Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 214: B.J. Upton and Fixing Mechanical Flaws/Scouting and the International Draft

Episode Date: May 31, 2013

Ben and Sam discuss B.J. Upton’s slump and mechanical flaws, then talk about the impact an international draft would have on scouting.

Draft's in nine days. I don't want any surprises. You're talking about one of the best scouts baseball's ever seen. You're talking about the guy that signed Ralph Garth, Dusty Baker, Dale Murphy, Tom Glavin. All due respect, Pete, the game's changed. It's so much bigger now. It's global. Needs somebody to keep up with the times. Good morning and welcome to episode 214 of effective luau to the daily podcast from baseball perspectives i'm sam miller with ben linberg

ben do you want to do the logo update yeah uh the logo update is that we have one uh we we put out a call on yesterday's episode for for some generous listener to make a logo for us. And before 10 a.m., we had one. Our listeners are pretty cool. So we got a logo that I think looks pretty snappy. It was made by Justin Wieners. You can follow him on Twitter at Justin Wieners. It is spelled the same way that my grammar school teacher, Miss Wiener, spelled her name, but with an S at the end. She was a very brave lady to teach small boys with that name. And you can see his other web design work at justinwieners.com. So thank you, Justin, for coming through so quickly. And I guess while we're talking about listeners,

I will put out a call for iTunes ratings and reviews because I've noticed that we get none when I don't ask for them. And then when I do ask for them every 30 episodes or so, we get a flurry of them, which is probably why every other podcast starts by telling people to rate and review them on iTunes. Yeah, just imagine if we start just reading like stamps.com promos like other podcasts. Yeah, exactly.

So if you have a chance over the weekend and you listen to our show and think it is worthy of being rated and reviewed by you, we would appreciate it as it helps us reach new listeners. Do you remember when that reader sent us music that he said we could use, and we both really liked it, and then we never followed up? Yes. Yeah, he sent us music that we could use as theme music, but I've kind of gotten attached to the coming up with a new sound every day. So we did, but that was nice of him also.

All right. What do you want to talk about today? B.J. Upton. Okay. And I'll talk about the international draft as I had intended to do yesterday. Why don't you start? Okay. So I did a radio spot last week. I think it was with a Tennessee station maybe. And they asked me basically how long the Braves should keep playing BJ Upton, who has not hit all season and really hasn't shown any signs of coming out of that. I mean, he's hitting 146 on the season, and he's hitting 148 over the last two weeks, and he's hitting zero over the last week.

And without much power, without, I don't know, a ton of OBP, because it's tough to have a lot of OBP when you're hitting 146. He has the lowest true average of any hitter with 150 plate appearances this season. So he has been out of the lineup in the last couple days, and there's been a bunch of talk about his mechanics and what he has to do to fix them. Just looking at a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Upton said it's an easy fix. It won't take long. The Braves hitting coach said, actually, the Braves, like the Royals, have two hitting coaches. Or I guess the Royals now have one one I don't know how many they have now Did either of the Braves' hitting coaches say that he's going to lead the league in not getting hit?

I didn't see that I guess they learned their lesson from Jack Maloof and his rapid demise So Greg Walker, who is their primary primary hitting coach says that there is a flaw there is an excessive load portion of his complex swing the part where he leans back before coming forward the flaw has caused him to be chronically late on fastballs all season the pitcher rise before he straightened his posture and upton ends up leaning back, swinging upward, usually beneath the ball. Is complex swing a, is that a term, or are they saying that his swing is complex?

They're saying, yeah, they're not saying that he looks like he's playing in the complex league or something. But complex swing is not a baseball term that you're aware of? I don't think so. I think they're saying that his swing is complex. Good. And so it says, instead of completely revamping his swing in midseason to try to get Upton back to the simpler style he used five years ago, the Braves and Upton agreed that he would make smaller

but significant adjustment for now by eliminating most of the load mechanisms. So he's been off for the last couple days. Presumably he will come back soon and have some sort of simplified mechanics. Uh, and we'll, we'll see whether that does anything. So I was wondering, cause we,

we talked recently and I don't really remember what the context was. I guess it was when we were talking about hot streaks. Maybe we were talking about how long someone like Miguel Cabrera would have to go hit list before we took him out of the lineup. We're talking about hitter yips. Oh, right. That's right. Okay. So I don't know what we said, but basically we said that we would leave someone who has demonstrated that he's a good hitter in the lineup for kind of a really long time before we do anything about it, I guess, or before we would bench him.

really long time before we do anything about it, I guess, or before we would bench him. So I wonder what the Braves would do when I was asked on the radio, and I guess it was a week or two ago, I basically said, you just kind of have to be patient with a guy like that who is not old and has a pretty long track record of being at least a decent hitter and whom you just signed to a big contract and and have a lot of vested interest in getting straightened out um so how long do you stick with with bj upton if he doesn't improve do you keep running him out there do you wait until his swing looks good to let him play again or do you think that basically he could just kind of click at any time so you just keep putting him out there because you know he's been good in the past and obviously he has some some secondary value uh so how long do you give a guy like B. Jepton?

