Madison

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I saw some stat, on Baseball Prospectus a few years ago, that said 88% of all PCL innings are thrown by 

• Pitchers who recently performed in the AL or NL, or
• Pitchers who will very shortly perform in the AL or NL

Some pretty sharp baseball analysts believe that there can be no such thing as a AAAA Quad-A player (able to maul AAA but useless in MLB), because the bottom 30% of major leaguers overlap with the top 20% of AAA players.  

By "pretty sharp baseball analysts" we mean "Bill James in particular, and lots of other people in general."  The idea is quite reasonable.  And we could all afford to slow down, with the Quad-A label.  We know a Stefen Romero or three who deserve better.

...........

Dr. D's own crunch?  Of course it is true that there are many Willies Bloomquist in the majors and many Jacks Cust in the minors.  That's just stating the self-evident.

But we do think that if you haven't thought about the Jeff Clement Dallas McPherson Ken Cloude world of bugs on the MLB windshield, you might want to think it through.  

Jeff Clement, for example, could not hit a slow inside breaking pitch to save, um, his little sister from the mafia.  PCL pitchers could expose this sometimes, but not nearly enough to keep Clement from slugging .676 in his first attempt.  

MLB pitching is a game of unfathomable consistency and precision.  I once ran into an old high school buddy who, on the golf courses of the Puget Sound, could shoot 67 without paying attention.  I asked if he'd ever considered the PGA Tour.  He laughed bitterly.  "They aren't golfers up there," he said.  "They are magicians."