Pickles
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Posts posted by Pickles
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44 minutes ago, 7Mo said:
How many times did you break your left thumb?
It was just basically in a state of permanent disfigurement for two summers.
Catching messes your fingers, hands, and wrists up.
Guess what you need to hit?
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34 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
LOL. So, here is one guy, who has been evaluating guys forever (and talked to scouts forever) who actually did a comp of the 2 prospects. You have said Wieters was better with this and that...and yet someone here, who actually does this and knows more than us and talks to people who knows more than us, comps them, says what I have been saying and you basically laugh it off.
And I am the stupid and unreasonable one? LOL. You can't make this sh** up.
You just can't walk away- even when given the opportunity.
One guy lukewarmly agrees with you and you just have to crow about it from the rooftops. Can't make this up indeed.
I hope Tony chimes in. He is somebody who can shed some light on this. He'd be very qualified- although no man- even your dear Callis- is an oracle.
I repeat what I said about them as prospects.
If you're looking solely at tools as evaluated as MiLers, Adley gets the advantage in glove and speed. Wieters in power, arm, and hit tool.
My sole point was anyone who is claiming AR is a better prospect than MW was, is wrong. To say they're similar prospects, I wouldn't argue. But to claim AR is superior, is just false.
I'll let Tony add to that if he wants to. He's about the only person who could sway me much on that statement.
Now in regards to what that looks like at the ML level, I would agree that MW's ML career was on the low end of the spectrum of probabilities for what it might have looked like. Nowhere near the lowest, but I would certainly say under the 50th percentile.
So yeah, it's easy to say AR probably surpasses MW's career- even though they're in the same category prospect wise. But that doesn't mean he's automatically going to go to the 96% and be Johnny Bench- even with the caveat of "only" for 3-5 years. And if you want a 130+ OPS with GG C defense for 130 games a night, then yes, you're talking about 6+ WAR and Johnny Bench.
That's extremely rare. Me and you have seen it with our own eyes twice, without needles being involved. You have NO idea the physical toll that it takes to catch and produce like that. You mock me for having a far greater understanding of it, simply because I try to educate you.
I can't tell you what to be disappointed in or not. But I can tell you what is reasonable.
I make the analogy of investing. Every investment is a range of probable outcomes. Expecting, and being disappointed with less that the 90% positive outcome, is unreasonable.
The fact that all of this is based solely on your faith in your own prescience makes it all that much less convincing.
If you really want to go round and round answer me these two questions:
1) Why didn't you call out Wieter's "slow bat" and "lack of athleticism" when he was hitting .355 at Bowie? You claim you never saw him in the minors? I saw dozens and dozens of his highlights on this website alone. I even believe they live streamed the Bowie playoffs that year on this website. Surely you saw him play plenty in the MiLs, and you never once said "slow bat?" Why?
2) Were you or were you not catching vapors 4 months ago about AR's supposed "slow bat" when he struggled a bit out of the gate at Bowie this year? So how many times exactly have you seen him this year? How many times did it take for you to sing a different tune?
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2 minutes ago, OrangeTurtle said:
I have no dog in the fight, honestly. That was just the first player-to-player prospect comparison that popped up from a credible source.
If you're looking solely at tools as evaluated as MiLers, Adley gets the advantage in glove and speed. Wieters in power, arm, and hit tool.
My sole point was anyone who is claiming AR is a better prospect than MW was, is wrong. To say they're similar prospects, I wouldn't argue. But to claim AR is superior, is just false.
Of course, some, like SG, will add the caveat "to me." Well, I can't argue that, because that's a subjective opinion. I question how much of that comes from hindsight. And I question exactly what it's based on- other than hindsight.
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1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:
I didn't insult you at all. You are the one arguing. I do not see Wieters on the same level of Adley. I was vocal about Wieters, on this site, from the moment I saw him.
I said he should be a MOO hitter..you disagreed.
I cited guys that could do it...you essentially poo poo'ed it.