He's at 179 plate appearances right now. Do you just let him keep going indefinitely hitting like this, or is there a point at which you just say enough? You know, my instinct is always to say let him keep going indefinitely. And I think that that instinct probably is, well, I think it's a healthy instinct that you shouldn't get married to. And if it sounds like they've identified something that explains him being bad, then that's a lot different than if you're just thinking, wow, how come none of these hits are falling? I mean, if you didn't know about the load and you were just sort of looking at him and saying, well, you know, he's got a 200 BABIP, he's drawing a fair amount of walks,

he's striking out a lot, but he always does, he's on pace to hit 16 home runs, which is like a couple of home runs less than he should have, but not a huge number. You might be able to talk yourself into thinking that he's just in a slump, but if they've discovered some mechanism by which he's doing poorly, you take it a lot more seriously. I mean, one thing is that Upton is not Miguel Cabrera. Upton is not a guy that you think is definitely immune to this sort of a thing. From 2010 to 2012, he had a lower OPS plus than Logan Morrison and Alex Avila and Daniel Murphy and Ryan Domet and Kristen Norfia and a whole lot of guys, John Jaso, a whole lot of guys who you wouldn't, if they slumped like this,

you wouldn't think, well, he's certainly going to bounce back. Guys fall apart. As a hitter, he probably isn't really a name hitter. He's kind of a name player because of his total contribution. But in a lot of ways, the bat is, you know, maybe the weakest part of his game, maybe. I mean, basically you like him because his bat is okay. It's been pretty good and he runs runs well, and he plays at a premium position.

So, you know, if Johnny Gomes were hitting like this, we wouldn't be talking about it. For all I know, Johnny Gomes is hitting like this, or David Murphy is hitting like this, and they've basically been the exact same hitters as B.J. Upton over the last three years, not counting this year even. So Upton's obviously quite a bit below those guys now. So, you know, like I don't think that it's a given that Upton's just going to hit his way out of this. So I might be, you know, I might find a reason to disable him for 15 days or something like that i remember we we talked about him over the winter i think when he signed and i don't remember exactly what we talked about but i think

it was something about what kind of player we think he is uh yeah it was uh it was specifically we were talking about whether he's um whether he deserves to be the highest paid of the center field group. Because he was of the five or so center fielders who were available. And it was Bourne, Pagan, Hamilton, Upton, and I don't remember who the fifth one was. But it might have been a center fielder. But it might have been a corner outfielder. I can't remember. But he was, over the previous season, he had been the worst.

Over the previous two seasons, he had been the worst. Over the previous three and over the previous four, he had been the worst. And it was sort of baffling to me that the attention given to him was so much higher than to Pagan, for instance, in Bourne. And so we were wondering whether his age alone, or perhaps his age plus pedigree, made that a smart upside play. Yeah, I was, Ken Rosenthal did a video yesterday where he was talking about how when Upton signed that contract, all of the veteran players or retired players that Rosenthal talked to were really surprised that

he made that much money and kind of questioned it at the time. And so now Rosenthal was bringing it up now that he's struggled. And I didn't think it was a huge overpay at the time. I didn't think it was a sweetheart deal or anything, but it seemed like, I don't know, close to market rate for a free agent, I guess, of his age and abilities. But I don't know. I'm kind of naturally skeptical about mechanical changes, I guess, just because it seems like, I mean, first you have to identify the mechanical changes, I guess, just because it seems like, I mean, first you have to identify the mechanical flaw and then you have to fix it. And I think, I mean, when a player is struggling, I think there's probably a tendency to see certain things as flaws that you wouldn't single out as

flaws if that player were hitting, possibly. I mean, it certainly makes sense that there is a mechanical reason why BJ Upton suddenly can't hit a fastball. But it does seem like sometimes people kind of stretch a little bit, and I don't know whether it's just more of a psychological thing, like let's tell the player that he needs to you know have a higher leg lift or something so that he can focus on that instead of the fact that he's just not hitting he'll feel like he has some agency and he can actually correct it um and it's it's difficult

even when you find a real mechanical flaw and you decide how to fix it, it's hard to do that sometimes. It's hard to maintain that new type of mechanics when you're changing something in season and you're used to the way that you were doing things. It can be hard to stick to that. I did an article once on mechanical changes and just kind of looked to see whether those players actually improved after their changes. And I wasn't going to find anything definitive no matter what I did because obviously those players were all struggling and probably just would have gotten better anyway.

But it was, I don't know, it was inconsistent. It wasn't like every player implemented the mechanical fix and then suddenly went on a tear. Some guys just kind of kept struggling for a while. and fixed it, then I take it somewhat seriously or I have some optimism. If they're rebuilding their swing and if they come back from the offseason and they've got a rebuilt swing or something like that, or if they're old and they're rebuilding their swing rather than fixing a thing, a tick that developed, then I tend to think that that's the last stage before retirement basically. I never want to see somebody go into full rebuild because it just seems like it's probably an indication of madness or sort of general instability. But it doesn't sound like that's what they're talking about with Upton. I mean, they say he developed a bad habit and he needs to break out of it.

So I'm sure that happens. That's what a hitting coach is supposed to do, yeah? Yeah, and some people suggested, I think Keith Law suggested that maybe Upton had tried to hit home runs more last season to kind of cash in in his free agent year, and that maybe that had made some changes, and he did hit a lot of home runs, but he had a low average and struck out a lot.

I mean, he only hit five more than he hit the previous season. So, you know, he was 27 why not yeah so i don't know whether there was anything to that uh if so maybe those kind of habits carried over intensified or something but who knows maybe not the other outfielders by the way that we compared them to were victorino torey Hunter, and Nick Swisher, all of whom, other than Hamilton, got paid considerably less than Upton, even though all have, you know, quite frankly, much better track records. But, you know, age is probably the big Okay. So Ben Badler has been writing about some of the implications of an international draft this week, if an international draft comes into play next year or sometime as they're talking about. He wrote a piece about how trainers and some team officials kind of worry that these decisions are being made without really taking into consideration the players themselves and what the players want and what the players need.

And I think that's a common concern that this is a fairly unjust decision that Major League Baseball is perhaps going to make. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about an article he wrote that ran yesterday about scouts. And we briefly touched on this at one point in the winter, but Battler writes about how a lot of scouts think that this is going to cost them their job, A lot of scouts think that this is going to cost them their job, particularly if they are in countries like Nicaragua, Colombia, Curaçao, that don't produce a couple dozen players a year, that only produce three or four, because the draft will, in a lot of ways,

I don't know, sort of even, I don't know quite how to put it, but take away some of the craft of finding these guys and convincing them to sign with you and building up the relationship with them and really working for a couple of years to get them to sign with you. And this was something that in dollar sign on the muscle was talked about a lot, that the draft, a lot of scouts felt like it fundamentally changed what they did because uh they no longer did they get to really um uh work to to sign guys they basically just

drafted the guys that fell to them and then went over and offered them enough money to sign it wasn't like uh you know you you didn't have to see all the guys because you know you knew a lot of them weren't going to be available to you and you didn't have to see all the guys because you knew a lot of them weren't going to be available to you and you didn't have to build any sort of relationship with them because they didn't have any other options. And so, I don't know, this was just a – it was an interesting article. And I guess from Baseball America's perspective, it's basically a – it's a business story. It's an inside baseball story. It's a trade story.

It's an inside baseball story. It's a trade story. But I just wonder if it makes you – I mean, clearly having a situation where all the teams are able to scout players and see players and do showcases for these players, which will be happening. And making it easier for everybody to see and rate them is a good thing. I mean, I think that it's probably almost certainly the case that with amateurs today, teams have a much better idea about a much higher number of players now than they ever did in 1950 when they had to invest a lot more time to sign their guys and they were you know they there wasn't the draft culture um so in a sense this is you know this is a much more efficient way to do things it's a it's a probably a better way to do things in terms of in terms of identifying talent

evaluating talent and getting talent onto a major league team. And yet it takes away this little skill that has been a big part of baseball. And these guys have crafted their little roles in the sport where they can be excellent in a niche area. Does it make you sad at all that baseball is kind of smoothing out some of those jobs and might be ending the Nicaraguan scout or the Panamanian scout? I guess so. I mean, I don't know that baseball should ever not do something because it would cost scouts jobs.

