*whispers*

The Phillies suck at PR (and social media... and...baseball)

Bucky wrote:so we're saying projecting success for young players is an inexact science

not exactly... my point is that
so is projecting failure, at least when a guy has posted really strong numbers when young for his league in the minors, and has had a couple of really impressive hot streaks in less than a full season of pa's in the majors. i thought that was the whole reason there's still a least a large minority here against cutting bait on brown, even though he is almost 3 years older than asche and was considerably worse than asche in all aspects of the game in 2014 despite being healthier.

how does the science of young player forecasting magically become exact when someone wants to imply that it is self-evidently stupid not to move on from 24.5 year old cody asche as soon as franco is ready because the nearly 4 years older ruf hit much better in the majors last year and in aa? asche outhit him by a wide margin in aaa last year and in single a, while the ruf was only slightly ahead on major league offense in 2014, when both were severely hampered by injuries (also noteworthy: ruf posted crappy injury-related stats at aaa while asche got to do that in the majors since there the other 3b options were even worse).

of COURSE, asche isn't magically transformed into utley by the fact that some of us have sometimes been very wrong in predicting a certain 24 year old with a decent but unspectacular track record wasn't going to improve much. on the other hand, asche isn't proven to be a waste of time by the fact that some of us were very wrong in predicting that ben revere would improve in his non-babip hitting by the standard amounts after his age 24 season instead of managing to post one of the most spectacular walk rate drops in the history of baseball.

extreme performances happen because distribution tails are a fact of life. in mid 2013, the people who gave up on the 24 year old dom brown were looking stupid after he put up one of the more impressive hitting months in the phillies long history. but now they don't look so stupid after all.

that we can all find extreme examples to illustrate forecasts similar to our own coming true and those of others being wrong, this doesn't change the fact that the smartest thing to do is to try to identify the true center of the distribution of likely outcomes and bet on an outcome near that center. the reason i have put so much time into debates about revere and asche is not that i am in love with their potential or grasping at straws of possibly rational behavior by the phillies management. the reason is that i am a big believer in using the aging curve to guide roster construction and continue to be surprised and disappointed at how few other people believe in it.

not cutting bait on a young guy with a career trajectory headed toward league average production at early-arb-years salary rates during the team's next targeted playoff window is an example of using the aging curve to make a good bet. not because league average is good enough, but because a league average mean expectation implies a decent chance of a big 3+ win payoff (especially if you have a 3 or 4 more guys like that), and a combination of above-replacement floor and near-replacement salary that carries almost no risk whatsoever (even if you have 3 or 4 more guys like that) as long as he's not blocking the progress of another better player who won't be too old to help during that competitive window. ruf does not appear to be such a player, and he is old enough that much of the young-player uncertainty no longer applies. ruf will be 30 in 2017 and has been below average overall in his prime, barely average on offense relative to position despite being gifted a lesser positional penalty than 1b alone would have implied, and hasn't been above average in pure offense since his first 100 mlb pa's.

I don't know who suggested cutting bait on Asche. I know I didn't.

JFLNYC wrote:I'm sorry if this has come off as bashing Asche. That's not my intention. I like Asche and think he will improve as a hitter, and think he has a role on the team, just not as our regular 3B long-term.a

JFLNYC wrote:I don't know who suggested cutting bait on Asche. I know I didn't.

sorry.... am i wrong in thinking that you didn't want asche taking at bats away from franco or ruf? if that wasn't my mistake what did you want the phils to do when franco is ready? play him in the outfield in place of brown or byrd?

The whole thing started with criticism of Amaro's (rather innocuous, imo) comment about still seeing Asche as a 3B. There's no reason not to at this point, imo, or at least to say otherwise publicly

JFLNYC wrote:If Franco looks ready in ST, I give him the job, even expecting that he'll likely struggle for awhile. At the very least, by all accounts he's better defensively than Asche. If Franco's not ready and someone like Asche has to fill in for a couple of months, so be it. I'm looking to the future and, if I'm the Phillies, the future has Franco at the 3B and does not include Asche at 1B.

I've said before and will say it again: I haven't "given up" on Asche. He has a role, but it's not as a regular 3B or 1B. It's as a supersub.

And the very next post. . .

phorever wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Put simply, to win championships a team needs to be above average.

Asche is a below average hitter, fielder and baserunner.

put simply, i agree with you on the above average strategy, but i believe that a combination of 1b and 3b players that includes asche getting 300+ pa's is reasonably likely (better than 1/3 chance) to produce above average production at both positions, and currently is the phillies best option for getting above average production at those positions over the next three season.

You're pretty darn handy at finding my posts from several years ago. These are from 3 weeks ago in this very thread.

If you think Asche's going to be great, good for you. I hope you're right. Can we please not go round and around again on this?

just fuck already

fighting about cody asche's future is pretty much rock bottom

I kinda hope he turns into Chase Utley so someone can quote these posts in 2024.

funny as hell that he took such offense to that, that he remembered it 10 years later.

I'll be honest, if Asche turns awesome, I'll remember this exchange. And I was just a bystander.

Just like I'll remember the "Kendrick gets a 4 year contract" post for next offseason.

oh hey 6 months ago

so what, it's fun. but feel free to go around about asche again

Photoshop Utley's face on Asche's and there'd be no difference.

pacino wrote:phandom by zipcode

Somehow the Phillies aren't even in the top 3 where I live. Unacceptable.

you need to procreate more

pacino wrote:phandom by zipcode

LOL at Nationals.

and Mets

Bigger Douchebag--S. Philly Yankee fan, or N. Jersey Red Sox fan?