Loading ...In today’s “Under the Knife” report at Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll says:
Anyone that believes that Homer Bailey and his control problems are just the result of a mechanical flaw probably hasn’t read this far down. They’re not. Sell now.
It’s cryptic but knowing Will, he sees something or has heard something to make him think Homer has an injury of some sort.
Yeah, right. What a load of baloney. The Reds have babied this guy for three seasons and like they’d be running him out there now if he was hurt. Fantasy geeks.
They’d babied him so much, I think he’d be benched with a hangnail!
Scary stuff.
Will caters to “fantasy geeks” in his column, but he’s not some clown in his basement. He’s on the phone all day to trainers, coaches, and scouts, and he understands mechanics and the signs of injury better than anyone “outside” the game.
As always, name calling doesn’t make reality disappear.
Eh, despite the early-apes attacking those who figure out tools to build a fire, I still find Will’s comments too cryptic.
The problem I think with all of the theory that he’s hurt or over worked or whatever is, is that he’s had SERIOUS control problems in the minors. Hell, he had serious BB/SO ratio issues MOST of this season at AAA.
it’s simply too soon to call him up to the bigs.
he misses his spots *most* of the time. That is *MOST* of the time! And has done this in the minors at multiple levels.
He belongs in AAA, that’s all
mike
Will Carroll has never once had a good thing to say about Homer Bailey.
He is not a doctor. He is not a scout. He is not a trainer. What he feels the need to spew out about player injuries, I am not concerned over.
-Rick & Doug-
Why the hostility to Will Carroll? he does a very good job giving updates on injuries and how long to expect players to be out. He’s also good at evaluating mechanics and risks with pitchers.
He wrote a well respected book on it.
For his background and a good interview with him, read this.
His work alone is worth the subscription to BP. He seems to have a lot of contacts within most of the major league clubs.
Like any other writer who is bold enough to make predictions, he’s going to be wrong a lot (Mark Prior). But he’s also right a lot.
Does this mean Bailey is doomed? Of course not. But I’m certainly curious about what he saw that makes him think it’s pretty likely Bailey is going to have injury problems soon.
If he writes “prospect ______ is injured” enough times, he’s bound to be correct once in a while.
Bailey’s control problems are most likely due to age and being a power pitcher. I agree with those believing he is simply throwing stuff out there.
Did anyone see what his velocity was running in his last start. There was lots of talk that since he was in the majors that he has only been hitting the low nineties and not the mid to upper nineties we’ve come to expect from him.
I totally stand by my comments:
a. No way in hell the Reds run Bailey out there if he’s even got a runny nose.
b. Fantasy geek info and speculation.
And I’ll add that Carroll or any writer can talk to trainers all he wants, but the player medical and health info is confidential and even though stuff gets out, any trainer found to be releasing player info would be fired and wouldn’t work in sports again.
Additionally, it’s a bit strange that no one has mentioned the differences in the strike zones in the minors and the majors. The minors have a bigger zone and the majors–aggravatingly so–have this eye of the needle strike zone. You get to the majors and see where the zone is, then any young pitcher is going to start nibbling around. Another difference is the mounds are more precisely manicured for MLB specs.
It’s all just a period of adjustment that all young pitchers have to go through.
The issue of velocity? I alwaysheard those guns on the scoreboards at games are no where close. But you figure scouts sitting behind the plate at minors games have accurate guns. So who knows?
Will has sources upon sources. He knows EVERYBODY. Sometimes he gets bad information, but his word should be heeded. After all, the Reds’ medical staff never makes a mistake, do they?
Well, we’re deep in the Land of Innuendo here. Will has a track record, so his cryptic statement is at least worthy of a cocked eyebrow. As for those who are denying because it’s “fantasy geek and speculation” or the Reds would baby him if he was hurt, your source for your speculations is…? Will may have nuthin’, but so do you.
Here’s what we know. In AAA, Homer hit the mid-90s with his fastball. His K/9 was 7.1, BB/9 was 3.7. His K/BB was approximately 2:1. Since his callup, he’s posted a K/BB that’s almost exactly reversed, and the trend in his K/9 (now at 3.7) and BB/9 (7.4) has been negative, i.e. the ratios have worsened with each successive outing. Furthermore, he rarely gets out of the low 90s with the FB.
