Would you offer Austin Hays the Scott Kingery deal?

[LookinUp]

8 hours ago, jabba72 said:

There was alot of comments about his bat looking slow his first few weeks and I remember someone posting that the YES announcers mentioned it on their telecast. 

I'm not as vocal as SG, and I certainly don't think Wieters was a top level bust, but I was one person who saw his first game (in person) and was immediately shocked that his swing was so long. It really did look slow.

His movements behind the plate were a different story, to me. I always loved his catch/throw ability. Just, with the bat, I expected a go to #3/4 hitter and instead saw a #6/7 hitter. Not a bust by any means, but like SG said, far from the generational talent we were led to believe we had.

AR might actually be the same, but he has plate discipline on his side so right now I expect him to end up a better player than Wieters. Hopefully significantly so, I just don't know about the bat yet.

[OriolesMagic83]

24 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They got a half a season out of him in 2006.

He ended up with 29 games started as an O's.  His arm just couldn't handle the stress.

Didn't realize it was 29 games.  I was busy w/ school then.  His O's career would be an abject failure.  I'm not sure how you can say Weiters w/ his 16 WAR, and multiple All-Stars/Gold Gloves could be considered a bigger failure. 

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, OriolesMagic83 said:

Didn't realize it was 29 games.  I was busy w/ school then.  His O's career would be an abject failure.  I'm not sure how you can say Weiters w/ his 16 WAR, and multiple All-Stars/Gold Gloves could be considered a bigger failure. 

It didn't help that they gave his rights away on the basis of a handshake deal he reneged on.

Of course a lot of the trouble, outside of his body being unable to hold up, was that they signed him to a ML contract.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Hallas said:

 

I find it really, really hard to apply the "bust" label to a player that that had seasons of 5.7, 4.5, and 3.1 WAR while under team control.   I get the idea that he underperformed expectations, but maybe expectations were dumb if we were expecting him to be Johnny Bench because of one season in AA.

Yea he wasn’t a bust.  Some label him as that but that’s wrong.  But he was definitely a disappointment.

[Frobby]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

It didn't help that they gave his rights away on the basis of a handshake deal he reneged on.

Which was worse, missing out on the 40 plate appearances at a .200/.300/.314 clip (-0.2 rWAR) after leaving the Orioles, or missing out on the 25.1 IP at an 8.88 ERA (-0.8 rWAR)?  I’d say Loewen did us a favor by not taking away development time for other players!

I thought he was in line for a very good season in 2007 before he developed the elbow fracture.   

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Which was worse, missing out on the 40 plate appearances at a .200/.300/.314 clip (-0.2 rWAR) after leaving the Orioles, or missing out on the 25.1 IP at an 8.88 ERA (-0.8 rWAR)?  I’d say Loewen did us a favor by not taking away development time for other players!

I thought he was in line for a very good season in 2007 before he developed the elbow fracture.   

Just because you don't have faith that the Orioles couldn't help him develop as a hitter doesn't mean I share your view.

Yea he ended up not doing much in any regard but there is some value in eating ML innings even at a replacement level.  They were definitely hornswoggled by the young man.   I still fondly remember Roch steadfastly declaring how him staying was a done deal and going silent when he left.

[Frobby]

Back to the subject matter of this thread, the question was posed back before Hays had a year of service time under his belt.   At this point, he’ll have two years of service by the end of the year, so the exact deal Kingery got doesn’t really fit here anymore.   

As much as I like Hays (my favorite player on the team despite Mullins’ feats), I doubt I would be guaranteeing Hays anything unless he came quite cheap.   I still believe in his playing ability but his proneness to injury to this point in his career would make me very reluctant to have to pay him regardless of whether he was on the field.   Of course, if he has a fully healthy second half and ends up playing 130ish games I might be singing a different tune.  
 

[Pickles]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Back to the subject matter of this thread, the question was posed back before Hays had a year of service time under his belt.   At this point, he’ll have two years of service by the end of the year, so the exact deal Kingery got doesn’t really fit here anymore.   

