=== TOOLS SCOUTING - 60 ===

Also don't know how likely you are to get a prediction that, say, Doug Fister's mechanics will lead to superior command.  But on the other hand, once Fister goes out and tosses even a single game with superior makeup, Baker will spot it right then and there.

50 for tools projection ... but 70 for tools recognition.

As we recall, after Fister's second game in 2010, Baker was like "wow, there was something I wasn't sure Doug Fister was capable of."  Here again is the Blue Jays, nah the Canadiens detachment:  it takes a decent blip on the seismo to register.  But then when it does, he'll look past the "noise" and see real potential for what it is.

Griffey Jr. went only about a week before Baker started questioning -- loudly -- Junior's ability to produce even a single extra-base hit.

You'll listen to a Geoff Baker Live! show and hear him say, casually, in passing, that Fister throws three different 89 mph pitches:  a jam pitch, a low-away-pitch, an at-the-letters pitch.  He understands that this isn't one pitch with subtle variations; it is three different pitches.  He's around the game.  He has a feel for the strike zone.

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=== ACCESS and SENSE OF PROPORTION - 75 ===

The fact is, the Bakery is the one place you're going to get instant truth, unvarnished, same day, a la "the Branyan trade is about the front office not losing the players." 

Another quick f'r instance:  lmost prophetically, Baker argued with Times fans in March -- from Arizona -- that Zduriencik and Wakamatsu were only riding short-term "waves of popularity" in Seattle.  And that at any time, next year or even this year, such devotion could turn around on a dime.  This occurring right during the era of Big Blog Deification of both as saber superstars.

In any given column, Baker will give you 1-to-3 different inside nuggets that, if offered at USSM or PI or LL, would be the highlight of the month for access and inside poop.

..................

Baker was himself a serious athlete -- he lettered playing tackle football -- he stays sports-fit -- and he roams the clubhouse with a grasp of what's going on in the athlete's heads.  Importantly, his isn't cloying and precious about his access; he uses it to do his job, and refuses to be blackmailed into watering down the truth. 

You think any other Seattle media personality would have hammered Ken Griffey Jr. on a daily basis?  Why not, do you think?

I know that many of you amigos don't want to hear this, but this puts Baker in the unique position of both (1) knowing what is going on, and (2) being willing to tell you what is going on.

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=== OVERALL GRADE - 75 ===

The reason that Baker's work is underappreciated, is that the Seattle media scene is unhealthily dog-eat-dog.  This is true both with the independent online authors and with the mainstream media.

16 blogs and 8 sportswriters work very hard to give the air that Baker's work doesn't matter as much as it does -- and then when he does Baker Live! and posts a little video reel on a grainy internet site, he draws 1,000's and 1,000's and 1,000's of watchers, posting numbers that make Albert Pujols look like a dead man.

The rest of the blog-o-sphere is free to play one-upsmanship the rest of the decade if it wants.  :- )  As an SSI reader, you're savvy enough to go read Geoff Baker when you want to know what's going on.

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Or not,

Dr D