Clearly, something is amiss. Can any of us say, regardless of where we come down with our guesses as to cause, that this is what we expected? There are several explanations, but none of us know enough to take injury off the table.
If you think the minors game and the majors game is the same . . . .
According to multiple comments on the most recent game thread for a Homer Bailey start, he was hitting 97-98mph.
For what it’s worth, and for those who are bringing up the medical confidentiality issue, I believe that Carroll’s statement was purposefully cryptic because he has no secret source or inside info on this; it’s just his own observation and opinion. As doug has noted, the pundit side of Will Carroll has always favored Gallardo and Hughes etc. over Bailey, and he hasn’t been positive about the high effort that Bailey puts into his delivery to get those upper-90’s readouts. So who knows if this is part and parcel . . . I’m inclined to believe that he still has the same opinion of Bailey he always had, but now that the stats are backing him up in a big way he’s a little more vocal.
I still pretty much trust his opinions, though. First impressions last, and my first exposure came when he was starting the red-light/green-light injury-risk system. He picked one player near the beginning of spring who was most likely to suffer a severe injury early in the year and miss most of the season, and three days later it happened. (It was Phil Nevin, the same winter of the nixed trade for Griffey.) In awe, I said he was either well-informed and observant, or the devil. And I am devil’s advocate.
According to multiple comments on the most recent game thread for a Homer Bailey start, he was hitting 97-98mph (on the bigboard readout, anyway).
For what it’s worth, and for those who are bringing up the medical confidentiality issue, I believe that Carroll’s statement was purposefully cryptic because he has no secret source or inside info on this; it’s just his own observation and opinion. As doug has noted, the pundit side of Will Carroll has always favored Gallardo and Hughes etc. over Bailey, and he hasn’t been positive about the high effort that Bailey puts into his delivery to get those upper-90’s readouts. So who knows if this is part and parcel . . . I’m inclined to believe that he still has the same opinion of Bailey he always had, but now that the stats are backing him up in a big way he’s a little more vocal.
I still pretty much trust his opinions, though. First impressions last, and my first exposure came when he was starting the red-light/green-light injury-risk system. He picked one player near the beginning of spring who was most likely to suffer a severe injury early in the year and miss most of the season, and three days later it happened. (It was Phil Nevin, the same winter of the nixed trade for Griffey.) In awe, I said he was either well-informed and observant, or the devil. And I am devil’s advocate.
To echo Rick, take a look at Lincecum, Miller, and Hughes this season. These guys have much more info on them by the time they hit the majors than your run of the mill call up. Additionally there are growing pains. Plus we have no idea if the coaching staff has told Bailey not to reach back so he can learn other ways to get guys out at this level – given they are pretty well done this year.
If you think the minors game and the majors game is the same . . . :
Thanks for pointing that out, Rick. I’m clearly too stupid to tell the difference. Good thing I’ve got a smart guy like you around to set me straight. Although last time I checked, home plate has the same dimensions in the minors as the majors and the mound is still 60′6″ away.
Does anyone know where to find Homer’s MLE’s? Obviously K-rates and BB-rates aren’t directly translatable, but IIRC a factor of 2 is outside the typical MLE conversion.
I have seen Carroll go head to head with an actual orthopediac before and the actual doctor told him how wrong he was on several different occasions. This was with just 1 injury and he was wrong about 3 different times while discussing just 1 injury. Color me skeptical if you want, but I don’t believe what he says about injuries or mechanics everytime he brings something up.
I also think Will has biased opinions against Homer Bailey. He’s got on a short weekly interview on a local Indianapolis radio sports talk show where they talk baseball in general. The question of Homer Bailey came up a couple of times while Homer was still in the minors. Once during ST and another time late April/early May. Will Carroll does not like Homer Bailey. To hear him speak, it almost sounds like there is a personal issue. I don’t think he has anything personally against Homer, but to hear Will talk it almost sounds like it is. He has no confidence that a healthy Homer will have much of a major league career.