As much as I like Hays (my favorite player on the team despite Mullins’ feats), I doubt I would be guaranteeing Hays anything unless he came quite cheap.   I still believe in his playing ability but his proneness to injury to this point in his career would make me very reluctant to have to pay him regardless of whether he was on the field.   Of course, if he has a fully healthy second half and ends up playing 130ish games I might be singing a different tune.  
 

I love Hays too, but would him playing 80 consecutive games without getting hurt really change your mind and make you feel like you better hurry up and guarantee this guy a bunch of money?

[Pickles]

21 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Just felt he was overrated and that the hype was too much once I got a look at him.  

I remeber the circumstances surrounding Wieters call up pretty well.  And I do remember personally having a lot of concerns about his potential as a middle of the order bat as early as the next spring, and I'm largely just busting your balls here, but I think if a guy comes up with a 1000 career OPS in the minors, you probably shouldn't write off his ability to be a middle of the order bat based on 3 abs against the reigning Cy Young winner.

You may indeed be correct.  But it isn't a good process.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Pickles said:

I remeber the circumstances surrounding Wieters call up pretty well.  And I do remember personally having a lot of concerns about his potential as a middle of the order bat as early as the next spring, and I'm largely just busting your balls here, but I think if a guy comes up with a 1000 career OPS in the minors, you probably shouldn't write off his ability to be a middle of the order bat based on 3 abs against the reigning Cy Young winner.

You may indeed be correct.  But it isn't a good process.

The fallacy in your argument is:

 

1). I wrote him off..that’s just a lie.  I just didn’t feel he would be as good as the hype that he came up with.

2) That it had anything to do with a few at bats vs any one pitcher.

[Hallas]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea he wasn’t a bust.  Some label him as that but that’s wrong.  But he was definitely a disappointment.

This is splitting hairs a bit but I'm having a hard time applying the word "disappointment" to Wieters as well, if only for the fact that no one should enter the Majors with HOF-level expectations based on 1.5 seasons of minor league performance.

[Sports Guy]

3 minutes ago, Hallas said:

This is splitting hairs a bit but I'm having a hard time applying the word "disappointment" to Wieters as well, if only for the fact that no one should enter the Majors with HOF-level expectations based on 1.5 seasons of minor league performance.

Well whether they should or not is irrelevant.  The reality is that he did.

And if all Adley ends up being is a Wieters part 2, he will also be a disappointment.  
 

 

[Hallas]

2 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well whether they should or not is irrelevant.  The reality is that he did.

And if all Adley ends up being is a Wieters part 2, he will also be a disappointment.  
 

 

Weird thing about Adley is that (IMO) us being disappointed by the hype of switch-hitting jesus has somewhat tempered our expectations.  And Fangraphs adjusted their MLEs because Wieters apparently broke them.  So I think that expectations for Adley are different even though he has performed similarly.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Hallas said:

Weird thing about Adley is that (IMO) us being disappointed by the hype of switch-hitting jesus has somewhat tempered our expectations.  And Fangraphs adjusted their MLEs because Wieters apparently broke them.  So I think that expectations for Adley are different even though he has performed similarly.

Not for me.  He’s clearly a better prospect imo.

[Hallas]

5 hours ago, Pickles said:

I remeber the circumstances surrounding Wieters call up pretty well.  And I do remember personally having a lot of concerns about his potential as a middle of the order bat as early as the next spring, and I'm largely just busting your balls here, but I think if a guy comes up with a 1000 career OPS in the minors, you probably shouldn't write off his ability to be a middle of the order bat based on 3 abs against the reigning Cy Young winner.

You may indeed be correct.  But it isn't a good process.

Fangraphs, who was one of the big drivers of hyping him up, ended up adjusting their MLEs which led to Wieters' inflated projections after Wieters' post-callup performance.  So I don't think it's necessarily bad process to require more data here before anointing him a middle-of-the-order bat.  You could argue about using the eye test to make that projection, but its not like SG is saying that he was expecting Wieters to flame out like Todd Van Poppel.