You act like every catcher breaks down and none of them can be great hitters. I agree with you but the history of the game is full of C who have overcome that and been great hitters. My expectation is that Adley will be one of them.
You disagree for whatever reason...your reasoning seems to be that you are going with the odds. That's fine but you are the one pushing the argument and making a big deal about it.
And no, your experiences in LL or HS or whatever aren't relevant. You trying to tell me that catching hurts is irrelevant. We all know that but there are exceptions to the rule. There is a reason that there was only a few guys in the world who can do this... because their skill and talent level far exceeds anything you or anyone else can even dream of. So now, I don't find your life experiences to be relevant to the conversation. You choose to either want to ignore that. (which is stupid, ignorant and unreasonable, to use your wording) or you just don't feel Adley is that good. I happen to disagree.
I think he is a MOO bat, perennial AS guy who catches 120-135 games for the first 3-5 years of his career, with obviously year 1 being the year that he may not be at that level quite yet (as with any young player).
Fair enough. Moving on.
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1 minute ago, OrangeTurtle said:
Jim Callis weighs in:
"For one, Matt Wieters has had a good career for a No. 1 overall prospect, and two, no knock on Wieters, but I think Adley Rutschman is a better defensive player and a better hitter than Matt Wieters.” Callis said. “I think the power and arm strength is similar. But as good as Matt Wieters has been, Adley Rutschman is better.
“He’s got the best catching tools that I’ve seen in a prospect in 30 years of covering this stuff. He has better all-around tools than Joe Mauer, who is more athletic, but didn’t have anywhere close to Rutschman’s power coming out of the draft. And he had more impact with his bat and he’s more polished defensively than Buster Posey was.”
There may be some hindsight and recency bias at play there, but interesting nonetheless.
Ok, Callis is on record. With Sports Guy.
AR is going to be the second best catcher in the history of the game.
I'll take the under.
The odds are heavily in my favor.
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7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Thank you for that trip down memory lane about your life but your life experiences as a player who never amounted to anything don't mean anything w/r/t a conversation about Adley. I think he is on a slightly different level than you were.
Mauer and Posey are his comps. That's who I expect him to be. If he isn't that good, I think he's a disappointment. If you dont share that opinion great. I really don't care.
If he isn't a middle of the order level hitter (because he may bat #2 but that doesn't mean he isn't or couldn't be MOO), he will not have lived up to the hype...just like Wieters didn't. That is and has been my point. Again, if you don't agree, thats fine..I just don't care.
Quite frankly, this whole conversation is why I wish we had taken Witt over him to begin with.
You're a giant ass. You really are.
Your expectations are stupid and unreasonable. But of course, they are the product of a stupid and unreasonable mind.
Trying to reason with a stupid and unreasonable person was my own fault. I should know better than to engage with you.
You are not here to learn anything. You're not here to share anything. You're not here to contemplate anything.
You're here to tell us your thoughts, and anyone who disagrees, gets insulted.
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6 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Sure does but there are guys who overcome that. Adley should be one of those guys. If he's not, he is a disappointment.
I caught for a few years when I was young. I usually played SS because I was the best athlete on the team, but when I was ten our catcher got hurt, and my dad was coach, so he made me catch. I liked it. I was good at it so I stayed there for a couple years until the fields got big and they put me back at SS.
That was 25 years ago. I can't extend my left thumb fully to this day because I broke it so many times catching- specifically foul tips which go straight down, miss the gloves' webbing, and just push your thumb back.
You're probably talking about 100 6 inning games over two seasons. In Little League.
The abuse that full time big league catchers must suffer over the course of a season is unfathomable.
NOBODY hits to their full potential if they're catching consistently.
If AR was this 900+ OPS monster, then we should find him another position.
If he is rather a good, but not great hitter, he should catch- while we should accept that he will never hit to his full potential doing so.
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1 minute ago, SteveA said:
I'd rather pay for that than pay arbitration rate for Pedro.
You might be right.
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2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Sure it is..show me. Show me scouting reports that say it.
You are just making stuff up.
Adley is, without question, a much more highly sought after defensive catcher (as a prospect) than Wieters ever was. That’s not actually up for debate.
Offensively I agree it’s closer but I don’t think Wieters distinguished himself as far superior. It’s also a different era, so you aren’t taking into account park effects, changes in the sport, etc…so numbers (again overall numbers done in a SSS) only mean so much without the proper historical context.
I'm making stuff up?
The indisputable facts I stated?
Wieters was a college closer. He went over 95 off the mound. He had a BETTER ARM than AR. And no scout would deny it.
Ask Tony.
I'm not talking about glove. I'm talking about arm.
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2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Wieters didnt peak because he was a catcher. He peaked because the ML pitching was superior to his abilities as an offensive player.
Mauer had an OpS+ of 130 or more 7 times. Posey has done it 5 times and was close another.
Yes, the two guys I already mentioned as being the only outliers I can even remember in my lifetime.
Did you ever play? Did you ever catch?
Catching has a detrimental effect on a player's offensive abilities. That's not really even debatable among baseball people.
It's why guys like Harper or Biggio don't even get the chance to catch much. They're too valuable to expose to those effects.
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1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:
Who says he has a better arm? Wieters was a far better defensive catcher than anyone thought he would be. As a prospect, defense wasn’t his calling card at all.
More power? In 80 less at bats, Adley has the same amount of doubles and 8 less homers and that is with him dealing with mono for some time in 2019 and missing a year of development last year.
Wieters was a college closer. He went over 95+ off the mound. He had the better arm.
Wieters was also bigger and stronger, and as you point out, a more productive power hitter in the MiLs.
It's not controversial at all to state that Wieters was seen as having more power and a better arm as a prospect than AR.
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2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Adley may not do that for his career…but I think he should and will do that for 3-5 years. Bench was putting up OpS+ Of 120+ into his 30s. I’m not suggesting Adley will do that, at least not if he is a full time catcher.
If he catches 130 games and puts up an OPS+ of 130 for five years, he's about half way to the Hall of Fame.
Might I suggest you will be disappointed.
Much of what worked against Wieters every really reaching his offensive ceiling, will be working against Rutschman too.
Namely, the burden of the tools of ignorance.
I think AR is going to be a hell of a player. I just don't think he's hitting 3-4 on a playoff team.
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2 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:
Maybe Rutschman just needs more time to develop
A couple more years down there, he might just build himself up enough.
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31 minutes ago, Frobby said:
I think that’s sort of 20/20 hindsight. It’s not like Wieters was no. 1 because there were no other good candidates. David Price was no. 2, and he was a 1:1 pick who’d already had a successful major league debut and pitched in the ALCS and WS. Wieters beat him out as no. 1 because he was that highly regarded on the strength of what he did in the minors in 2008 (which exceeds anything Rutschman did this year by a significant margin IMO). The only reason to say Rutschman is more highly regarded is because in hindsight we know Wieters wasn’t as good as the pundits thought at the time. But at the time, opinions of Wieters were at least on the same level as for Rutschman now.
I don't think you need to codify that with an IMO, imo.
Wieters had a demonstrably superior MiL career to AR. It's basically a fact.
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46 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Rutschman is clearly the better prospect to me. I don’t really care about the rankings, I care what I see.
Wieters came to the majors as a slow, robotic like athlete with a long/slow swing. Just watching the 2 and seeing how much more athletic and fluid Adley is, puts him over the top fairly easily for me. I had doubts about Wieters living up to the hype when I saw him. I don’t have that with Adley.
Wieters is a guy who peaked offensively in the minors. That happens. It’s not unusual. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t valuable as a MLer, it just means his bat wasn’t as great as his career MiL OpS showed. (Or even close to it)
If Adley isn’t an 850+ OPS I will be disappointed. He may not hit for a great average but the OBP and power will be there and he has GG ability.
An 850 OPS is roughly a 130 OPS+.
That's higher than the career OPS+ of Johnny Bench.
MIght I suggest you will be disappointed.
