Duquette on Trumbo

[schittenden]

I saw this in Tom Boswell's chat today and thought some of you might find it interesting...

But then, luckily for hitters, most pitchers can't REALLY target the ball all that precisely. Want proof?

Mark Trumbo:

http://m.mlb.com/player/444432/mark-trumbo

He's hit 40 home runs. Only FOUR of them have been on pitches on the outer third of the plate or up-and-away or low-and-away. But you still see people throw him strikes on the inside third.

There will always be a home for a "mistake hitter" who clubs it when he gets one where he wants it.

I asked Dan Duquette what made him want to trade for Trumbo when few others wanted him after last season. (Duquette gave up an obscure back-up catcher named Clevenger who has four homerss in six seasons.) Duquette said that the Orioles study stats to look for "comparables" __comparable players after the same number of years playing pro ball. (Not age, but pro experience, if I understood him correctly.)

"Every year Trumbo kept coming up as a 'comparable' to a player on our team __though Trumbo started his career a class (year) sooner," said Duquette.

And who was that "comparable player?"

"Manny Machado."

Rim shot.

Also, given all of the hand wringing going on about Machado's baserunning on the OH and him not running hard out of the box on long fly balls, here is Boswell's take in response to a question about Harper...

Q: Harper

What do the Nats do about Harper and his outbursts? Does anyone in the organization hold him accountable for his actions? Its been five years and he still hasn't learned how to control himself. Between the ejections and his admiring his own hits rather than running hard out of the box, he seems like a nightmare for a manager to deal with.

A:

If he were a "team leader" type, then it would be a problem. But he's a superstar type. Very different.

He admires too many almost-home-runs. But not as many as Ramos. Again, if you are trying to be a true team leader, someone who never ever lets up, who plays the game "the right way" 99 percent of the time, who sets an example and who is deeply upset when he doesn't live up to that standard -- like Murphy and Werth now and Desmond in the past -- then it's a problem. That's not Harper. He plays hard -- MORE than hard enough. And he has bursts of remarkable (eye-catching) intensity. But he isn't the relentless mature grinder/leader yet that two of his heroes were -- George Brett and Pete Rose.

That comes in a long response, but I thought it was relevant to the discussion of the Manny discussion.