I recently wrote about exactly this issue:

http://www.13wham.com/content/news/political/story.aspx?content_id=35895e20-dfdb-453f-b2c1-3ce129c8cbe6

Also! If they’re not giving us more Scott Raab, they are most certainly not giving us what we want.

Chuck,

Now we’re splitting hairs, but he wasn’t three months into his tailspin, either. For the record:

2007 stats

April: 1021 OPS

May: Batted only .228, but walked 28 times, posted an OBP of .394, slugged a modest . 455, and added 11 extra base hits along with 24 RBI.

June: Swoon. 16 walks, .702 OPS.

July 11: Signed 4-year contract

So Chuck, let’s go back to 2007. Hafner is coming off two of the most productive offensive seasons of any Indian in history. He’s still in potential prime years, 29 and about to turn 30.

In April, the only potential red flag was a SLG of .550. In May, you could argue that he fought a hitting funk to post decent numbers for a down month. June was a big problem, but when you consider that the Tribe’s front office had likely been working on the deal for months, you’re telling me that you nuke the deal and walk away?

Re: Garko … let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that you’re a pro scout and I’ve never watched a game of baseball, I’m just looking at the numbers. Then you might have a point. But you’re not a pro scout, and I’ve watched maybe 1000 games over the years, I never really thought to count before.

And while I grant that you might be seeing something that a pro scout would see, I see a merely very deft contact hitter, great hand/eye coordination. He’s got a good eye for strikes but is not a take-and-rake hitter, he’s operating more on gut reaction, more like Belliard (in a good year) than Sizemore if you will. He’s got that knack for putting the ball in play, that thing that all those toolsy busted prospects didn’t have, he’s got it. But he doesn’t have it in massive quantities, he’s not Nomar, let alone Boggs or Gwynn, and he has good power but not impressive or fearsome power. He frankly doesn’t have Dave Dellucci’s power, perhaps in part because his style of hitting isn’t really conducive to big swats.

These observations are informed by the numbers, but it would be just as accurate to say my take on his stats is informed by visual observation of the player at work, and both are further informed by careful reading of the (always PR-biased) reported statements of scouts. I will tilt to the stats only because I have more confidence in my ability to interpret them than I do in my scouting ability—you know the real truth, Chuck, which is that I’m a hack either way, but at least with the stats I can be considered a talented amateur.

Anyway, what this comes down to really is that I think your faith in your own scouting is taken to an extreme, where you’re willing to totally ignore some of the more reliable things we know from 100 years of baseball data. Perhaps more bias is added based on affection for the player or his style of play, and we’re all guilty of that, and maybe you should just admit it.

But anyway, what we know about Garko is that he’s done what he’s done, and he’s already 27, when the average or typical major leaguer peaks. The average 27-29 guy is in mild decline, while the average 25-27 guy is a little projectable, but even at that age, most of his projection is due to continuing adjustments to major league pitching, not due to physiological development. Age 25-27 are nowhere near as projectable as age 23-25, where typically players are gaining significant experience and physiological strength, and 21-23 is still another order of magnitude more projectable. There is in fact a trend where young, adept contact hitters show improved plate discipline when they get a few years older—this is why Sizemore was considered so projectable (statistically) without big walk numbers, and he’s followed that pattern to a tee. The problem is that this effect is observed in early-20’s guys, not late-20’s guys.

You know all this, I think, but you perhaps are ignoring the brute force of these trends. Two significant recent signposts around Garko would be Paul Konerko and Lyle Overbay. Overbay emerged a little later, had a very nice peak for Milwaukee at ages 27-29 and has struggled to stay a quality hitter, somewhat because of injury. Garko is better than this guy, but there isn’t really evidence he’s all that much better. Konerko broke in a little earlier and was a little better than Garko for age 25-26, then suffered an odd off-year at age 27—with the benefit of hindsight, obviously an aberration. He bounced back to have his best seasons at age 28-30, and maybe this is what you foresee for Garko.

Okay, then, maybe. But even Konerko’s late-20’s surge only amounted to OPS of 894, 909, 932, OPS+ of 127, 136, 134. This would in fact be a couple notches better than Garko has been so far, but it would amount to a brief sojourn as a top-tier first baseman. Just for comparison, Jim Thome has had four seasons in that 125-135 range … and ten seasons in the 140-170 range … and one big, fat 197. Konerko in a good year is Jim Thome in a bad year, and if Garko continues to develop and has a nice 28-30 slightly late peak, that’ll make him Konerko. And frankly, it’s unfair for us to expect more than that from him, it would be fantastic if he did exactly that … peaking in his first two years of arbitration.

I guess what this boils down to is that I think your observations of Garko are valid - certainly more valid than the average fan’s - but i also think you’d do well to contextualize your expectations of him along the lines of what he can really do, what he’s really done, and what other players have done. Garko’s who outperform are Konerkos, not Frank Thomases.

I won’t debate further the Thome contract except to dispute your speculation of the decision as “desperate.” Shapiro has no track record of making desperate moves, ever, and he was not in a desperate situation, which I think you also have noted. If anything, this fits a pattern of Shapiro and the whole organization not being reactive to a handful of games—of assuming that what was true in early May is probably still true in early July, that a short-term aberration, physical or statistical, is always more likely than a drastic long-term shift in long-term trends. We don’t know what Shapiro’s coaches and scouts were telling him about Hafner at that time, but we can assume that he believed he was seeing an aberration.

The team is well served by this kind of steadiness the great majority of the time, but it does appear that it led to a significant error in this instance.