Comments on: Fan Scouting Report

By: daveblev

daveblev — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:45:33 +0000

I think I gave Willie Bloomquist all “poors” and I rated Beltre kinda high. There’s been a lot of passed balls between Rivera and Joh so that affected my voting.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 11:18:21 +0000

Sexson has been surprisingly reliable at first. And when I watched Benâ€™s first relay to second land about fifteen feet short, that I was really surprised that Sexson did thatâ€¦ then I realized Sexson wasnâ€™t playing first and that set off this whole rambling chain of thoughtâ€¦

Amazing. I remember the exact same thoughts. I also wondered what extent of practice Ben was getting in prior to that game, since he really hadn’t been seeing any gametime action on the field at all from what I remember.

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:24:41 +0000

One of the neat things about this system is it basically uses a distributed network to create its data, so it’s probably surprisingly accurate.

One thing that jumps out at me, though, is the results for superstars and hyped defensive wizards might be less accurate than for regular joes like David Bell or Sexson or whoever. For instance, Jeter’s a guy who seems to be overrated defensively, and while there’s been some backlash against that, it’s possible that most of the people submitting ratings for Jeter (i.e. Yankees fans) may be more likely to buy into the perception that he’s great.

Or like, as an M’s fan, I may be inclined to overrate guys like Ichiro and Betancourt because I’m always hearing about how great they are in the field. It may not be a big distortion, considering they ARE great, but when all I’m hearing is how strong their arms are, how fast they are, etc., it’s harder for me to be objective about just how great they really are than for someone like Lopez or Reed or Ibanez, where my opinions of their abilities are more likely to come from observation than from outside sources.

In light of the purpose of Tango’s work, this isn’t a negative, I just think it’s interesting that our perception of the players we pay the most attention to may be less accurate than the ones we spend less time thinking about.

By: dw

dw — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:11:49 +0000

Donâ€™t underestimate the steamroller that is USSM.

Indeed.

That picture of Doyle? Nearly 2000 views now, or 1/7th of my total Flickr views.

The other 6/7th is my mother looking at pictures of her granddaughter 200 times a day. And 1 or 2 decent shots of non-family.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:02:36 +0000

Iâ€™ve already got over 160 for Mariners, and itâ€™s been two days. I didnâ€™t think Iâ€™d see a site blow SOSH out of the waterâ€¦

Don’t underestimate the steamroller that is USSM.

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:59:26 +0000

36 – Yeah, Dave, but I watch Jays games. I get to watch Bengie Molina “sprint” at maybe half Johjima’s top speed.

That Bengie Molina exists means I can never rank anyone “Poor” for speed, because they’re all so much faster than Bengie.

By: John in L.A.

John in L.A. — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:59:04 +0000

It was fun to even think about the players in that context, Tango. I’ll be very curious to see the results.

By: Bender

Bender — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:58:54 +0000

I don’t think Sexson makes the other infielders better. Sure he’s tall, but his hands aren’t that great. He’s no good at picking the ball in the dirt like Olerud was.

Of course Olerud was amazing at it so it’s not really a valid comaprison, but I still don’t think Richie is that good at it.

By: tangotiger

tangotiger — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:53:44 +0000

In the years I’ve done this, I think the most ballots I’ve had for a team was around 110 or 120 (Sox, Yanks).

I’ve already got over 160 for Mariners, and it’s been two days. I didn’t think I’d see a site blow SOSH out of the water…

By: John in L.A.

John in L.A. — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:40:22 +0000

I’m definitely not comparing Sexson to Olerud, just saying that I think I undervalued him somewhat defensively… because while I agree his range and acrobatics aren’t good, he does seem to be very… reliable is the best word, I think. If he needs to catch a ball thrown close to him, or throw a ball to second, I just assume he will, no worries. That’s worth something.