Comments on: More Mail

By: Marc Schneider

Marc Schneider — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:04:58 +0000

Baseball is a slower game (especially the way it’s played these days) that requires a lot of patience and time to enjoy. Inner-city kids aren’t likely to have that patience given their circumstances. In general, baseball developed in a much slower-paced society where there was less demand for constant stimuli and immediate gratification. Let’s face it, you can take all the attendence figures you want, but football (especially the NFL) is far and away the most popular sport today in America because it is faster (and more violent), ie, it seems more suited to today’s society. And while this is a circular argument to some extent, I think baseball is increasingly considered a white, suburban sport which makes it even harder for a kid in the inner city to embrace it.

I dearly love baseball, but I’m not sure there is much you can do to make it more popular in the inner city–which is really what Sheffield is talking about.

By: Brent

Brent — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:08:54 +0000

Chipper’s HOF case. I think 4 or 5 more decent seasons, or 3 more decent seasons including a big year, should cement his case for the Hall. He has many intangibles in his favor that voters love – he isn’t linked to steroids, he’s played for only one team, and he has made sacrifices for the good of the team. Also, his biggest weakness is defense and while voters certainly reward good defense, they don’t really punish poor defenders that much.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 06:59:57 +0000

I would imagine choosing football over baseball has to do with opportunities. First, the labor pool is smaller. You’re only competing with Americans as opposed to Americans, Dominicans, Japanese, Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Venezualans, etc. Also, there are more players per team. While that might not work in football’s favor in the QB/SP example, it does for more versatile athletes who can play WR/DB or LB/DL or whatever. (Fittingly, people like Samardzija and Henson chose baseball over football.)

I don’t get the basketball thing, though. You’re competing in a global market for limited roster space, and the overseas opportunities, while more plentiful than baseball, don’t include any situation as lucrative as Japan. I imagine it’s partially a social issue and partially, in cities, a resource issue. (Basketball courts are cheaper to maintain and take up less real estate than baseball fields.) I’d agree that, in HS, I would expect more demand for baseball roster slots than basketball, though.

By: jon

jon — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:24:06 +0000

I think the biggest reasons for playing basketball or football are three fold. First is the cost of equipment issue. The only equipment one needs to play basketball is a ball shared amongst ten people and a pair of sneakers. In baseball, everyother player needs a glove, that needs to be replaced every couple of years, at least four helmets/team for organized ball, catchers gear for one, and bats taht need to be replaced every few years(metal) as one gets larger, or at elast every year(wood) as they break.
Second, the skills required to be a great baseball player aren’t ones that for the most part can be learned at 18. Hakeem went from never having seen a baseketball to being a top draft pick in 4 years. Look at Tim Duncan. The same thing goes for most positions in football.

The other reason for people picking basketball and football over baseball is college. There are just more scholarships for football and basketball than there are for baseball. Just about every two bit college has a basketball team with at least partial scholarships, and football has huge numbers of players on every team.

As for Sheffields statements, he is a bigmouth, but I haven’t heard anything over the years from ex-teammates about hating him, except maybe from Milwaukee, but he was just an immature jerk. How many of us were that at 20, just imagine if we had been rich and told we were the next great thing.
I know I would love to have him on my team as a ballplayer. You know he would have your back no matter what happened.
What he said has some rationality too it. Not the “control” issues, but the financial side. You can sign a latin ballplayer at 16 for peanuts. He belongs to your club. You don’t have to worry about dealing with a Scott Boras, until he gets to the majors, but by that point he is an asset to your club, both financially, and on the field.

By: Frank

Frank — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 02:24:44 +0000

Re Andruw Jones–While I think he is having a run of bad luck, I’m a bit more pessimistic. His strikeout rate is up a bit–more than one K per 4 AB–and his Iso-Power is his lowest since 1999.

Quick quiz–what year other than this one (and maybe excludind his first year or two) is Andruw’s worst? 2001. What did that year have in common with this one? It was his contract year before signing his 6 year deal for 2002-07. Coincidence? Maybe. The literature on contract year effects is mixed, but I don’t know of any paper finding players perform worse during contract years. Perhaps Andruw is an outlier.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 00:49:54 +0000

I just did a quick check at baseball-reference of Chipper’s first and second half splits since 2001. I’ve typically remembered Chipper playing better in the second half. The BR stats appear to back this up. Maybe that could explain his lack of All-Star appearances (although it looks like last year he should have made it anyway).

By: pawnking

pawnking — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:45:51 +0000

I think most teams would like to have Chipper at third. 3B is a black hole for most, and he’s produced for so long there maybe Braves fans take him a little bit for granted?

I’m not certain of his HOF credentials. I see him pretty boarderline right now. With luck, he’ll play long enough to reach some kind of milestone.

By: JC

JC — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:05:19 +0000

For the Braves

Season	ERA+
2007	95
2006	96
2005	110

It’s way too early to make judgements about McDowell as a pitching coach. You need a large sample of pitchers over time who play for several teams.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:16:26 +0000

Interesting that the Os are pitching much better this year. I’m curious what the Braves’ numbers would look like in that chart. Do we have enough evidence yet to at least partially blame the failures of pitchers like Kyle Davies or Tim Hudson on Roger McDowell?