I did know he was an old minor leaguer, but he wasn't as old as Ruf. Ruf is a 26-year-old who just got out of AA. Howard was in AAA at age 24. That's a huge difference.

Not sure law means bat speed to mean ability to catch up to a fastball. You can have a short swing and still not have great bat speed. But then you can also just be a big guy with strong wrists and hands who can hit bombs without having explosive bat speed (Piazza, Burrell come to mind)

Law is pretty clearly biased against non-athletic, old-for-level players. There is generally good reason for him to be like that, but it isn't really strongly predictive in Ruf's individual case

Barry Jive wrote:I did know he was an old minor leaguer, but he wasn't as old as Ruf. Ruf is a 26-year-old who just got out of AA. Howard was in AAA at age 24. That's a huge difference.

I'll settle for the Ruf contract extension being classified as a botch

The Darin Ruf Fiasco

joe table wrote:Not sure law means bat speed to mean ability to catch up to a fastball. You can have a short swing and still not have great bat speed. But then you can also just be a big guy with strong wrists and hands who can hit bombs without having explosive bat speed (Piazza, Burrell come to mind)

Law is pretty clearly biased against non-athletic, old-for-level players. There is generally good reason for him to be like that, but it isn't really strongly predictive in Ruf's individual case

He makes it sound like he has evaluated Ruf on an individual basis and decided that Ruf has certain qualities that he does not like and therefore he does not expect him to succeed in the majors. I assume that, in reality, he is just using some reliable rules of thumb for deciding which prospects are not worth getting excited about. There are always going to be outliers who deviate from typical patterns for whatever reason. I don't think he has even considered for one second if Ruf might be an exception. He probably thinks there is no reason to do this because most times he will be right.

True, but if you always predict guys to fail, you're going to be right more often than you're wrong just because that's the way the game works.

Right. It's not a courageous strategy. He's taking extremely low risk in dismissing the chances of Ruf and other guys like Ruf.

All I ask is that he does not make it sound like he evaluated Ruf as a particular case and made a judgement about him instead of just identifying Ruf as a type of player who usually does not succeed in the majors.

JFLNYC wrote:True, but if you always predict guys to fail, you're going to be right more often than you're wrong just because that's the way the game works.

Yep.

phdave wrote:I assume that, in reality, he is just using some reliable rules of thumb for deciding which prospects are not worth getting excited about.

Very old-time scouty...

Grotewold wrote:

phdave wrote:I assume that, in reality, he is just using some reliable rules of thumb for deciding which prospects are not worth getting excited about.

Very old-time scouty...

Ruf does not have a good face.

phdave wrote:Pappelbon teaching Rosenberg a split

Among other meth-fueled cheerleader moves

Got INF Stefan Jarrin to complete to Vic deal. 22 and played in rookie ball.

What About Bob Brookover with an Utley Q & A

Thinks his knee pain has leveled off and the training approach he learned this spring will get him on the field this April. Bonus quote from Amaro to make monkeyboy's head explode

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phi ... ?viewAll=y

my takeway: UTLEY WAS IN AAA BALL BEFORE HE EVER PLAYED BEISBOL IN WEATHER UNDER 65 DEGREES

Ruf does fairly well when looking at similar players.

He's already better than Phil Roof and Bruce Ruffin.

He's got a ways to go before he can compare well to rough, tough Charlie Hough, though.

smitty you're not well.

I know, right?

I think I'll get better once this season is over and we can look at next year and stuff.

This season has weirded me out.

"In my mind, I feel like I've reached a place where I can move forward and not backward," Utley said.

That's gonna make some plays really difficult.

Matt Gelb ‏@magelb
Manuel and Amaro will conduct exit interviews with "core players." Met at length with Rollins and Utley today.