GDT 8/28/20 Atlanta Braves (Erlin) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Wheeler)

[andyb]

As some may have surmised, my comments were more about a whole series of comments that almost exclusively implied young African American and Latino players needed to work hard on something (or was not working hard) without similar comments about White players. In general I assume that any player out there is working hard at something unless we have evidence that they are not.

From all reports Bohm works very hard at defense. He can probably get better, but he has certain limitations physically that are hard to overcome. Similarly Roman Quinn works hard at the things he needs to do well like play defense and bunting. His strike zone control is only average though. I am sure that is the number one thing he is working on at the plate and I did note he is swinging at more strikes this year than in previous years, so that is important too. All we can do is evaluate the success of what they are doing. It is not our job to evaluate how hard they are working unless we see something like them gaining 20 pounds (and not in the good way).

Whether we like it or not, there is lots of unconscious racism out there. This is not to say any of the comments had a hint of malice there. I assume they did not. But it is also useful to highlight them so we can all try to do a little better.

And BTW, Quinn might be a 6 WAR player if he had a .350 OBP. At .330 he is probably a 4 WAR player over a full season. He is a better defender than Revere and has more power. Both things matter.

[Austinfan]

I call bull here.
I consistently see things players can work on, it simply depends on the player's weaknesses.

I have no idea how hard they work, did Pivetta fail b/c of lack of work or his inability to generate movement on his FB and develop secondary pitches, is VV in the bullpen because of command or not working hard enough on his secondary pitches and so on. All I can observe are weaknesses/strengths and whether players improve.

Hoskins has to focus on hitting the ball to CF and not be pull happy.
Kingery when 100% has a quick bat but needs to improve his plate discipline.
Eflin needs to refine his command and work on a changeup.
Quinn needs to focus on taking advantage of his exceptional speed even at the cost of his average power.
Knapp just has to hit the way he did in college and the minors.

So when I say Quinn needs to work on bunting, it's in the context of his exceptional speed, Kingery should also do so but as RH it's less effective (extra step to 1B). Quinn's goal should be to become one of the best bunters in ML baseball, especially from the left side, because of the competitive advantage it gives him relative to most players. He should also be refining his swing to focus on contact, not power, for the same reason. The two are synergistic, if he bunts successfully on a regular basis, IFs will play a step in, increasing the probability of success from contact.

Whereas Hoskins should focus on improving his 1B defense, because few 1B are even average fielders, same with Bohm at 3B. So as above average hitters, getting to average or slightly above average on defense gives them a competitive advantage. But hard work is no guarantee of improvement, do they have the reflexes and eye to hand coordination?

[andyb]

As I said, you probably don't realize you are doing it. But the cumulative number of your comments on young African American and Latino players is pretty consistent. You criticized Jimmy Rollins for years about this. Howard too (but less so guys like Thome or Hoskins or Bruce with a similar approach). Just stick to baseball and stop trying to assess how hard players are working unless you have evidence to do so. You can say that bunting is an important part of Quinn's game without saying he needs to work on it. We can also say Kingery needs to get better doing many of the same things, but somehow his effort is never part of the analysis.

This is not a contest on whether someone is right or wrong about something. Most of us here are amateurs who really have no clue what players are working on and what they need to do better. Saying a young player with speed needs to be like Joe Morgan is like saying Bryce Harper needs to be more like Babe Ruth (Hey Bryce - WORK HARDER). These slips of language are one of the underlying reasons we see incidents like those in Kenosha, Minneapolis, and Louisville. We assume someone is something because of the color of their skin in ways we don't even notice. That is a big part of what structural racism is - policy designed around all these biases.

And this should go to the political threads...

[allentown]

Not going to move it. I think it is baseball related, as was our discussion of how racism by the Phllies organization, media, and fans, and even a teammate detracted from Dick Allen's career and resulted from him being run out of town (traded, but that was the net result as the package the Phillies received in return was distinctly inferior, and they just lucked out on Montanez and then Maddox.)

Unfortunately, racism plays a big role in Phillies history, from Jackie Robinson's treatment by us, to the Phillies failing (I think not even attempting) to sign any stars from the Negro Leagues, such that our 1950 WS team was quickly surpased by other teams which willingly added black players. Put the Phillies into a decade-long hole, along with poor GM actions (like trading Sanford for fungible)

We later saw this in the treatment of Abreu.

