Seattle Sports Insider

The U-27 Team, Exam Room

Posted by

9/25/09

=== GL Muskie ===

... is as confused by Bill Hall as I am.

I just don't know what to make of this guy.

Bret Boone looks like a good comp. Smaller-stature guys with about 60 points of patience. Drafted rounds 5-6. ... Interestingly, both had breakout, really good years at age 25-26. Then fell off the map. Boone, after his 123 OPS+ age-25 season, went on to post OPS+ of 98, 64, 64 the following seasons. Then went up to league average for about three years, then exploded for an MPV caliber season at age *32*.

Hall is now 29YO, and posting an OPS+ of around 64. So how can a player go from OPS+ of 120 at age 25, to 64 at 28, to 98 at 30, to 140 at 32?

Before you say, PED's, bear in mind that Hall's career is happening in an era of more stringent testing. There's been speculation, but no real reason to link his spike with anything chemical.

Anyway, my feeling is that Hall has never shown and will never show serious OBP or high OPS+ ability outside of that 1-2 year spike. I think it was a fluke.

=== Here There Be Dragons ===

This is a light bulb that I have off -- the guys who were stars in their early 20's and who then just fell off the map. For example, Kal Daniels was running 150 OPS+ up to age 27 ... that's a Hall of Fame path ... but then starting at age 27, he was meat.

It's easy to say that his knees cost him, but ... why did his EYE go from 1.00 as a rookie (!) to poor at age 27? What would knees have to do with the ability to tell a ball from a strike?

Daniels had this in common with Hall -- there was just a sudden, mysterious inability to find the ball with the bat.

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

Ruben Sierra, up through age 26, looked like a very possible HOF'er. Beginning at age 27, he was worthless. Here, the park was a big part of it, but the 146 OPS+ early were park-adjusted. Later he was in the 80's.

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

We're not talking about the Joe Charbonneaus who came up, had ONE great year, and who then had a weakness exposed. Baseball history is full of Sierras, Danielses and Halls, who were prime time players in their early 20's and who then fell off the stool, never to return.

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

Bobby Higginson was a guy who hung a lot of rotodweebs out to dry, including poor jemanji. He came up at 25 and was one of the league's best all-around players -- .320/.404/.577 at age 25. He was great through age 29, when he hit .300/.380/.540 (!) ... but then at age 30, took two huge steps down, and at age 31, took two huge steps down, and at age 34, took a headfirst off the Aroura Bridge.

That one's a fairly sensible age decline, I guess, but wow, the falloff was fast.

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

By the way, Higginson was a small man and at age 24, played a full year with a lousy .220/.330/.390. That's in a whole year. Then at 25, he had a Ken Griffey Jr. AVG/OBP/SLG.

There's hope for these hotshots that Capt Jack is bringing up. One of these days, we'll see how it works in real orgs -- a Saunders or Carp or whoever will just simply become a big star in his second year.

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

Anyway, Higginson is about 10 degrees off subject. Will Clark and Don Mattingly are similar cases to Higginson -- weird falls from stardom, though not actually U-27 syndromes.

For extra credit, maybe you want to spend some leisure time considering other members of the bona fide U-27 team like Aubrey Huff, Alvin Davis*, Carlos Baerga and Edgardo Alfonzo.

=== Nothing Showing Up On the CAT Scan Dept. ===

Steroids are not my default explanation, either. But there is a related explanation.

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

It's easy to imagine that holes in these guys' swings turned up, but:

(a) Ruben Sierra was a star for FIVE (5) YEARS before the "hole in his swing" turned up. Um, no. Kal Daniels didn't lay the NL waste for several years and then they realized, hey! Throw him curve balls!

And (b) Bill Hall, personally, is capable of striking out on anything right now.

There's no particular pitch that is invisible to him, as though he were Brad Wilkerson trying to hit a pitch above his hands. Hall pretty much hits everything, and misses everything.

