richard, who is retiring from baseball:
"They say athletes die twice," Chris Richard says, near the end of a long, reflective interview. He pauses. That pause lasts just long enough for the listener to realize that he's been talking about death, in one way or another, the whole time...
But the sense is inescapable that if the Tampa Bay Rays called him tomorrow to ask him to come back to the Bulls, he'd do it. Richard, a San Diego native, lives in Durham year-round. He's in a stable relationship here with his girlfriend, Ashley Hester. He's in good shape. He works out nearly three hours a day. He stays sharp with the bat, using the Personal Pitcher machine his father designed for him years ago. He is coming off one of the best seasons of his career. He is, at 36, a welcome and steadying veteran presence in a minor-league clubhouse buzzing with callow prospects and occasionally aggrieved big-league failures: good-natured and professional, easygoing but exemplary in his competitive demeanor, intelligent and friendly, patient—watch his diligent, cerebral at-bats over a couple of years, and his agreeability with the media, and you see the breadth of his patience. He's the guy reporters want to go to for comment, because he tells you the truth and is willing to go into the details of what he does—batter's eyes, swing mechanics. He is the guy you want representing your team at Fanfest, because he isn't faking it. Sit down with him for an hour or so, it becomes clear that he is above all an honest, living, breathing human.
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air." Thomas Gray. Or William Cullen Bryant. I don't know, I get them mixed up.
(h/t to Kevin Brotzman of Orioles Card "O" the Day for highlighting Richard or I would have missed this one completely...)
3. Congrats, You Found My Blog! has introduced a new idea: Salary+
Nothing bothers me more than when writers, bloggers, players, TV analysts and fans alike, compare player salaries from different years as if they were apples-to-apples, lay out an overly simplistic conclusion (Alex Rodriguez is overpaid!) without ever making an attempt to adjust the salaries for historical context. It occurs to me that there is a simple way to do this totally consistent with other metrics frequently relied upon...
...to put contracts into a historical context so we can compare players across time and take out the distorting effects of inflation. Just like the Sabermetric community uses OPS+ and ERA+, I suggest Salary+.
It's a work in progress but it's an interesting start to compare salaries across eras and he delves into stuff like MLB payrolls and how they relate to overall revenue. Good geeky stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment