Like I said, you're grasping at straws man. I thought it was obvious I was talking about the things that go into a shift and positioning your players on the field. Along with head to head ratios against specific pitchers on your roster. As well as all of the other "new" stats that get put into practice in real time on the field not in looking back at a completed career.

Let us keep in mind the original statement that sparked my response. This is all I was replying to.

"It doesn't matter how good you are, no one can survive in the league or experience prolonged success striking out more times than they get a hit. "

I think YOU are the one grasping at straws now realizing that as stated it was an overstatement.

I guess time will tell, won't it? Today's game is totally different from the players you've brought up. None of them faced the advanced stats Bryant will have to play against. It is a new game.

Were you not arguing with me not too long ago though that we don't need those stats to know how good players are?

In a general sense, no. I can look at Bryant's K rate and know he won't succeed. But I'm not managing a team and trying to get him out, am I?

What do you think of Trout? He has a pretty high K rate although of course not as high as Bryant's (so far).

My original argument even compared Bryant to R.Howard. So even though it is possible to sustain a career with these types of numbers, most would agree that these aren't HOF careers. I know R.Jackson is a HOF, but he is usually on people's list of worst HOF members. Thome struck out, but he also had a great BB% . He ended his career 7th in career BB.

Also the spread between hits and strikeouts is a lot bigger with KB. KB gets a hit 78% as much as he SO. Thome-91% and R.Jackson 99%. Again obvsioulsy KB has just started out, but this isn't about whether he can have a long career but more about is it too early to consider him the next great player and I just feel he got a lot more hype than the numbers suggest.

Trout is fine. Power isn't his only game. He does a lot of other things well, like get on base.

We agree there.

Agreed, but probably most people with high expectations for Bryant believe he can substantially improve on his strikeouts. Trout did I think. Harper has. Why not him?

Actually Trout had more Ks than hits in his MVP season.

That is a good comparison of the best you can expect, but Trout also benefits from a high BABIP. Yet his can be explained by more Line Drives compared to Fly Balls.

Trout FB%=38.5%
Bryant FB% = 45.4%

Ground Ball to Fly Ball ratio:
Trout = 1.02
Bryant = .75

My theory is that Bryant with his upper cut swing can't maintain his 2015 numbers. His dad ingrained him with this swing, it is great for hitting home runs but it isn't great for getting on base.

High five to the person who in response to the BEST PLAYER IN THE GAME stated "he'll be alright - he does more than hit for power."

I think the game has changed in how strikeouts are viewed. George Brett said when he played, a strikeout was viewed as a bad at bat. That's not true in today's game.

Trout strikes out a lot, but it's because he's asked to hit more home runs. Also, he's a complete player in a way that Bryant isn't. Trout also won the MVP in his worst professional season. He is the player people want Bryant to be, but I don't see it in Bryant. Although I wouldn't have expected Harper to change his approach so drastically like he did last season, so anything is possible. Harper was able to cut his BB / K rate almost to 1:1. That's really impressive.

I think Harper finally realized his raw talent was only going to take him so far. A hitter that good with serious discipline at the plate is a frightening prospect.

It was especially impressive to see a player do that while he was so young. Bryant played a full college career, so I think his faults might be a little more ingrained in him than Harpers were.

That's an interesting hypothesis, that college guys might have more engrained "faults." Do you know if anybody has looked into that for a study or anything?

It'd be really interesting for Bryant vs. Harper, as u believe they were both born in 1992.

He's not grasping at straws at all. You made a bold statement:

In response, he gave you the names of several players who did quite clearly have sustained success while having more strike outs than hits for their careers.

Reggie Jackson is a Hall of Famer.
Jim Thome will be a Hall of Famer.
Jose Canseco hit 462 home runs.
Ryan Howard has hit 362 home runs, and will likely cross 400 home runs.
Cecil Fielder hit 319 home runs, and drove in over 1,000.

Instead of telling him "you're grasping at straws", perhaps you should do a little research first before making statements like the one you did.

Or, he could have simply said, you're right I overstated my position. :eek:

Ok I take it back. I'll use the word hard instead. It's hard to succeed striking out that much. I was being hyperbolic.

See, we now have a consensus, we didn't even need to argue. :D

I concede. But I still think being paired up with those guys doesn't bode well for you. Even if 2 of them are HOFers. Although I give a pass to Thome because he's still one of my favorites.

On a slightly related note, just saw on Wikipedia that Harper and Bryant knew each other growing up and started playing baseball with each other at the age of nine (both were born in 1992 in Las Vegas).

Those must have been some fun neighborhood pick up games to be a part of.

i'm not a bryant guy at all, tbh i kind of don't like him...but comparing him to dunn is ludicrous. in that screengrab between bryant and dunn there's one thing that should totally stand out to differentiate the two...dunn never put up a WAR season ever that compared to bryant's rookie year! the argument pretty much stops there.

and yes extreme small sample size bias. he may not be harper or trout, but he'll be fine. the pitchers make adjustments, and it seems like bryant is already changing his approach. chicago's front office have very smart people working who are in-tuned with advanced metrics that even we don't know about and probably have built various models pertaining to bryant's career. he's in good hands.

You obviously are missing the point of the posts. The WAR is a number based on the numbers that were put up against certain opponents based in his comparables. Yet if he got "lucky" with an upper cut swing allowing balls to drop in, as I have been hypothesizing, than I am stating we are going to see similar results to Dunn's in the future.

He has been working on leveling out his swing and if he can find comfort in this new swing (as he has the last couple of days) then he will be fine. He has been striking out less and walking more this season. Now it is going to be about ball placement. He definitely is showing improvement, now we just have to see if he can hold it.

My point of this thread was not if he had a good rookie season, but that I think there were red flags that people seemed to be ignoring while investing in his cards and hyping his talents.

Curious if opinions on Bryant being "overhyped" have changed any. Last night he was 5 for 5 with 3 home runs, 2 doubles and 6 RBIs. For the season, he's hitting .278 with 59 runs scored, 19 doubles, 21 home runs, 57 RBI. He leads the league in run scored, home runs, and is third in RBI. He's slashing .367/.567/.934. His 3.6 WAR is the 7th highest of any position player in baseball.

As I stated in the post previous to this one in April, he changed his approach to the plate and was showing signs of improvement.
I believe that if he can maintain this approach he will be very good, but that still doesn't change my perspective that people were ignoring real issues in his rookie season. I think this is the real season that shows who he is as a player, and he has proven himself as someone that can adapt for the better. If he hadn't adapted and changed his approach we weren't going to see anything better than we had the first month of this season. Changing your approach at the plate is a very hard thing to do, but he has been doing it for a couple of months now and seems to be getting better.

He now has a .304 BABIP compared to his 2015 .378. This helps illustrate that he has drastically changed to be able to maintain the BA he had last year while adding on to his SLG numbers.

So my answer is yes and no. I believe just looking at his RC season he was overrated, as many RCs are. Yet his ability to adapt shows me that he is no longer overrated but may be the real deal going forward.

I think he is putting together a good season and making some adjustments at the plate that are definitely improving his game. You can't argue with the production. I still think he's striking out too much.