Comments

Here's an idea

Let's say you're player X and you make it to the bigs at age 25. You're amped up, and you're laser focused, because this is the big time. You're going to find out if you can run with the big dogs.
And you have a great season. You start out balls of fire, maybe you're a ROY candidate by the end of the year. After a couple months you relax a bit, feeling good about yourself. Go into the offseason, and you think, I'm a player. I've arrived.
And next season, it's just not as easy. Pitchers start exploiting your weaknesses even more than they did last year. Maybe you go in to a little slump, just by chance. And of course now you're not as keyed up, you're more relaxed, confident, you KNOW you're going to hit, becuase you did that all last year. So your focus is a bit weaker. You're not going to the plate wanting to have a good at bat with every fiber of your being, you've got something a bit less than that.
And then your production starts to tail off a bit more. And now you start to doubt yourself. And now coaches start to give input on stuff, and you try different tweaks at the plate, and you review old video to see what you were doing back then. And pitchers continue to attack your weak spots.
Anyway, I've experience similar, but smaller scale, events in my life where, through luck or serendipity I encountered early surprising success. Only to find out later it really wasn't that easy. Especially to sustain.
Jeremy Reed came up in September and batted what, .450 or something? Stats guys would call is a small sample size; I would say there's that, but there are also some players who can handle success and temper their enthusiasm better than others.

Mental machinations

Nice theory, glum.
The key here, I believe, is in fact, mental, not physical. But physical is the only aspect that actually can get measured - so 100% of results are typically attributed to the physical. The problem is that all results are a result of the combo of physical and mental. I'd posit that the several-solid-years guys (who didn't run into injury issues), likely reached a point where playing baseball simply wasn't fulfilling their needs.
If you go to college and study journalism, write for a couple of years, then decide to change careers, and go back and become a computer programmer, you're not looked at as insane. (If you go from Doctor to Janitor, you might be, though). People typically do NOT get it right the first time -- as more than 50% of college graduates change majors at least once. And have a late 20s career change is incredibly common.
But, in pro sports, how many players get to the top level, succeed, and then say, "No, I think I'd rather be a veternarian?" The answer is --- zero. The money is simply too good. You cannot transition to another profession and hope to maintain the kind of monetary reward that pro sports offers. (However, pro sports DOES offer a schedule that allows some players to explore other massive-money professions, like music or movies).
Michael Jordan is probably the only real example of a true success, who opted to toss aside the massive paycheck for a different dream. (That dream, of baseball, also had a huge money payout, if successful). But, Jordan was in a unique situation where the public could at least nominally understand the move, because of his father's death. But, many fans and pundits also viewed Jordan as completely bonkers for ditching the NBA for the minors.
In non-sports jobs, it's called "Golden handcuffs". Making so much money that the option of moving to a new career is effectively impossible, because the monetary dive would be too deep.
But, before we condemn Bill Hall ... (or any of the other players) ... it's always possible the loss of love for the game isn't about the game, but about the company you're working for. I imagine it is HARD for players to continue loving the game playing for years with Pittsburgh, pretty much assured of finishing last season after season. Or, even if the club is winning, the management methods may make the conditions intolerable to a given player. (The change of scenery success stories are plentiful).
But, once the pilot light of enthusiasm for the game goes out, it is likely that for some guys, it is impossible to relight. This is one of the reasons I think Z's concentration on mental makeup and "playing the game right" is a valid and useful tool to have in your toolbox. It just cannot be your only tool.
This is another reason that giving the career backup types a chance to start can sometimes have startling good results. To continue playing and giving 100% AFTER you've been judged as deficient is evidence of mental strength. Me? I hope Z continues scouring the refuse pile for the Branyan's and Josh Wilson's out there. They're dirt cheap, don't lock you into multi-year mistakes, and if only one of every 10 breaks out as a starter, you'll soon be viewed as a genius of talent evaluation.