Gunnar Henderson 2023

[Sports Guy]

13 minutes ago, banks703 said:

I have to assume that you’re only trolling at this point. You’re telling us that you would play both Ortiz (the premier SS in the org) and Holliday in the same lineup but put Ortiz at 2B and Holliday at SS. You would play the weakest defender at the most important position. You have to be trolling. 

 

Actually I did misread what Frobby said with his ratings (I read it as 55 vs 60 at SS)

That said, I still do it because of Holliday’s bat/value at SS and because of the eliteness of the glove at 2nd Ortiz would provide.  A 65 glove at second probably wins him the GG and puts him in the top few fielders at the position in the sport.

I will say this though..I would need to see the 50 vs 60 difference on the field vs the numbers on paper. If what I saw on the field was so overwhelmingly different, I may change that.

[Malike]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

What “community” are we talking about?  I’m sure not every scout has the same opinion.   Obviously, Longenhagen is of the opinion that Holiday is not ready to be a major league SS.   He made clear that he believes Holliday can get there with more work.   Who knows what other scouts think.  

The scouting community? I've never seen anyone rate him as average in any of the 5 tool areas. The point of the post that you quoted is exactly what you said in a later post, these numbers change. To guarantee that Holliday will not be a very good shortstop and he lacks the arm to play there, like someone has guaranteed is ridiculous.

He's 19 years old and only going to get better at all facets of his game. He has plenty of arm to play SS and his defensive profiles I've read from BA, MLB.com, The Athletic, and the random article here or there all suggest he's above average right now at 19. I haven't seen a single grade 50 or below on any of his tools.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Malike

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, baltfan said:

Gunnar’s OAA went down after the game yesterday.  Does anyone know how you can find out what play was graded negatively?

It’s not clear if they update these defensive stats every day, or just load them in every few days or so.  So, I wouldn’t necessarily assume that Gunnar got a negative grade for that game.  If so, that’s absurd.  That said, I already mentioned the one-hopper that Carroll hit that bounced off Gunnar’s glove.  That’s the only play that I could see getting any kind of negative grade, though it’s not at all clear that a clean catch and throw could have caught Carroll.  

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Malike said:

The scouting community? I've never seen anyone rate him as average in any of the 5 tool areas. The point of the post that you quoted is exactly what you said in a later post, these numbers change. To guarantee that Holliday will not be a very good shortstop and he lacks the arm to play there, like someone has guaranteed is ridiculous.

He's 19 years old and only going to get better at all facets of his game. He has plenty of arm to play SS and his defensive profiles I've read from BA, MLB.com, The Athletic, and the random article here or there all suggest he's above average right now at 19. I haven't seen a single grade 50 or below on any of his tools.

I already posted Longenhagen’s preseason grade of 45 on his current glove.  So there’s your below average grade.  But Longenhagen also gave him a 60 future grade for that tool.   

[Malike]

1 minute ago, Frobby said:

I already posted Longenhagen’s preseason grade of 45 on his current glove.  So there’s your below average grade.  But Longenhagen also gave him a 60 future grade for that tool.   

Right, we're on the same page here, the contention that Holliday lacks the arm and the ability to play above-average shortstop is a guaranteed no is a ridiculous statement, remains.

[Frobby]

3 minutes ago, Malike said:

Right, we're on the same page here, the contention that Holliday lacks the arm and the ability to play above-average shortstop is a guaranteed no is a ridiculous statement, remains.

I certainly don’t have any independent opinion on Holliday’s current skills or his capacity to improve.  I think it’s fair to say that most 19-year olds have the capacity to improve significantly.  I don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest that Holliday can’t or won’t improve.  

[Malike]

Just now, Frobby said:

I certainly don’t have any independent opinion on Holliday’s current skills or his capacity to improve.  I think it’s fair to say that most 19-year olds have the capacity to improve significantly.  I don’t think I’ve seen anyone suggest that Holliday can’t or won’t improve.  

Logenhagen himself said he believes he will be fine, right now his bat is ahead of his defense.

[baltfan]

For the people saying Holliday has such a bad arm they might want to watch the video in the article.  His arm sure seems on the higher end of the guys in the video. 

[banks703]

8 minutes ago, Malike said:

Right, we're on the same page here, the contention that Holliday lacks the arm and the ability to play above-average shortstop is a guaranteed no is a ridiculous statement, remains.

Just like you can’t teach someone to 7 feet tall for basketball, you can’t teach someone to overcome a lack of arm strength.

Go ahead and subscribe to this idea that you’re holding onto. You don’t have to take my word for it but I’ll extend the same ban-bet to you that I did the other fella on here. I’ll leave the hangout if Holliday ends up at SS. If he ends up at 2B, you have to leave. Deal?

There’s a big difference from reading what people write about a prospect and actually seeing it for your own eyes. What experience do you have to determine that Holliday’s arm is better than below average (because it is in fact below average for a ML SS)? Have you seen him play the 30+ times that I have or the 70ish plays that the writer of the fangraphs article watched?

So, what is your information gathering process that you have used to arrive at the conclusion that what I’m posting, what Tony has posted, what fangraphs wrote, what other prospect outlets have posted (remember, going into the draft last year there were scouts who still suggested that he would be drafted as an OF)? Holliday himself has stated that he grew up a 2B and is most comfortable there and that’s what he considers himself. So, how can you conclude that that information is ridiculous? 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

I’d be pretty surprised if Holliday was 50 points higher than Gunnar and if Gunnar was only an 825 OPS guy.