I mean, I think there tends to be a lot of sympathy for scouts because they have difficult jobs and they don't get a ton of credit and they don't make a lot of money. And I mean, I wish scouts well, and I hope they all keep their jobs. But I don't know that it's a reason not to make a change just because it might impact some scouts. I guess I've kind of come around to the idea that I favor things that I guess that allow teams to differentiate themselves from the other teams because that seems to make baseball more interesting in a way um yeah so so there's

that i guess i i mean i i guess it's less possible for a team to have such a great scouting staff that it is exploiting an inefficiency and giving them a great advantage over other teams. If there is not that ability to... I mean, if signing guys is not really a skill anymore... I mean, scouting is still a skill, but it used to be that I guess there would be a great value to having a scout who was just good at schmoozing basically and good at getting to know people and setting them at ease and making their teams seem more attractive than other teams

so I guess I'm I'm sort of sorry to see that go. But yeah, there probably are advantages and benefits and ways that it would be more efficient the way they're considering doing it. I feel like I'm kind of at this crossroads in my life where I'm sort of – I used to just be coldly efficient and whatever was best or whatever was truest was obviously the right thing. And I feel like I'm getting to a place where eventually I'll be all human-elemented out and I'll just want everything to be just like it was when I was a kid and a younger man. And I'm kind of at this crossroads right now where those two things are kind of meeting in the middle and we talked about it with catcher framing where uh i'm slightly in i'm slightly okay with umpires being terrible at their jobs as long as it gives me catcher framing and um i'm slightly okay with a less efficient i'm i think i might be totally okay with a less efficient scouting system if it means that you have more colorful stories.

When you think about, this is an interesting example based on how we know it turned out, but when you think about awesome scouting stories of the past 15 years in America, there's Albert Pujols, there's the Rays guy, the Rays scout who went out and found Albert Pujols and couldn't talk his team into drafting him. And then there's Toe Nash. And this idea that there's like that you can go out and find this hidden player

is, it's a great, great, great part of baseball history and baseball lore. And you can't really do it in the United States anymore. Toe Nash was a great story because it was so unlikely and impossible and sure enough, Toe Nash was nothing. He was basically a myth and really nothing more at the end of the day. So the idea that at least there's something like this in Latin America where you really

do have to grind to find some of these guys. I mean, there are great stories that come out of Latin America. The Mariano Rivera story, for instance, where the Yankee scout found Ruben Rivera and Ruben Rivera said, oh, by the way, I have this cousin. You should sign him too. And so they signed them both for like nothing. And then a few years later, Ruben Rivera was the next Mickey Mantle and like the number two prospect in baseball and

and Moe was just this sort of okay starter who was coming up I mean that's a great scouting story and you know you don't have a great scouting story about Derek Jeter for instance because all 30 teams saw him all 30 teams essentially knew exactly what he was. And so I don't know. I kind of like the idea that you should make it harder for scouts if possible. But then on the other hand, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why should you do that? It's like a $6 billion interview. Why should we be making guys like, you know, do it the hard way? Yeah. I said at the end of my Grantland thing on catcher framing that what's good for baseball writers is not necessarily good for baseball or maybe usually isn't um so i mean these these kind of stories give us

really interesting things to write about and i guess give people interesting things to read about also which maybe makes them more likely to become baseball fans. But I can't really, I can't really fault a team that is a business and a big business for trying to run itself efficiently. And I guess, I mean, there is a benefit to just making sure that the best players are on the field at all times and making sure that the quality players are on the field at all times and making sure that the quality of play is the highest it can possibly be, I guess? Although, well, is there? I don't know. I guess if the quality of play is lower, but relative to the rest of the world,

it's just as high or just about as high. I don't know. I mean, do people enjoy baseball more because a player now could probably be better than a player plucked out of the 40s and transported to now? I don't know. I mean, I think the higher the standard of play, the more it benefits pitching. And if you think that a pitching know a a pitching rich environment where everybody is striking out eight batters per nine is aesthetically unpleasant as a lot of people think and as that maybe the common fan thinks then you could maybe argue that it's actually

bad for baseball but that's a completely un unthought-out hypothetical so goodness gracious don't hold me to that uh yeah okay well i guess i'm i guess i'm i'm with you there i have the same sort of sentiment um although i guess we we generally it seems like kind of disagree with the consensus on how how the new draft stuff impacts the ability of small market teams to compete. You and I seem to feel like maybe it helps them in the long run because a big market team would have exploited the loopholes or the strategies that small market teams were exploiting first and so ultimately it would help them.

Anyway, I don't know. I agree with the sentiment. Sort of sorry to see that kind of scouting story go, if it goes, but I understand why. All right. Well, I am not sorry to see this week go. We are done with the Friday show. We will be back on Monday with episode 215,

and we hope everybody has a pleasant weekend. And we hope everyone emails us questions at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.