Romero and Jones
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From Ask Bill:
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1. When you see a sabermetrician scoffing at the idea of using Spring Training to make roster decisions -- that's what percentage of them? -- then, Know that the sabermetrician has a whale of a lot to learn.
There, I put that rather kindly, don't you think? :: winning smile :: I didn't say "know that he's grovelling in ignorance" or "know that you're on the wrong website" or any of that rude stuff.
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2. What we need, is a Mariners site that deals with the 71 at-bats, and also with the peripheral information, like the orgs do. Know where we could find one? :: innocent blank look ::
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3. "Tighten the bolts" - that's a baseball scout-y phrase. It reminds of the other night when Stefen Romero lined a jam pitch to RF and Blowers said "that's good hitting."
This drives 99% of baseball fans crazy, when somebody lines a base hit, and the analyst -- notice it is never the announcer; it's always the ex-player -- calls it "good hitting." Well, obviously it's good hitting, if he got a hit, right?
But what the analyst means by that is --- > the pitcher presented a difficult pitch, in a difficult area, and the hitter had the technically correct reaction to it.
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Stefen Romero has looked good technically, the way he reacts to various pitches, the jam, the low-away slider, the ladder pitch, the change curve, etc.. One of yer all-time great 80 OPS+ type outfielders, I tell ya. But ... the last 14 days he is slugging .475.
Remember, Bill James pegged the league adjustment at ~90 games. That's when any given player starts to have a sense of what he'll be seeing. Romero is at 27 games.
Romero is no guarantee, but SSI thoroughly endorses the idea of seeing where he is, two weeks after the All-Star Break.
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James Jones has one of those approaches that almost defies the need for technical virtuosity. He gets low, sticks his nose right into the strike zone, swings on a flat plane with arms only, and tries to get the top half of the ball.
Jones is no guarantee, but -- especially in view of the advanced outfield metrics, such as at BIS -- SSI is thoroughly in favor of giving Jones a full calendar month. From here.
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35 at-bats in, he's hitting .367/.441/.500 ... the EYE ratio is 4:4. Precious few Mariners come up and start with that EYE ratio.
In fact, I'd like to database that: AAA hitters who were thrown into the mosh pit MIDSEASON, with the pitchers sharp as tacks, with the pitchers routinely firing 2-hit shutouts at the Seattle Mariners I might add, and the batter had a 1.0+ EYE ratio.
I'll bet you'd get a whale of an above-average group of rookies. Matt?
BABVA,
Dr D
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