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42 minutes ago, interloper said:
He was the #1 prospect in 2009. Adley is the #1 prospect in 2021. Adley is still a better prospect because he has better tools and was the higher draft pick.
Says who? You? Sports Guy?
Wieters had a better arm.
Wieters had more power.
Does AR have a better hit tool?
That seems to be the hope. That he isn't going to come up and hit 250 like Wieters did. But what is that based on? Certainly not their amateur/MiL performances.
Frobby said it and I'll repeat: NOTHING besides hindsight suggests that AR is a better prospect than Wieters was.
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2 minutes ago, interloper said:
This does not make him a better prospect. LOL. If he was a better prospect, he would have been the near-consensus #1 that Adley was. He was not. Just because a guy hits a little better in AA does not make him a better prospect.
You think Wieters wasn't the clear consensus #1 prospect when he was in the MiLs?
That's either revisionism, or the O's are doing a better job of reaching out to a new generation of children than I gave them credit for.
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Just to put some things in perspective for people:
Jason Kendall is 25th all time in catcher WAR.
He finished his career with a 95 OPS+ and a career high of 14 hrs.
If you are a true middle of the order bat, you won't catch for very long.
And if you do catch for very long, it's almost impossible to be a "middle of the order bat."
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5 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:
I don't think we should generalize based on Wieters. Posey is still catching at age 34. Rutschman looks like a different type of player than Wieters with a whole different level of athleticism.
Being significantly shorter should help him- in theory.
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1 minute ago, jabba72 said:
Right, but we've seen what happened to Wieters after 3 years of catching around or over 130 games. He was never the same defensive player after age 27. I'd like to see them get more mileage from AR, which means they'll probably have to work him less.
To be clear, I want to see AR catch 130 games in his prime. I understand that he probably shouldn't be doing that immediately.
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Just now, jabba72 said:
If AR's catching that many games it will begun to impact his bat. Not to mention shorten his shelf life at catcher. I wouldn't go over 115
Catching any amount of significant games is going to affect his bat. That's why a middle of the order catcher is so rare. I'd rather have a catcher with an 800 OPS than a 1B with a 850.
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1 minute ago, wildcard said:
You are kidding, Right?
Adley is hitting 286/399/510/909 in 480 PA at AA/AAA. He is hitting better at AAA than he did at AA. That is a middle of the order bat. He is hitting equal to or better than Mountcastle did when he was the MVP at AAA depending on how you measure it.
The question is not if he is a middle of the order batting its how do the O's keep him healthy enough to hit to his potential in the majors. My personal opinion is he catches 2/3 of the games the same as he is doing in the minors.
No. Wieters hit better. Was he a middle of the order bat?
We had these same conversations then about him. How we were going to need to rest him at 1b and DH. And that never materialized.
Hell, is Mountcastle? I wouldn't say that definitively going forward- although I like him.
I see a world where AR hits 250/350/450.
Is that a middle of the order bat? I don't really consider it one.
End of the day, I want AR catching 130 games a year.
If he starts putting up 900 OPS, and can justify DHing or 1B, I would be willing to modify that. But I need to see it first. I'm not just assuming I want his bat in the lineup over Mountcastles' for instance.
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2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:
Wieters wasn’t a better prospect.
He also underperformed compared to what people thought he was…which goes back to exactly what I said about Adley.
I beg to differ. It's subjective, so there's no need to go back and forth, but Wieters was a better prospect. Just go look at their MiL careers.
Underperform or people have unrealistic expectations?
You know how many middle of the order bats that caught and didn't have a needle hanging out of their arm have existed in my lifetime?
One. Posey. Maybe two depending on how you feel about Mauer.
It's a rare thing indeed.
I hope AR is Wieters with better OBP. That's a hell of a player. It's also not something I would describe as a "middle of the order" bat.
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7 minutes ago, 7Mo said:
I just want one that knows the league and can catch a good game.
Fair enough. But you have to pay for that.
Proposal: O's spend 40m in FA
in Orioles Talk
Posted
You boys are severely underpaid. LOL.