These are my words just from listening to Will, not Will’s, but from listening to Carroll, sounds like he thinks Homer’s career is going to end up somewhere between Rob Bell and Brett Tomko with Tomko being a very unlikely outcome.
A quick and dirty Google search to find something not hidden behind a subscription wall came up with this approximation (source: BaseballNotebook.com):
MLB K ~ 0.75 MiLB K
MLB BB ~ 1.25 MiLb BB
in the a same number of innings pitched. This is obviously a back-of-the-envelope estimation and I don’t pretend it’s anything close to a detailed analysis.
Homer had 51Ks and 24BBs in 58⅓ IP at Louisville. Translated that’s 30BB for a BB/9 of 4.6. Ks drop to 38, which is a translated K/9 of 5.9. Those differences are still significant.
He’s essentially trading 2 batters he struck out at Louisville for 2 walks in Cincinnati. His translated rates are similar to Greg Maddux’s age 21 season, which I’d be more than happy to accept. His actual rates are not.
(FWIW, Tomko’s first ML season was his age 24 season. His K/9 was 6.8 and his BB/9 was 3.4. He logged 126IP. Of course, it went downhill after that.)
With regard to Carroll and his motives and/or expertise, I’ll grant all of that. I’m not a Will Carroll fan. But given Homer’s performance to date, I still ask how you can eliminate a possible injury from the equation. I wonder if the anti-fantasy, ant-stathead crowd would give this more credence if it was reported in one of Gammons’ gossip columns?
Doug — I’d love to hear about this confrontation I had with an orthopaedist. As for Bailey, we’ll see …
I wonder if the anti-fantasy, ant-stathead crowd would give this more credence if it was reported in one of Gammons’ gossip columns?
Yes. And so would a lot of baseball fans and baseball people. There’s no substitute for someone who’s been doing his job for almost 40 years and talks directly with players, managers, coaches and scouts every day and has worked for some of the best publications in the county compared to some fantasy nerd behind a computer.
Yes. And so would a lot of baseball fans and baseball people. There’s no substitute for someone who’s been doing his job for almost 40 years and talks directly with players, managers, coaches and scouts every day and has worked for some of the best publications in the county compared to some fantasy nerd behind a computer.
Thanks, Rick. Your response has given me carte blanche to ignore anything you write from now on.
Stickin’ up for the fantasy geek homies. What a shock.
Heh. Looks like you got Will’s attention. Rick, you don’t know Will Carroll, so don’t pretend you do. He is NOT “some fantasy nerd behind a computer.” He is a former college pitcher, whose dad is an orthopedic surgeon, with sources that match anyone this side of Gammons. And when I say he knows everyone, he does. I mean, Will Carroll knows ME. How far down the list is this humble Reds’ blogger?
Shawn, I have no problem with what you posted as long as some fantasy bozo isn’t trying to tell me Carroll is better sourced than Gammons, Stark, Ringolsby or even Rosenthal. Those guys have been inside the game and reporting on the game for top-tier publications for more than 100 years combined.
I realize that is very easy to second guess bringing Homer up this soon, but I really didn’t understand what the rush was at the time. I would have been much more comfortable just waiting at least until after the All-Star break. His control wasn’t very good in Louisville (24 walks in 58 innings). Shouldn’t we have waited until his walk counts went down? 4 walks per 9 innings in AAA is not good!
http://mvn.com/mlb-cubs/2007/04/26/deja-vu-all-over-again/
There you go Will.
Jayson Stark has said a lot of NL scouts are surprised about the lack of life on Bailey’s fastball. I’m not sure what to believe.
Doug, I read that thread, and it was a far cry from the “head to head” debunking you described. I’d call it a “healthy discussion” where a doc corrected a couple uses of terminology, but that’s about it.
Carroll knows what he’s talking about, even if I don’t dig the cryptic nature of the Bailey warning. (It makes it hard to know whether Will’s being vague due to source considerations, or b/c he doesn’t have a source and is basing his opinion on his own observations – either one is probably a valid basis for the warning, but they aren’t the same, and being so vague invites skepticism).
