Gunnar Henderson 2022

[Paul in Virginia]

Myriad Orioles Thoughts: June’s vibes; bullpen relief; the Gunnar Henderson train - The Athletic

Dan Connolly:

...Not many scouts are going to criticize someone so young with such lofty numbers at the top of the minor-league hierarchy. But they normally find something they don’t like, and often that’s on the defensive end.

Considering Henderson is 6-foot-2, 210 pounds and is still filling out, the whispers have been about his moving off shortstop when he gets to the majors.

But three scouts I talked to recently all believe the 2019 second-rounder can play shortstop at the big-league level. Maybe Henderson gets shifted to third to make room for a slicker, showier shortstop, but it won’t be because Henderson can’t handle it, I’ve been told...

[RZNJ]

I'm going to have to pinch myself.   It keeps getting better.   

[Sports Guy]

4 hours ago, Paul in Virginia said:

Myriad Orioles Thoughts: June’s vibes; bullpen relief; the Gunnar Henderson train - The Athletic

Dan Connolly:

...Not many scouts are going to criticize someone so young with such lofty numbers at the top of the minor-league hierarchy. But they normally find something they don’t like, and often that’s on the defensive end.

Considering Henderson is 6-foot-2, 210 pounds and is still filling out, the whispers have been about his moving off shortstop when he gets to the majors.

But three scouts I talked to recently all believe the 2019 second-rounder can play shortstop at the big-league level. Maybe Henderson gets shifted to third to make room for a slicker, showier shortstop, but it won’t be because Henderson can’t handle it, I’ve been told...

I read this as he can make almost all the plays and throws but maybe he lacks some range to get to everything around him.

Is that supposed to make me care?  Like don’t get me wrong, I get that you want your SS to cover as much ground as possible but if he learns to position himself, he will get to almost everything.  Just look at Cal.

Tony has regularly talked about how athletic Henderson is and that he moves well.  As long as he can play a steady SS and get to most balls, I don’t feel a need to move him.  Now, if you get someone who is even better and it makes and you have the room, so be it (ala Hardy/Manny) but I don’t think you have to feel he must move from SS, at least not now.  Maybe you feel different after a year or 2 but let’s just wait and see first.

[Can_of_corn]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I read this as he can make almost all the plays and throws but maybe he lacks some range to get to everything around him.

Is that supposed to make me care?  Like don’t get me wrong, I get that you want your SS to cover as much ground as possible but if he learns to position himself, he will get to almost everything.  Just look at Cal.

Tony has regularly talked about how athletic Henderson is and that he moves well.  As long as he can play a steady SS and get to most balls, I don’t feel a need to move him.  Now, if you get someone who is even better and it makes and you have the room, so be it (ala Hardy/Manny) but I don’t think you have to feel he must move from SS, at least not now.  Maybe you feel different after a year or 2 but let’s just wait and see first.

We are at a point in which positioning should be handled by the team and not the player. 

Range is range and can't be improved on by positioning like in Cal's day.

That being said, Jeter had a lot of value at SS despite not being a good SS.  If Gunnar is adequate at Short and hits a ton, I'm happy with that situation.

[wildcard]

And positioning only works when the pitcher throws the ball where it is called for.

[waroriole]

29 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

We are at a point in which positioning should be handled by the team and not the player. 

Range is range and can't be improved on by positioning like in Cal's day.

That being said, Jeter had a lot of value at SS despite not being a good SS.  If Gunnar is adequate at Short and hits a ton, I'm happy with that situation.

Do you think the coaches had a better idea of where Cal should position himself than Cal?

[Can_of_corn]

4 minutes ago, waroriole said:

Do you think the coaches had a better idea of where Cal should position himself than Cal?

What possible relevance does that have?

 

[waroriole]

4 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

What possible relevance does that have?

 

Players have a better idea of positioning when they’re as experienced as Cal. What can a coach offer other than a generic “the numbers say to position here?”

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, waroriole said:

Players have a better idea of positioning when they’re as experienced as Cal. What can a coach offer other than a generic “the numbers say to position here?”

They have terabytes of data.  They have teams of highly educated professionals working on collecting and analyzing the data.

They are doing a lot more than offering a generic "stand over thataway".

No player's internal database can compete with that. 

How many at bats did Cal see Wade Boggs hit (I'm guessing 18 years in the same division Boggs would be the most often faced)?  

Boggs faced the O's 850 times in his career.  Lets say Cal was at short or third for 820 of them.  Boggs had 758 PA in 1985.  In the modern game every one of those is tracked.

You can't compete with that amount of information. 

