Does Jose Bautista piss you off?

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I pretty clearly stated the years Foster broke out. What about the 6 years in baseball prior to that?

He had 1 halfway decent season from 69' to 75' prior to his breakout year in '76.

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Ben Oglivie is another guy who didn't develop a power swing until he was around 30 or so.

Sometimes you see a guy in the majors that is putting up average numbers and think that he's ready, but if you watch him closely, you just know he's not ready, he's not comfortable, he's not confident. Not to use for comparison to Bautista, but as an example of mindset. Michael Brantley(I know he didn't play much) from the Indians, prior to this year, he'd show some flashes of being good, but didn't look comfortable at the plate at all. He looked scared, in over his head, even more than was reflected in his stats. He looked that bad to me. Now, watching the Indians this year, he looks very confident, very disciplined, he appears to feel as though he belongs, he's ready. And it's showing in his stats...

You can tell when a player is at the plate and he's thinking "please don't strike out, or hit into a double play. If I f*** this up they're gonna send me down", and you can tell when a player is thinking "I'm getting on base, and I don't care how, but I'm doing it".. Right now Bautista is thinking "Go ahead and pitch around me, but if you F*** up, I'm gonna hit the snot out of it."

[Robextend]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

Maybe Bautista is guilty, I don't know, but I'm not going to throw a guy under the bus without any evidence other then "he's doing really well right now".

Agreed. It is certainly reasonable to have some skepticism for his accomplishments, but it is not reasonable to accuse without a sniff of evidence. The OP seemed to imply an accusation over skepticism.

[steve B]

I wouldn't call his performance over the first 4-6 years "barely good enough to stay in the major leagues" Average season? 9.83HR .238 average. Remove his first year when he played for 4 different teams and did pretty much nothing and 05 when he barely played at all, and those numbers would look slightly better for power, less for average 14.75 HR/year .229 average
Not counting 2010 and 2011 his 162 game average for HR is 16.66
A lot of guys have made a career of numbers like that. And a lot of guys have hung around for 10 years or so doing that or less while teams waited for them to live up to their potential.


I'll even go out on a limb with a guy who has been implicated, but not proven to have used. David Ortiz. 6 years in Minn trying to stay in the majors mostly because of management changes plus not being a guy the team had invested in all that heavily. While there they had him trying to be an opposite field slap hitter. Comes to Boston and gets told to swing away. Yes, like many his numbers for his best years are suspect, but some of the improvement has to be attributed to a difference in expectatons and hitting style.
Bautista has had a couple rough years very early in his career. 4 teams his first year! Kingman played for 4 teams in one year, but in the middle of his career. And Bautista has had one split season since. You'd have to be incredibly confident not to be affected by that.

SteveB

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by steve B

I wouldn't call his performance over the first 4-6 years "barely good enough to stay in the major leagues" Average season? 9.83HR .238 average. Remove his first year when he played for 4 different teams and did pretty much nothing and 05 when he barely played at all, and those numbers would look slightly better for power, less for average 14.75 HR/year .229 average
Not counting 2010 and 2011 his 162 game average for HR is 16.66
A lot of guys have made a career of numbers like that. And a lot of guys have hung around for 10 years or so doing that or less while teams waited for them to live up to their potential...

SteveB

Guys like that, Steve, have names like Ron Swoboda. He was pretty much exactly like that for the rest of his career, after hitting something like 10 homers in his first 118 at bats as a rookie in 1965. Ron had 2581 career at bats, hit 73 homeruns (or about 14 to 15 per every 500 AB full season), and batted .242 lifetime. Swoboda lasted 9 years, and it was never a given he was going to make the team in any of them. That's why that kind of performance is called "marginal." Take a tour through the Baseball Encyclopedia or Bill James Major League Handbook, presented by Stats Inc., and you'll find that very few such outfielders last ten years.

I love your passion.

Larry