Joe Jordan on Hobgood's selection: "I am due scrutiny on that."

[Stotle]

I see you've edited your post from a clear and unequivocal "YES" to "Better than anyone else around here!".

So, did you do a high level anaylysis or not?

You're too much...

It never changed from an "unquivocal yes".

The bolded isn't at all what I said -- nice try.

"If the player does good the pick was good."

That's the standard I that I added as a baseline for what my "unequivocal yes" actually means. I said nothing about anyone specifically or generally -- just that I put heavy analysis into it, and that heavy analysis is certainly more than looking at the results of a single player.

Are you going somewhere with this questioning or is this the patented RZNJ policing of posts to make sure no one is hypocritical? It's a valuable service you provide...

[Stotle]

I deal with process tuning all the time. The results of the process are indeed inputs in both assessing and modifying the process. They are not independent. Of course (and maybe you are saying this) one result is not a good sample size to label the process as a whole.

This is a results oriented business however. People have been called on the carpet for less. For example, some people supposedly lost their jobs with LAA for the Kazmir trade.

I think this is what happened: Jordan did not think MH was the best player available in terms of his combination of "ceiling" and "probability of reaching his ceiling". I DO think he consciously tried a trick shot of getting a high ceiling project who would a) stagger the talent so he wasn't so close to all our ~23 year old pitchers and b) allow us to spend the money we saved later in the draft. I think some would have preferred that he just go for the best player, but I think he intentionally went in a non-conventional route.

Fair point and poor wording on my part for coming off that way. The results are ultimately what matters, absolutely. My point was indeed that one pick is not indicative of anything with some context (and even with context, it is a small sample size).

If we were to learn that the Hobgood selection was the product of a body-type, personality type, etc. set of studies, and Hobgood turned out to be a good MiL prospect and ML contributor, you could certainly point to it and say, "The process that Jordan used here seemed to find an excellent value pick that lots of people missed." But just looking at a name and slot and using results to judge the pick is....incomplete analysis, in my opinion.

I think the bolded is a good read on the situation. I also think it is the "general" thinking behind some other pick-types we've seen repeated by the organization. Some resulting in solid results and some resulting in somewhat disappointing results, thus far.

[Stotle]

Where I"m going is pretty obvious, I think. You say no one should criticize Jordan without doing some high level analysis. Apparently you are the only one who has done such an analysis around here, and thus the only one qualified to criticize the pick. I find that funny.

I think Jordan would get a kick out of it too.

I didn't say any of that. I said that if someone is "calling for his head" or "calling him a bad evaluator" then the person doing the "calling" should have more to back it up than the performance of any particular player.

What part of that do you disagree with, and why are you trying to paint me in this light? I honestly don't think a sincere reading of my post leads to anything your accusing me of.

[Arthur_Bryant]

Hobgood was a big kid so conditioning and keeping himself in shape was mentioned but no one saw it as some huge red flag, which it has become.

It was mentioned plenty, IIRC, especially given the fact that he had had to work himself into shape to have that great senior season. Numerous people, including myself, saw it as a big potential pitfall when an 18-YO kid is having weight problems.

The other side of the coin is that he had the discipline to drop the pounds and put himself in condition. But the red flag was definitely apparent from Day One. I was surprised that it didn't figure more prominently in Jordan's thinking, to judge from his comments at the time.

[LookinUp]

The other side of the coin is that he had the discipline to drop the pounds and put himself in condition.

The third side to the coin was that he was built like a horse, so people thought he'd be more durable than your typical pitcher.

I think all three points came into play, being 1) red flag was weight, 2) hard worker because he lost weight and 3) built like a horse so maybe he'll be an innings eater.

It must suck to face such scrutiny as a 19 y.o. I really hope the kid can turn it around.

[Can_of_corn]

I went back and found the main Hobgood thread from the time he was drafted. Kudos to you, Mr. Bryant for being one of the few tht mentioned his weight as a possible issue. I read the first 12 pages (approximately 200 posts) and saw numerous scouting reports, none of which mentioned the weight as an issue. To the contrary, most mentioned his physique as a plus. Here are the few (again, I ran out of gas and didn't read the final 9 pages) who questioned him putting on more weight.

Really, it's the posters who mentioned it as an issue. I didn't see one scouting report in the thread, including the one from MLB, that mentioned it as an issue, let alone a huge red flag.

I said this at the time:

So the fact that Hobgood was 260-265 last winter you see as a good thing? If he had a stong work ethic he wouldn't have goten so big in the first place. It is a good sign that he dropped the 10-20 pounds but he had a lot of incentive to do so. Hopefully a couple million in his pocket won't affect his ability to remain focused on keeping himself in shape.

[Stotle]

Really, it's the posters who mentioned it as an issue. I didn't see one scouting report in the thread, including the one from MLB, that mentioned it as an issue, let alone a huge red flag.

I can't say for sure, but I would bet that a lot of actualy reports submitted by ML area scouts address it as a concern. Outside of a couple of internet sources (very limited) there isn't a lot of analysis out there that matches-up well with what actual scouts think (in my opinion).

Baseball America pointed to it as a reason he was more likely to go in the 2nd Rd, but didn't exactly call it a concern.

[Nigel Tufnel]

Yes, hence the idea of working within a budget. He still seems to state that wasn't a factor with the Hobgood choice (bolded above).

I think we more or less agree with each other. It just sounded to me like Jordan said that money WAS an issue, since he had to save salary in the first round to do what he wanted in later rounds. To me, that sounds like the overall budget wasn't big enough.

Completely agree that Jordan drafted Hobgood because he liked him. I just think that if the draft budget had been increased by, say, 25% of Atkins's salary, then Jordan would have taken someone else.

[Can_of_corn]

I think we more or less agree with each other. It just sounded to me like Jordan said that money WAS an issue, since he had to save salary in the first round to do what he wanted in later rounds. To me, that sounds like the overall budget wasn't big enough.

Completely agree that Jordan drafted Hobgood because he liked him. I just think that if the draft budget had been increased by, say, 25% of Atkins's salary, then Jordan would have taken someone else.

Kind of amusing with all this talk about having a budget, the O's actually exceeded the budget for that draft by $800,000 (Givens).

[Flosman]

I think the Hobgood pick was poor for many reasons, one of them being the injury factor for young pitchers. So yes, he took that risk on a player that was rated much lower by every other team and because of that, if Hobgood doesn't pan out, for any reason, JJ deserves the blame.

I think JJ liked Hobgood and the money came in when he viewed Hobgood as just as good as the others and he could be signed much cheaper. I don't think there is a problem with this if he thought he was just as good a bet.

Misses on high picks happen. For all the talk about the Rays they are just over 50% on their picks.

[Lateralus]

I think JJ liked Hobgood and the money came in when he viewed Hobgood as just as good as the others and he could be signed much cheaper. I don't think there is a problem with this if he thought he was just as good a bet.

Misses on high picks happen. For all the talk about the Rays they are just over 50% on their picks.[/QUOTE]

I think O's fans would be jumping for joy if they had a 50% return on their picks.

[NCRaven]

I think we more or less agree with each other. It just sounded to me like Jordan said that money WAS an issue, since he had to save salary in the first round to do what he wanted in later rounds. To me, that sounds like the overall budget wasn't big enough.

Completely agree that Jordan drafted Hobgood because he liked him. I just think that if the draft budget had been increased by, say, 25% of Atkins's salary, then Jordan would have taken someone else.

To be accurate, I don't think Jordan said that he needed to save money in the first round so that he could do things that he wanted in later rounds. But that, as it turned out, saving money in the first round did let him do more with overdrafted players later in that draft. A subtle but important, I think, distinction. He didn't draft Hobgood to save money, but when it turned out he did save money, he could use that to sign some of the later round picks to larger than slot contracts.

[NewMarketSean]

If Hobgood wasnt a value pick then Jordan saw something no one else saw. Yeah it is on him what happens now.

Yup, value pick or not, it's on Jordan.

[NewMarketSean]

Kind of amusing with all this talk about having a budget, the O's actually exceeded the budget for that draft by $800,000 (Givens).

And burn $5 million on Garrett Atkins.

[Flosman]

I think JJ liked Hobgood and the money came in when he viewed Hobgood as just as good as the others and he could be signed much cheaper. I don't think there is a problem with this if he thought he was just as good a bet.

Misses on high picks happen. For all the talk about the Rays they are just over 50% on their picks.[/QUOTE]

I think O's fans would be jumping for joy if they had a 50% return on their picks.

They have about the same results check it out.