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Q. How likely, do you suppose, is Bonderman to be throwing the ball well in March?
A. I'd be very surprised if he weren't.
There's nothing wrong with bringing in a Kevin Millwood, see what he's got in the tank - if he's been garaged the last year or two, he's just as liable to come back with some octane in the tank.
Note carefully that Capt. Jack is tabbing old workhorses who have been in dry dock for a while. Other GM's might think "rusty," or might have simply lost interest. Capt Jack seems to be thinking, "whey-protein recovery drink," and you might apply this to Hisashi Iwakuma to some extent. Who knows - maybe Iwakuma's half-season off in Seattle was key?
SSI is blinkin' lovin' it. Maybe every spring you ought to bring in one ex-star who has had two years off.
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Q. If he is throwing good .. what do you do about the pitchability issue?
A. The Tigers assuredly would have showed Bonderman the pitch charts, just as SSI (and the Mariners) showed League his pitch charts. League finally wound up relenting a little bit, just because the static got so loud.
The Mariners are certainly in a position to speak such that Bonderman heareth. He heareth, or he maketh not the ball club. Thus Bonderman faceth a situation unlike any he hath beheld in the past.
Maybe Jeremy Bonderman will change his pitch mix from 70-30 to 60-40, like Madison Bumgarner and Ervin Santana use. More to the point, maybe he'll learn to pitch backwards - to throw sliders on 2-0 counts and on the first pitch.
Could be his mindset is changed. Two years is a long time. Maybe instead of being burned out and going through the motions, maybe this time he'll be hungry and alert.
Objection, counselor!. But it's John Jaso and Jesus Montero who are going to keep their thumbs on Bonderman's earside pressure point? ... I guess Wedge could.
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Q. Supposing that Bonderman doesn't want to stop grooving fastballs when behind in the count?
A. Bonderman's slider is a legit wipeout pitch. In the 'pen you would figure him to be an enhanced version of Shawn Kelley, even the vunderbar 2009-10 version of Kelley.
You'll remember Kerry Wood missing, in essence, two years, and then reincarnating as a short man. He got his stuff back, plus some. Rest plus relaxation, bullpen relaxation, as in.
Perhaps Bonderman gets to spring training, has some pop in his step, racks up some 1-IP 2-K innings early on. Drop into the bullpen Scrabble tile bag, shake the bullpen vigorously, and pull you out another tile to put on your rotation rack.
Easy to say from where we sit. But, hey, Capt Jack threatened to bring in Joel Hanrahan, so who's to say?
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Me thinks that would involve another murky intangible, coachability.
At this point in his career he'd be a rare bird indeed if he could have a dramatic change in mindset. Bonderman wouldn't be the first to bow his neck and ride off into the sunset on his terms, all the while ignoring the obvious. Professional athletes can be a strange mix of arrogance and insecurity can't they?
...I would not start out by assuming that ERA is right and xFIP is wrong season by season. Luck is volatile. BUT...I do believe that you can get a feel for pitchability and intelligence once you have ruled out luck stats.
Also...I don't think Bonderman is QUITE as bad as league...if only because the Tigers during his glory years were running out outfields that included slugs like Magglio Ordonez and meatheads like Curtis Granderson and Marcus Thames. That team was worse than normal for allowing XBH and ran consistently poor DERs. His BABIP is inde3ed a little elevated compared to league average for that period (which was .296) and his XBH rate is not much higher than the entire Tigers' club's XBH rate.
Bonderman is dyslexic...!
xFIP is still generally going to predict ERA better than ERA predicts itself. We're left to search for cases in which a weird ERA has a cause other than luck. Felix Hernandez' high ERA's, early on, were an example.
Where you're left in the lurch is when you're a sabertista who is angered at the idea that there might be a reason that a given pitcher's ERA doesn't match his xFIP.
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I do agree that the gigantic 4.89-4.03 difference was partially affected by circumstance. A lot of people questioned the Tiger defense. And his strand rate is indeed a couple of ticks worse than he deserves, so the bullpen undoubtedly cost him a little.
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Bonderman could definitely run a "regression to the mean" ERA-xFIP that left him with a 2+ ERA. LOL. ... doesn't change the FACT that his pitchability used to be an eyesore.
He kept thinking it was 1-and-3 rather than 3-and-1!
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I hope I don't get into trouble with this question ... my personal observation has been that people with dyslexia are not at all handicapped, intelligence- or learning-wise, when you're talking about contexts that don't involve reading? Does anybody know?
But he's had a massive, humbling re-boot, right?
Also, he's simply older... there's a big difference between 24 years of age, and 30 ... Bonderman reached a rare-bird point in which he simply chose not to play major league baseball...
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Word is that Zduriencik signed Bonderman without watching him throw. I'd have done the same. This is an exciting "free" contract for the M's -- you could say it's the ideal minor-league make-good contract from the club's standpoint. Talent, plus rest, plus "time away to gain perspective," Mr. Olbermann.
I'll take a million of 'em.
Is a pretty broad term that will likely get whittled down over the next few decades.
But classically, the inversion or scrambling of words, letters and numbers in your mind's eye and expression is what most people think of as dyslexia. This really doesn't indicate a decrease of intelligence or problem solving; it's more along the lines of color blindness, or another form of sensory obstruction.
What happens is the interpretive/expressive part of the brain gets what amount to little spasms, or seizures, or cramps when it's doing its job. What happens when your muscle cramps up during a weight lift? Naturally, it impacts your performance, but it doesn't mean your strength (cognitive ability/brain power) is in any way lacking.
That someone with dyslexia could have trouble reading the signs the catcher calls?
Color blindness seems like a good analogy.
IMHO, a person who *chooses* not to read also has a certain minor handicap as far as his general mental development. But I can't imagine how dyslexia would relate to Bonderman refusing to throw his slider 3-and-1.
I have a cousin who is severely dyslexic. He's very intelligent and quite successfully runs a small business. I remember about 5 years of his life being absolute misery getting through school. He lived in a small town school district without the understanding of dyslexia or the resources to help him. He had to fight through all the labels and names the uninformed teachers hung on him. I won't list them but it wasn't pretty. If his mom wasn't Superwoman I don't know what would have become of him.
The net affect this all had on him, at least from my point of view, was to put a huge chip on his shoulder. He's highly driven but also has a stubborn and rebellious streak in him, to the point of being self destructive at times. I think having authority figures call him stupid for a big chunk of his life makes him instinctively trust his gut over what someone "in the know" might tell him.
How much has dyslexia disrupted his learning routines and the teaching practices around him?
Have his previous organizations treated him fairly and adjusted to his learning style?
And I also remember an interview somewhere (maybe Google Jeremy Bonderman dyslexia, I can't remember) that talked about how he needed to be 'shown' lessons, as opposed to explained.
IMO, there's a possibility that his negative learning experience may have conditioned him to not like learning in specific ways.
How does that affect his ability to learn pitching?