An Example

[rog]

Here is an example of why Randy is foolish to put down analytics the way he does.  Today comes news that Miguel Montero is pretty much retired.  He's not the same Montero, but former Yankees catching prospect Jesus Montero was such a good prospect that in three straight years he was ranked the #4, #3 and #7 major league prospects.

That's higher than Baseball America ranked Buster Posey -- and Montero was ranked that high not once, not twice but three times.

Eight years ago I mentioned to Boly in an e-mail that I believed Brandon Belt -- who was ranked #22 to Montero's #4 -- would outhit Montero.  Belt's career OPS is .811.  Montero hasn't played organized ball since 2017, and he finished his 226 game major league career with a .693 OPS.

I was able to make that prediction not because I had watched Montero play (I hadn't.), but because of analytics.  Keep in mind that I'm a Rookie League sabermetrician compared to the sabermetricians who are employed by the major league teams, and one can see how foolish Randy's embarassing icon is.

Randy would tell us that he gets it, while Farhan doesn't.  Any objective and knowledgeable baseball aficianado would tell us Farhan is in the major leagues, while Randy isn't even in the Rookie League when it comes to knowing baseball.

Wise men know what they don't know.

[rog]

And darned if when I played the video of "The worst baserunning in the history of the game," it hasn't now morphed into one of Andrelton Simmons' highlight films. Took what, 10 minutes?

More than once I have heard announcers say that Simmons is everywhere. Apparently so are his defensive highlight videos. What blows my mind is 25 minutes of his defensive highlights from the 2013 season alone. If there was a more spectacular defensive season by a shortstop, I would need to see it. Wish they had highlights from Ozzie's day (or Willie Mays') like they have today.

Right now I'm doing something I haven't done before -- listening to a Simmons highlight tape without watching it. Of course I can remember the plays just by their description, but simply listening to the excitement and amazement of the announcers is pretty good in itself.