i think it's more "don't sign guys who show greatly declining on-base skills starting in their mid-to-late 20s to long term deals starting in their age 32 season"

fat dudes mash taters

Shore wrote:BTW, if your Tigers fandom was anything like your Phillies, you would NOT BE CONCERNED AT ALL

By the same token, if Amaro had signed Prince to that deal, you and Trent would be cool as a cucumber right now? No talk of the historical comps of "bad body" guys heading into their 30s?

td11 wrote:i think it's more "don't sign guys who show greatly declining on-base skills starting in their mid-to-late 20s to long term deals starting in their age 32 season"

fat dudes mash taters

No, I'm really not sure it is that. Bad bodies age poorly.

i don't think there is any such thing as a universally accepted "bad body" except in baseball scout-speak

If we can't agree that Prince Fielder and Mo Vaughn have bad bodies, I'm not sure what we can do.

Further, I'm willing to quantify it, Don't sign anybody to a long term deal who weighs over X pounds and I'm thinking X is around 240 but could be 10 lbs either way.

Frank Thomas? Lance Berkman?

Jim Thome?

and are you back from your trip 2SF??

Barry Jive wrote:Frank Thomas? Lance Berkman?

big papi
miggy
panda

gonna leave the rest for Joe T to fill out

The key difference between the Howard and Fielder contracts is that the Tigers signed Fielder while he still had prime years left before the inevitable decline. The Phils bought only post-prime years wih the Howard extension.

Looking at Frank's fangraphs page, it's not clear to me that he ever signed a long term deal governing his late age. It's pretty clear I would not have wanted to own him for his age 33, 36, and 37 seasons and 34 is dubious. 35 was awesome.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?pl ... tion=1B/DH

Berkman weighs 220.

Jim Thome, according to fangraphs, did not return a positive ROI on the money spent and he missed it by enough in their version that I'm willing to bet most people would feel the same. Not the disasters that were Vaughn and Howard but...

Bucky wrote:and are you back from your trip 2SF??

my point is i would absolutely not make a blanket "NO FATTIES" rule and instead evaluate on a case-by-case basis. from a physiological stand point it makes no sense. some fat people have very flexible ligaments and it has nothing to do with their weight

i also wouldn't sign berkman because he is fragile regardless of weight

The problem with fat people, is they generally only have one or two skills. When they decline, they aren't really worth much. Theoretically I guess you could have a swift fat man with a good glove.

td11 wrote:my point is i would absolutely not make a blanket "NO FATTIES" rule and instead evaluate on a case-by-case basis. from a physiological stand point it makes no sense. some fat people have very flexible ligaments and it has nothing to do with their weight

i also wouldn't sign berkman because he is fragile regardless of weight

In theory you are right - any general rule has exceptions that you can find. The problem is, what criteria would be reliable in figuring out who the exceptions will be in advance? If you don't know, better to follow the general rule so that you don't end up making a franchise sinking mistake hunting for the $$ you might be leaving on the table. It is sort of the coralary to "better to trade someone too soon instead of too late."

it's so much better to follow that general rule that literally no MLB team follows it.

not all, though some may pass for financial reasons as opposed to being smart. to me it's like my rule to never pick a 13 seed over a 4 seed (or below). 13/14/15/16 win every year but you can't end up telling the difference. When you pick them, you likely pick wrong which not only makes you get a wrong answer in that game but you also miss the game where the 13 actually does win.

Grotewold wrote:

Shore wrote:BTW, if your Tigers fandom was anything like your Phillies, you would NOT BE CONCERNED AT ALL

By the same token, if Amaro had signed Prince to that deal, you and Trent would be cool as a cucumber right now? No talk of the historical comps of "bad body" guys heading into their 30s?

Probably not. But really my biggest problem with the Howard deal had always been the fact that it was completely unnecessary at the time and took on all of the risk at a premium. Fielder is different to me because it was a FA signing

Babe Ruth was fat. Terry Forster was a fat tub of too. Mickey Loloich was fat. Smokey Burgess was fat and got fatter and better every year. Edgar Martinez had a bad body.

There aren't all that many fat guys who make it to the big leagues. Scouts say they have bad bodies and minus minus athleticism and they fall by the wayside.

The players that overcome that manage to have longer than average careers.

It's probably not a bad idea to not sign almost any 32 year old to a long term contract.

smitty wrote:Babe Ruth was fat. Terry Forster was a fat tub of too. Mickey Loloich was fat. Smokey Burgess was fat and got fatter and better every year. Edgar Martinez had a bad body.

Forster's career over at 34. Lolich pitched 83 innings after the age of 35. Burgess played a total of 123 games in the field after age 35. From age 32 on, Edgar played a total of 239 innings in the field his last 10 years in baseball. Babe Ruth was a freak of nature.

Howard will be 34 in November. Fielder turns 30 next May.

JFLNYC wrote:

smitty wrote:Babe Ruth was fat. Terry Forster was a fat tub of too. Mickey Loloich was fat. Smokey Burgess was fat and got fatter and better every year. Edgar Martinez had a bad body.

Forster's career over at 34. Lolich pitched 83 innings after the age of 35. Burgess played a total of 123 games in the field after age 35. From age 32 on, Edgar played a total of 239 innings in the field his last 10 years in baseball. Babe Ruth was a freak of nature.

Howard will be 34 in November. Fielder turns 30 next May.

I was mostly goofing around. It's interesting that these guys had long careers though. They really were mostly fat.

Smokey Burgess had an .801 OPS at 39. He was still playing when I was a kid. I have his baseball card. He looked like he was 50 at the time. Edgar didn't need to play in the field. He was awesome.

Lolich was the oldest pitcher on his team in 1976. He threw 192 innings. He had lol in his name.

Forster finished his career with the Angels on a really old team. Gene Mauch was the manager.

Body type is pretty important. But it interesting that fat guys can succeed at the highest level and some for 10, 12 years or even longer.

Ruth was a freak of nature but back in the olden days I thing there were a lot of big fat sluggers who played a long time. They look fat in their pictures anyways.