1) This is the sort of thing that isn't readily measurable, and hence likely to be discounted by the sabermetrics community, which is fine. The point of advanced statistics is to understand performance first, i.e. what actually happened. But, when you're dealing with humans, not everything fits into a nice little box.
2) On the other hand, Dustin Ackley has been an elite level baseball player probably since his early teens. Baseball is what he does. Shouldn't he be used to pressure?
3) I recall in the book Moneyball, since they came up together in the Mets system, Michael Lewis made a point to draw a comparison/contrast between Billy Beane and Lenny Dykstra as prospects and eventual major leaguers. I can't recall the details, but the main point that Lewis was making in that section of the book was that Dykstra was much more tempermentally suited to achieve success in baseball. He was looser, and more relaxed than Beane. He took the failures in stride, whereas Beane dwelled on them.
4) It seems like there's no one formula that works for every player. For certain types of guys, maybe the best thing is to have a Jeffrey Leonard there that first year. For others, it may not matter in the slightest. Some guys need mentoring, while others don't. I guess it comes back to knowing your talent, which is hard. Maybe things would have been different for Billy Beane had he been brought up as a prospect in a different environment. I'm sure Griffey was aided, not just by Jeffrey Leonard taking the pressure off that first year, but by growing up surrounded by major leaguers and hearing those conversations take place every single day.
5) While I'm not the world's greatest Eric Wedge fan, I am inclined to believe that Ackley would be well served by a more aggressive style of hitting.
Add new comment
1