 

[waroriole]

36 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They have terabytes of data.  They have teams of highly educated professionals working on collecting and analyzing the data.

They are doing a lot more than offering a generic "stand over thataway".

No player's internal database can compete with that. 

How many at bats did Cal see Wade Boggs hit (I'm guessing 18 years in the same division Boggs would be the most often faced)?  

Boggs faced the O's 850 times in his career.  Lets say Cal was at short or third for 820 of them.  Boggs had 758 PA in 1985.  In the modern game every one of those is tracked.

You can't compete with that amount of information. 

 

You assume they’re able to process all the details that a player will instinctually know with experience. 

[Can_of_corn]

3 minutes ago, waroriole said:

You assume they’re able to process all the details that a player will instinctually know with experience. 

I think the information will be provided for them in digestible form.

It's their job to work with this stuff.

They don't just show up 10 minutes before the Anthem and suit up.

If they can't process the data provided for them why do you think they can put it together naturally?

How much "instinctual" data is a player going to have based off of recollections of 40 at bats over three seasons?  Do you think that data should be used?

Do we want Mateo basing his positioning off of what Joey Votto did in a three game series two years ago?

Does that sound like a good strategy?

 

We don't have Weaver and his index cards anymore.

 

[emmett16]

Gunnar has some impressive at bats.  I continue to be impressed every time I watch him play.  

[Hallas]

37 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think the information will be provided for them in digestible form.

It's their job to work with this stuff.

They don't just show up 10 minutes before the Anthem and suit up.

If they can't process the data provided for them why do you think they can put it together naturally?

How much "instinctual" data is a player going to have based off of recollections of 40 at bats over three seasons?  Do you think that data should be used?

Do we want Mateo basing his positioning off of what Joey Votto did in a three game series two years ago?

Does that sound like a good strategy?

 

We don't have Weaver and his index cards anymore.

 

 

I think that you're wrong to imply that they only had data for games they matched up against.  Teams did have advance scouts that watched a large percentage of games, and the scouting teams were much larger than they are today.  I recall that Duquette made a big stink because he shrank the scouting department.  Well in the age of statcast they're not as important.  But it was time consuming work without the tracking equipment set up.

 

As it regards to individual players such as Cal, I think that the player has some leeway regarding exact positioning that can be the difference between a single and a ground out.  I don't believe most coaches at the MLB level are going to micromanage players to the inch.  If a player, even one from today's game, wants to shade a step or two in one direction or another, he probably has the freedom to do so.  Also, a player can be expecting a ball to one side of him, making their first step in that direction much faster.  I would expect that for a player like Cal, anticipation such as this was key to being able to get to balls that would otherwise be out of his reach.   Baseball is a game of inches, they say.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Hallas said:

 

I think that you're wrong to imply that they only had data for games they matched up against.  Teams did have advance scouts that watched a large percentage of games, and the scouting teams were much larger than they are today.  I recall that Duquette made a big stink because he shrank the scouting department.  Well in the age of statcast they're not as important.  But it was time consuming work without the tracking equipment set up.

 

As it regards to individual players such as Cal, I think that the player has some leeway regarding exact positioning that can be the difference between a single and a ground out.  I don't believe most coaches at the MLB level are going to micromanage players to the inch.  If Cal wants to shade a step or two in one direction or another, he probably has the freedom to do so.  Also, a player can be expecting a ball to one side of him, making their first step in that direction much faster.  I would expect that for a player like Cal, anticipation such as this was key to being able to get to balls that would otherwise be out of his reach.   Baseball is a game of inches, they say.

Sure, 100%, but that falls more under what I was talking about than the instinctual through experience style Waroriole was expounding.

 

I'm sure players can deviate by a step or two, but the data is going to be more sound, over a season, than their "instincts".

[Hallas]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sure, 100%, but that falls more under what I was talking about than the instinctual through experience style Waroriole was expounding.

 

I'm sure players can deviate by a step or two, but the data is going to be more sound, over a season, than their "instincts".

 

Both the tracking data and scouting data is experience/evidence based and are not really instinctual.  The difference is that 1: the tracking data is far more precise, and 2: the language used in scouting data is much more subjective.  Instead of having the exact direction and exit velocity of every ball hit, they have a scout saying, "big man hit ball far, he usually pulls the ball."  The latter is a similar conclusion to what statcast would tell you, but with much less specificity and more subjective language.

 

I think that for things like positioning, old school managers were stuck on tradition so they purposely ignored it, or they were Earl Weaver and were able to make excellent use of a rudimentary and disparate collection of stats.