Seattle Sports Insider

Bo Knows Baseball, Dept.

Posted by

11/10/09

G-Moneyball matches up the wild-and-wonderful M's prospect Halman with a blast from the past, that being Bo Jackson:

That's who Greg Halman is, Doc. If he can work it out, that could be fun to watch. It's a low percentage chance, IMO, but I can understand the drool factor of watching Bo Jackson attempting to make his way through your minor leagues.

You mean because of the cutback moves, or the alien-evolved physical attributes and retarded pitch recognition?

=== Bo Knows Swings & Misses ===

I see that Bo's K/BB's were 158/30, 146/25, 172/39 even as he posted excellent batting lines for the Royals. Also had the 26/35 type SB lines. Bo knows power/speed, babe.

Did you search a database G-Money, to come up with such a good K/BB, SB, HR match or did you just think of Bo?

Would be interesting to know whether Halman had that kind of track speed? Bo Jackson of course was one of the very fastest players in the NFL. He also played CF in a huge park, his sheer footspeed making up for his lack of baseball instincts...

=== Fun House Mirror Distortion, Dept. ===

I'll tell you what I think is so inspired about the Bo Jackson comp. It reconciles both of these two ideas:

1) Masterly tools scouts, reasonably, see him as a huge superstar in the big leagues.

2) Sabermetricians don't.

3) The probably final result is probably that of an impact player who is overrated.

That was the case with Bo on all three counts, and seems quite possible for Halman as well.

A great tools scout, even a Roger Jongewaard or Bob Fontaine, would have watched the young Bo Jackson play for a week and would have said, "I haven't seen a guy like this since Ken Griffey Jr." He would have been both right and wrong...

..........

Bill James, who is a Royals fan, said that Bo's downfall was that he didn't have ML hand-eye coordination. "I mean, he has good hand-eye in the sense that it's better than yours or mine, but he's only at the 80th or 90th percentile." This implied James' own conviction that a Franklin Gutierrez has hand-eye coordination at the 99th percentile if not much higher.

James maintained that in his early years, Bo made his living off of 88 mph fastballs -- lacking ML hand-eye coordination, he crushed mistakes so consistently and so gruesomely that he wound up with good numbers.

As time went on, Bo did develop the ability to hit tough pitches, but not until he was 27 or so. And then the hip problems began.

=== Career Arc ===

Bo practically did just pick up a stick and start playing ML baseball -- as close to it as you're going to get in modern days.

He played HS baseball (along with football, of course) but apparently played only one year of college baseball (he was very good). He was the very first pick in the NFL draft, but played baseball instead. He played part of one season in the minors, got 80 AB's that September, and then the next year was a league-average AL hitter. Simply amazing.

The point here is, by the time Bo had a little pitch recognition under his belt, he became a VERY good ML hitter. At 27, he improved his EYE from "really funny" to "terrible" -- from 39/172 up to 44/128 -- and when that happened, he posted a 142 OPS+. In fulltime play he'd have started hitting 40 home runs -- back in the days before the offensive explosion -- but his hip cut his career short.

The point is, hitters of this type can have long periods of improvement ahead of them.

....

So when's that Tour de France thang ...

Comments

Bo was a freak of nature

I don't think Greg Halman or anyone could replicate that. If Halman rediscovers the magic, he would be like the young Eric Davis -- power and speed, but in a wideout Randy Moss kind of way more than a running back Bo Jackson kind of way, if you know what I mean.
But Halman not only struggled with the bat, his 23/1 SB/CS turned into 9/7. So he's got to hit the "re-set" button in a big way.
For sure, though, when he had it clicking in 2008, he looked like he had a chance to be an Eric Davis type player, and I'm sure the scouts remember that.

Ya...

G is no doubt thinking about the general template, freakish athlete, terrible EYE, unlimited upside .... and especially, looks otherworldly when he steps out onto the grass.
As far as his raw athletic power, Bo was unique. Being in the Nolan Ryan template doesn't mean you're Nolan Ryan :- )

Halman's just the same sort

Halman's just the same sort of genetic freak that Bo was, coming from a retarded baseball situation. Bo was never committed to baseball until the end. Halman is from that baseball mecca the Netherlands. *rolls eyes* Baseball more than any sport except perhaps golf is a game of repetition. You have to train your body and your brain to do one thing: put bat on ball, squarely and with force.

Halman runs like the wind, is built like a giant, has a great arm, strong hands, good batspeed...he's one of those long-lever hitters. He runs around looking like A-Rod in CF. He's absolutely huge and it's all prowling athletic prowess.

At the plate, he does a Bo Jackson: crushes mistake pitches, fans pitifully on effective breaking balls or unexpected pitches. He's also very emotional, and is still adjusting to not being the cream of the talent crop IMO.

Because of what Bo could have done if everything broke right, I think he was over-rated by those who wanted him to be a type of hitter he was never going to be. But if you accept that your slugger might just have a .310 OBP while putting up a .500 SLG as a CFer, you can start to appreciate what he can be, and not what you want him to be.

Halman has a lot of work to do. I can't see him making the leap at this point to being a .250/.310/.500 hitter in the bigs. But all the guys who watch him every day are gonna do everything they can to take his phenomenal physical attributes and craft them into a pro ball player. His swing doesn't look riddled with holes to me - it's mostly in his head, I think, and in the fact that with those long arms he's got a lot of space to cover. In that sense, the tools guys and teachers have enough to work with to make something of him if he'll hold up his end of the bargain.

But we're 1600 ABs in and he's still striking out at unheard of rates for an actual prospect while his ability to take a walk didn't increase one whit over last year.

If the light goes on, watch out. I don't expect it, but if I were the Ms I would be devoting extra coaches to light-switch-finding duties too (as they are by making him Hansen's next project).

~G

Halman could = Buhner

Buhner had the long swing too...if you crush every mistake you get, you're going to hit what...100 HRs? :) Even in the bigs, hitters get lots of good pitches to hit. Point being...you can be raw and undisciplined and still hit 40 HRs without even trying if you are ridiculously large and imposing up there. :)

Halman isn't Bone

Buhner was a very patient and disciplined hitter who walked 100+ twice in his career. Halman wouldn't have a season with half that even if he becomes a star, so he's a bigger risk than Buhner. A better comp would be Alfonso Soriano. They are both wiry, foreign-born players with a strong arm, great speed and enormous raw power who have terrible plate-discipline. In that case it could be another five years before Halman becomes a productive major leaguer.