re young catchers in article blue cis pitt edu genetic pitt edu david m tate writes mss netcom com mark singer said we know that very very few players at this age make much of an impact in the bigs especially when they haven t even played aaa ball yes but this is irrelevant you re talking about averages when we have lots of information about this player in particular to base our decisions on do you really have that much information on him really why isn t lopez likely to hit that well he hit that well last year after adjusting his stats for park and league and such he hit better on an absolute scale than olson or berryhill did by a lot i don t know you tell me what percentage of players reach or exceed their mle s in their rookie season we re talking about you know as for rushing if there really is a qualitative difference between the minors and the majors that requires a period of adjustment and i don t believe there is then wouldn t you rather waste lopez s year old good season than his year old very good season or his year old excellent season the sooner you get him acclimated the more of his prime you get to use if that were your purpose maybe offerman spent getting acclimated if you will the dodgers as a team paid a big price that season perhaps they will reap the benefits down the road do you really think they would have done what they did if they were competing for a pennant lopez was hitting over ab when he was cut from spring training what does he have to do to earn a chance maybe not a full time job but at least a couple starts and a few ab for him to prove his worth the point was not that ab is a significant sample but rather that he hadn t done anything in spring training to cause even a blockhead manager to question whether his minor league numbers were for real or to send him down until he gets warmed up for a stat head i m amazed that you put any credence in spring training did you notice who he got those hits off of or are you going to tell me that it doesn t make a difference the kid will improve playing at aaa just like keith mitchell did wait a minute i missed something here first forget keith mitchell are you saying that a kid who moves from aa to aaa and then does not improve would have been better off making a direct leap to the majors if a player does well at aa and then does not improve at aaa isn t that a sign that maybe he doesn t belong in the bigs now keith mitchell as i recall no stat books handy surprise he jumped from aa to atlanta in he did so well that he was returned to the minors where he didn t do very well at all now his career is in jeopardy so how does he fit in with your point good mle s in aa moved him right to the big club now he s one step away from being traded or moved out of baseball duh that was me and you so far your only counter proposal is that they really don t understand how good lopez is or overvalue experience or some combination of the two i think my interpretation was more flattering to the organization well i ve cast my lot certainly you may understand better how good lopez is and i may overvalue experience but neither one of us runs a baseball team the beastmaster mark singer mss netcom com
