Where do Kjerstad/Westburg fit on the 2023/24 team

[DirtyBird]

I project him as a left handed 2016 Trumbo for 8 straight seasons

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

That doesn't mean we'd enjoy watching him play.  I don't know about you but I'm pretty tired of lumbering power guys that hit .250 with a .290 on base percentage.

That's baseball today.  Tune in at 7:05 for homers at 7:30, 8:20, and 9:45, with a strikeout every three minutes in between.

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's baseball today.  Tune in at 7:05 for homers at 7:30, 8:20, and 9:45, with a strikeout every three minutes in between.

Yeah.  Earlier during the pandemic I watched an old game from the 70s.  It was way better.  More contact, more action.  More baserunning.

[DrungoHazewood]

55 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

Awfully lazy.  Heston never had an OBP under .400 in college, and by all accounts he's a decent RFer with a strong arm.   

Trumbo never reached anything close to questionable RF defense.  Trumbo's best OBP was .317.  

I don't know what Heston will do, but let's not do these lazy negative comps that hurt my head.  

In 2019 Kjerstad was something like 30th in the Southeast Conference in OBP, depending on where you draw the qualifying line.  About 10th in OPS.  In his conference.  I don't have the slightest idea if Arkansas is a good or bad place to hit, but he walked once every 14.3 PAs against college competition.

Trumbo has walked once every 14.8 PAs against MLB competition.

[ArtVanDelay]

32 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yep.  As I've often said, any reasonably high draft pick who doesn't have a 90th percentile career is a disappointment.  Matt Wieters is both the 9th-best #5 pick of all time (out of 55), and a bitter tragedy to many.  Nick Markakis is the 4th-best #7 of all time, and it's not even close, he's 11 wins ahead of the 5th-best (Prince Fielder).  Markakis in no way lived up to his early career projections.

Clearly Markakis and Wieters weren’t disappointments.  Mark Trumbo at #2 wouldn’t be a bust, but would be underwhelming.

[Ruzious]

47 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

In 2019 Kjerstad was something like 30th in the Southeast Conference in OBP, depending on where you draw the qualifying line.  About 10th in OPS.  In his conference.  I don't have the slightest idea if Arkansas is a good or bad place to hit, but he walked once every 14.3 PAs against college competition.

Trumbo has walked once every 14.8 PAs against MLB competition.

Why would you even look that up?

[Sanfran327]

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah.  Earlier during the pandemic I watched an old game from the 70s.  It was way better.  More contact, more action.  More baserunning.

Separate topic, but this is why we'll never be able to "fix" baseball. We may all agree - even unanimously - that the older era of baseball was a better version of the game, but you can't stop evolution. Today's game is highly conservative because so much money is at stake with revenue and contracts. Organizations will try to do whatever they can to protect their investments, so they have pitchers that can only throw one inning for fear of blowing out an elbow or shoulder, and they don't like to take risks on the base paths because a formula told them that there is an minimum AQL for stolen base percentage. 

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Sanfran327 said:

Separate topic, but this is why we'll never be able to "fix" baseball. We may all agree - even unanimously - that the older era of baseball was a better version of the game, but you can't stop evolution. Today's game is highly conservative because so much money is at stake with revenue and contracts. Organizations will try to do whatever they can to protect their investments, so they have pitchers that can only throw one inning for fear of blowing out an elbow or shoulder, and they don't like to take risks on the base paths because a formula told them that there is an minimum AQL for stolen base percentage. 

Right.  And also in regards to evolution, we're reaching a point where all the pitchers are just going for a strikeout and batters don't care about strikeouts.  20+ years ago, 93-95 mph was fast.  Now it's mediocre.  

That's not going to go backwards.  

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, Ruzious said:

Why would you even look that up?

I didn't want to be accused of being lazy.  I like facts to tell the story.  I hope Kjerstad works out, but it's not ridiculous to suggest that he might end up with a hitting profile similar to Mark Trumbo's.  Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.  Mark Trumbo was a good hitter.  He just wasn't someone who worked out as a 30-year-old free agent signing.

[DrungoHazewood]

50 minutes ago, Sanfran327 said:

Separate topic, but this is why we'll never be able to "fix" baseball. We may all agree - even unanimously - that the older era of baseball was a better version of the game, but you can't stop evolution. Today's game is highly conservative because so much money is at stake with revenue and contracts. Organizations will try to do whatever they can to protect their investments, so they have pitchers that can only throw one inning for fear of blowing out an elbow or shoulder, and they don't like to take risks on the base paths because a formula told them that there is an minimum AQL for stolen base percentage. 

We'll never be able to fix it if the going-in rules are that we can't really change anything of substance.

But I could (and have) laid out a way to get back to a game with more contact, more baserunning, and more action.  Limit teams to nine pitchers, deaden the ball, make the bats bigger, limit pickoff throws, make parks bigger.  Someone just has to have the will to do those things.  If base stealing doesn't merit the risk because of the analysis, change the game so it makes sense to run.  It's the rules of the game of baseball, not the Ten Commandments.

[AnythingO's]

Back to the topic of where these guys fit on some future team; where do these guys go this year if there are no minors playing? Where do our new analytics and player development staffs get to work with them? We picked now 4 players that have most on here scratching our collective heads. They all seem to have some flaw that in prior regimes would have been fatal flaws as we sucked at development. I'm trying to find a silver lining in looming dark clouds. How are these guys going to get the reps and oversight to begin fixing those flaws in 2020?

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, AnythingO's said:

Back to the topic of where these guys fit on some future team; where do these guys go this year if there are no minors playing? Where do our new analytics and player development staffs get to work with them? We picked now 4 players that have most on here scratching our collective heads. They all seem to have some flaw that in prior regimes would have been fatal flaws as we sucked at development. I'm trying to find a silver lining in looming dark clouds. How are these guys going to get the reps and oversight to begin fixing those flaws in 2020?

I expect they will be working out under close supervision in Sarasota.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, Roll Tide said:

Just looking at the Hobgood draft and their were 13 suplemental picks after round 1 and only 1 player, Boxberger, panned out from that group (has been an allstar). I'd be willing to bet the results are similar year over year.

I would not say that.    You’ll remember my thread from a couple weeks ago, “some drafts are better then others,” where I summarized information about the top 30 picks over a 20 year period.    I recall as I was gathering the information that there were quite a few 1s picks who would have been among the top 5 1st rounders in their class if I had done the list that way.    

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I didn't want to be accused of being lazy.  I like facts to tell the story.  I hope Kjerstad works out, but it's not ridiculous to suggest that he might end up with a hitting profile similar to Mark Trumbo's.  Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.  Mark Trumbo was a good hitter.  He just wasn't someone who worked out as a 30-year-old free agent signing.

At 9.5 rWAR, Mark Trumbo would be above the median for all no. 2 overall picks.    I wouldn’t be thrilled at all with that outcome, but it wouldn’t be terrible.    

Based on Elias’ comments, I think it’s likely that Kjerstad is a far better defensive OF than Trumbo.     
 

[wildbillhiccup]

5 hours ago, DrungoHazewood said:

That's baseball today.  Tune in at 7:05 for homers at 7:30, 8:20, and 9:45, with a strikeout every three minutes in between.

It's really not for the true stars...which is what you should be looking for when you have the no. 2 pick.