I'm not very good at linking to other bloggers, but my buddy Seth over at Seth Speaks does a great job. I always enjoy reading his stuff. Today he has a Q&A with Twins Scouting Director Mike Radcliff. Go on over and read Seth every day but especially today.
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That was perhaps my favorite Q&A Seth has ever done. Certainly one of the best 2 or 3. Lots of good info there, I thought - and some pretty honest answers from Radcliff about player limitations. Good stuff, as usual, from Mr. Stohs.
I was actually surprised by how candidly he talked about some of the players. He was actually saying negative (or at least not glowing) things about a few of the players. It was a fun one. I hope to be able to follow up in a few months, or maybe periodically throughout the year.
In other words, he's no Brad Childress. (I don't want to say that the NFL is not on my mind, but I couldn't remember Childress' name right now and had to look it up.)
Did you notice that Radcliff described himself as a good glove, no bat player - which just about describes gardenhire, kelly, al newman..etc. and their continued fascination with these types of players.
There. Fixed that typo for you.
Ruh roh. When th' Stick starts talking about fixations, well, we know what's coming next...
complaints about Batgurl?
Pitchers are the focus of this franchise. They like to protect their pitchers with good defense behind them, especially in the infield. They tried an all bat/no glove guy at 3b for about 40 games at the beginning of last season and look at how that turned out.
Actually, I think that they thought Batista was a minimal bat, all glove guy. They really have delusions about the value of consistently making the easy plays.
I think you're confusing "they" (front office) with "they" (announcers). All that was ever mentioned by the front office about Batista was HR/RBI and RBI/HR, nothing about the possibility that he might catch a ball hit at him now and then.
No, I don't think so. If you go back and look at comments TR made last spring, he was convinced that Batista was going to be very "steady" with the glove, had a very quick release, etc., etc. Where do you think DicknBert were getting their ideas about Batista as a fielder anyway?
They did think Batista would be a steady fielder, better than Cuddyer. They also thought he would be a 30/100 guy at the plate, which TR said he hoped would make up for the acknowledged low on-base pct. and other limitations.
Yeah, I think it was kind of interesting the way that TR talked about Batista's power. Most teams would have spun Batista as "a real run producer" or "a thumper" but instead, the only thing I can remember (off the top of my head) TR saying about Batista's offense is that his statistics were "interesting." He never seemed to want to talk about Batista's offense without acknowledging that Batista was in some ways flawed at the plate.
Reading between the lines, I got the impression that TR thoguht Batista would be about a league average hitter (good power devalued by all of the outs) with a good glove, which is funny, because that's more or less what they got when they put Punto over there. (Although, that .253 EQA might wind up as Punto's career high mark.)
funny thing how the mind can completely block out painful memories...
Yeah - a delusion to the extent they believe this (and not walking batters) are the real keys to their success. I've heard it said more than once, by Twins' executives and coaches that the twins' organization feels that simply making all the plays you are supposed to make is the key to sustained success.
I played on an IM softball team in grad school that went far on the credo "don't throw the ball around!"
making fewer mistakes than the other guy IS a recipe for success in sports. Look at women's tennis as a good example.
Batista was a dramatic counter-example. He didn't make the routine plays on defense; just the routine ones hit right at him. And league-average slugging combined with way-below-average BABIP and walk rate equals a lack of sustained success at the plate too.
You can do pretty well in sports, or any activity, just by avoiding mistakes. Sometimes, as happened in last year's World Series, a team can find itself with a championship that way. But how often could the Cards have beaten the Tigers in a 7-game series, if the Tigers hadn't helpfully beaten themselves?
If a team fixates on one half of the game, sooner or later it's going to be matched up against better-balanced clubs, which may not provide the favor of kicking the ball around. It's one thing for the Twins to boast that the key to their success is pitching and tight defense when they have Johan Santana and in some years have played in an especially weak division. A lot of flaws can be papered over when you have a dominant ace and play weak competition. Would the formula be so successful in a now-tougher Central without a Santana AND a respectable offense? We saw that answer in 2005.
To state the obvious, there's a big difference between IM softball and major league baseball. In general, it's a good idea to not throw the ball around in IM softball because the players on any particular team aren't that skilled. Every time you throw the ball, there are at least two opportunities for failure: either someone can make a poor throw or someone can miss the catch. In my experience with IM softball, those are reasonably large percentages.
In Major League Baseball, though, those percentages are really small. Telling a major league team not to throw the ball around would be silly--the reward of an extra out far outweighs the risk of a poor throw or missed catch.
Once you get to the majors, the difference between the number of plays a "steady" glovesman makes compared to a "shaky" glovesman is pretty small. The difference between the number of plays a rangy player can make compared to someone without much range can still be pretty large, though, and that is probably the biggest factor in differentiating a good defender from a poor defender.
(Also, in the IM grad leagues I've played in, there's not that much pressure to get an out at all costs. When you're alternating male-female and a lot of the teams have female players who barely have any experience playing softball, you can practically throw a shutout just by limiting the males to singles. Against the teams with good female players, though, it's a different story.)
Right. The better the competition, the less likely you'll come out on top just by avoiding mistakes and waiting for the opponent to beat itself.
Come to think of it, didn't the Vikings try the "play good defense and don't throw the ball around" strategy this past season?
If you count Brad Johnson's 19th-best INT pct and the team's 8th worst (tied) 30 giveaways as not throwing the ball around
Brad Johnson's 19th-best INT pct? Do you mean 19th best in his career?
heh heh. Actually, he's had 4 worse seasons for INT rate. But in two of those worse years, he played a combined total of only 9 games.
If you count Brad Johnson’s 19th-best INT pct and the team’s 8th worst (tied) 30 giveaways as not throwing the ball around
Heh. Which raises the issue, what happens when you count on your team not to make mistakes when building the roster, but then human nature inevitably crops up and starts throwing the ball around....
I dunno - I remember reading an awful lot about how Batista hit 40 home runs for the Blue Jays, and drove in xxx runs. That message might not have been from the Twins brass - I don't recall. But, the press I recall seeing about Batista was how he was going to help solve the Twins' power shortage and drive in runs. Maybe that was the angle the local beat writers chose on their own, or maybe that's what they were spoon-fed from the team.
I think the delusion (or desperation) was complete. I believe that the Twins thought they were getting a solid glove (what he gets to he catches) and a "run producing" bat.
To flesh this out a little bit, the Twins had Michael Cuddyer to play third, but they didn't like his glove. This is where it was thought that Batista would be an improvement.
In addition, they thought he'd bring much needed power. Wrote Joe Christenson of the Strib last May 23rd:
Batista does have a very quick release and the range of Michangelo's David. My favorite Batista moment was his quote -"Everybody doesn't like the way I hit, but everybody likes the results."
That took over from the equally absurd quote by JC Romero, "They say I thrive in those situations,[i.e. with men on base]"
I added that Batista jewel to my random quote feature today.
I always felt like that Batista quote was just an awkward sort of statement that came out wrong because English isn't his primary language.
I don't think he meant that "Everyone thinks I'm a great hitter"; I think he meant it more as a self-deprecating sort of admission that his stance at the plate isn't exactly orthodox, but that he's been able to have reasonable success with it. Batista didn't ever strike me as the vain type, whatever his many faults as a ballplayer.
OK - I'm done putting words into the mouth of a deposed Cuban dictator. Viva la Punto.
You may be right, but the quote is still absolutely priceless.
Great M. Radcliff interview by Seth. +10.
I'll be tracking on Span and Deeds for th' WGOM this spring.