[LoneStarPhan]

I don't recall every hearing Babe Ruth held up as an example of hard work paying off. My first thought is that Ruth did not work hard on conditioning and so forth. This may or may not be true, but that is the general impression that comes to mind about Babe Ruth.

[Austinfan]

Ruth was sui generis, sloppy habits, heavy drinkiing, bad nutrition, etc., but an era when players generally "played" the game, they didn't take it seriously as a profession where people got rich.

I criticized Rollins for his approach, and used Joe Morgan as the contrast, hey, what ethnic group is Morgan? I used Morgan because he was a 5'8 golden glove IF with speed and power, how would you describe Rollins?

I've said the exact same things about Hoskins as Howard, and have used Howard's own words as an example. Howard admits he got pull happy, especially after his injury, and that shortened his career.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[andyb]

Actually in the context of the way the game was played back in the 1920s, I am not sure we can say with certainty that Babe Ruth did not work hard. He certainly played hard like lots of his teammates back in the day. That of course is not the point.

Mainly it is a tounge in cheek comment about comparing a player to a Hall of Famer and say they are not working hard enough. Babe Ruth and Joe Morgan are among the best players ever at their position. Morgan had both extraordinary strike zone judgement and power along with speed and decent but not spectacular defense.

Jimmy Rollins was never that type of player. To expect him to have that sort of walk rate was unreasonable. He actually had a very good approach at the plate that used his talents well. He cut his strikeouts immensely. Starting at age 25 he had 8 consecutive years where he had 85 Ks or less. While stealing 30+ bases at a high rate of success and hitting 15-20 home runs in a typical year. One of his biggest fans and teachers was Larry Bowa who correctly got him to cut his strikeout rate and increase his consistency in the field (both Bowa attributes) while not taking away his aggressiveness and power (non-Bowa) attributes.

All we can judge is how a player uses their athletic talents and I'd say Rollins has done a pretty good job of that as has Bryce Harper. Howard never actually had that great command of the strike zone and as he aged and his swing slowed down, he compensated by pulling more. It did not work, but the reason we have all these shifts on left-handed bats is that approach does work.

Yes it would be nice if players could just work harder and be a Hall of Famer. Let's not judge them harshly if they do not and let's not assess their work rate with no knowledge and some implicit biases floating around.

[mdougherty12]

I criticized Rollins for his approach, and used Joe Morgan as the contrast, hey, what ethnic group is Morgan? I used Morgan because he was a 5'8 golden glove IF with speed and power, how would you describe Rollins?

Why do you assume that the performance gap between Joe Morgan and Jimmy Rollins is due to a difference in work ethic and not a difference in talent? Morgan had outstanding on-base skills from the beginning of his big league career. He lead the NL in walks with 97 as a rookie in 1965 at age 21. Perhaps Morgan simply had better talent for pitch recognition than Rollins.

[mdougherty12]

So when I say Quinn needs to work on bunting, it's in the context of his exceptional speed, Kingery should also do so but as RH it's less effective (extra step to 1B). Quinn's goal should be to become one of the best bunters in ML baseball, especially from the left side, because of the competitive advantage it gives him relative to most players.

I think Quinn is already one of the best bunters in MLB, in terms of results. Kolten Wong led MLB in 2019 with 11 bunt hits. Quinn was tied for 7th with 6 bunt hits in just 122 PAs, so he would have lapped the field in anything approaching a full season. Quinn's success rate in 2019 was 42.9%, comparable to other fast guys near the league lead in attempts.

[gmwannabe]

Good point about Quinn. One question though, what happened to the old drag bunt. it seems everyone, bunting for a hit these days, squares to bunt and then runs. the lefties used to start their running and then stick the bat out to bunt to the first basemen or in between the first and second baseman. once it gets past the pitcher a certain hit. i guess depending on the first baseman's positioning this could work. does anyone use this these days?
gm

[Austinfan]

Never mentioned work ethic, is that some innate prejudice that you need to address?

A lot of players are stubborn, some are lazy or like to party too much, but in many cases it's simply a matter of a player not wanting to leave his comfort zone: "it got me here, so why should I change?"

Problem is the "Red Queen" effect, everyone is running faster just to stay in place, so if you don't work at maintaining a competitive advantage, you'll fall behind as the league identifies your flaws and exploits them.