I played it conservatively on Gunnar for the purpose of making the hypothetical more interesting.  He’s at .808 OPS for his career so far and I’d say he’s got a good chance to be significantly above .825 as he matures and gains experience, but we’ll see. 

Holliday was significantly better at age 19 than Gunnar was at age 20, so I hypothesized a 50 point advantage in the majors.  But Gunnar obviously improved hugely the next year, so Holliday may not have an adventsge that sizeable, if any.  
 

[banks703]

12 minutes ago, baltfan said:

For the people saying Holliday has such a bad arm they might want to watch the video in the article.  His arm sure seems on the higher end of the guys in the video. 

I think you might want to watch it again and pay attention to the plays that he’s making. His moment is going toward first base and his throws are still pretty weak. He has to load his body to make throws that someone like Franco, Jorge, Gunnar, Seager, etc make with ease. He has relatively quick hands but that means almost nothing when you don’t have the arm strength to facilitate quick release.

This is mostly why I think he ends up at 2B. Quick hands are more important than arm strength when turning double plays at 2B

Edited September 2, 2023 by banks703

[Malike]

13 minutes ago, banks703 said:

Just like you can’t teach someone to 7 feet tall for basketball, you can’t teach someone to overcome a lack of arm strength.

Go ahead and subscribe to this idea that you’re holding onto. You don’t have to take my word for it but I’ll extend the same ban-bet to you that I did the other fella on here. I’ll leave the hangout if Holliday ends up at SS. If he ends up at 2B, you have to leave. Deal?

There’s a big difference from reading what people write about a prospect and actually seeing it for your own eyes. What experience do you have to determine that Holliday’s arm is better than below average (because it is in fact below average for a ML SS)? Have you seen him play the 30+ times that I have or the 70ish plays that the writer of the fangraphs article watched?

So, what is your information gathering process that you have used to arrive at the conclusion that what I’m posting, what Tony has posted, what fangraphs wrote, what other prospect outlets have posted (remember, going into the draft last year there were scouts who still suggested that he would be drafted as an OF)? Holliday himself has stated that he grew up a 2B and is most comfortable there and that’s what he considers himself. So, how can you conclude that that information is ridiculous? 

You saying he has a lack of arm strength does not make it true. Nobody is grading his arm as below average, but you. The article you posted by Fangraphs never mentioned arm strength, perhaps you think by Logenhagen saying that he's taking extra steps before his throw means lack of arm, but it doesn't. At the very end, Logenhagen said he'd be fine, just RIGHT NOW, the bat is above the defense, it's not uncommon that one tool grades out earlier than the other with a 19-year-old. You keep saying his arm is bad, though.

The eye test, ah, makes more sense now.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Malike

[banks703]

1 minute ago, Malike said:

You're saying he has a lack of arm strength does not make it true. Nobody is grading his arm as below average, but you. The article you posted by Fangraphs never mentioned arm strength, perhaps you think by Logenhagen saying that he's taking extra steps before his throw means lack of arm, but it doesn't. At the very end, Logenhagen said he'd be fine, just RIGHT NOW, the bat is above the defense, it's not uncommon that one tool grades out earlier than the other with a 19-year-old. You keep saying his arm is bad, though.

The eye test, ah, makes more sense now.

Actually, I posted weeks and months ago that his arm strength was below average. You can find it in my post history. So, try again, pal.

I don’t need someone else to tell me something that I can see for myself.

Nice of you to pass over my question about how you are arriving at the conclusion that you’ve made about his skill set though.

And also pussyfooting past my ban-bet. But good on you, fella.

 

[Malike]

1 minute ago, banks703 said:

Actually, I posted weeks and months ago that his arm strength was below average. You can find it in my post history. So, try again, pal.

I don’t need someone else to tell me something that I can see for myself.

Nice of you to pass over my question about how you are arriving at the conclusion that you’ve made about his skill set though.

And also pussyfooting past my ban-bet. But good on you, fella.

 

This is the thing though. Nobody cares what YOUR eyes tell you. We all know the eye test is silly. I'm not 13 and I'm not making ban bets with a guy who thinks because he's seen 30 games he's a scout. Stop making ridiculous proclamations, for your sake and for ours. 

[banks703]

Just now, Malike said:

This is the thing though. Nobody cares what YOUR eyes tell you. We all know the eye test is silly. I'm not 13 and I'm not making ban bets with a guy who thinks because he's seen 30 games he's a scout. Stop making ridiculous proclamations, for your sake and for ours. 

LOL 

And yet you still haven’t told us how you’ve determined that Holliday is going to be fine as a ML shortstop. Please do.

You're blindly arguing something that you clearly have no personal knowledge or experience to go off of. You’re reading what someone else writes and regurgitating it for what reason?

I don’t think that I’m a scout because I’ve seen 30 of his games. I never claimed that. What I have stated is that I am still loosely involved with high school scouting and that I had worked closely with a scout from another ML team but they my work has made it difficult to continue doing so I am not as involved. But please keep trying to attack me personally to deviate from the argument. You also should Google ad hominem.