And yeah, Rick’s comment at #23 was pretty silly – as if accurate information can only be transmitted through the prism of 40-year veteran writers. Some reporters/writers are good, and some aren’t. Some veteran writers are lazy, and some aren’t. And they all end up reporting nonsense from time to time. (Or, I could’ve short-cut that entire paragraph by just saying, “Hal McCoy.”
And yet Gammons and McCoy are in the Hall of Fame and is Carroll even a credentialed member of the media? Does he get into games and the clubhouses as a member of the media?
Otherwise, he’s no different than us blogheads.
-Rick-
I think you’d be surprised with the access Will gets from teams. But I’ll leave that to him to explain if he chooses.
Still doesn’t explain the ridiculous opposition to him.
It’s more information we can have as fans and do with as we please. We can believe everything he says as gospel or we can disregard everything because he doesn’t have BBWAA tag some want him to.
Or we could take the information he provides, along with the many other sources out there, and use it to inform our own opinions.
Jesus, here I go again…
And yet Gammons and McCoy are in the Hall of Fame
If you mean the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, m]neither are in the hall. We’ve been through this before. Sportswriters and broadcasters cannot be inductees into the Hall per HoF rules. From the HoF website:
The J.G. Taylor Spink Award, named after the late editor of The Sporting News, has been voted upon annually since 1962 when Spink himself was the recipient of the inaugural honor. The award honors a baseball writer (or writers) “for meritorious contributions to baseball writing” and is presented at the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony by that year’s President of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).
The award is voted upon annually by the BBWAA, via a meeting and subsequent “show of hands” either at the preceding year’s World Series or Winter Meetings. A nominee is recommended by the BBWAA’s Screening Committee prior to the meeting. Each award recipient (not to be confused with an inductee) is presented with a certificate during the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and is recognized in the “Scribes & Mikemen” exhibit in the Library of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
This page provides the relevant text and the list of honorees. McCoy was honored in 2002; Gammons in 2004. There is a similar page with relevant text for Ford Frick Award winners like Marty.
But even if your shorthand were correct, it’s a straw man. There is no relationship between being an honored sportswriter and being right. And while I’d like to think Gammons’ age gives him a special status (since we are contemporaries), it doesn’t. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Gammo pick up on this – he’s referenced Carroll and B-Pro in the past – and report it in his ESPN blog next week. (In all fairness, Peter has done a good job of getting the basic of modern statistical analysis disseminated to the wider fan audience.)
All you are showing is a bias to given source because that source meets your personal definition of acceptable. It’s like saying you believe something because Britt Hume said so on Fox News but don’t believe the same thing because Jim Lehrer said it on PBS.
Well, Rick, if you’ve got your mind made up I can’t help you….but I don’t know of any GM or trainer that will take my calls, or yours either. Most if not all of them take Will’s.
Rick’s right … I’m not as well sourced as Gammons, or Stark. Ringolsby? Nah, not him either. I’m a niche guy who talks to a lot of people. Credentialed? Sure, with most teams, though the Reds aren’t one of them. I bought a ticket like everyone to go down and see Griffey and Bonds play Tuesday. I don’t have Gammons’ experience, but I work hard at what I do. Perfect? Far from it, but dismissing me as a “fantasy geek” is far from true. Remember Rick … I work at ESPN too.
I was at the last Bailey start — he was topping out at 94 on the scoreboard, usually in the 90-91 range.
Bailey has not been impressive so far. I have seen all his starts on the road that were televised and the home ones live. His fastball is pretty good even in the low 90’s, will a little tailing movement away from left handers. His change is decent but erratic and not a ML pitch yet. Same for the curve, but worse. His arm action on the curve is weirdly slow, tipping the pitch. He is a far cry from Maddux, and certainly has not shown the flashes of dominance we’d hope for.
I think he finished the first half on a good note. Only allowed hits in one of his five innings of work.
He is a far cry from Maddux, and certainly has not shown the flashes of dominance we’d hope for.
I’d venture to say that 100% of major league rookies are “a far cry from Maddux.” As for the other statement, I’m not sure I need to see “flashes of dominance” in Bailey’s first six starts – but I think I have. That high fastball has blown away some fair hitters, like Eric Chavez, Stephen Drew, and Grady Sizemore (the 3 guys who’ve struck out multiple times vs. Homer). He’s a long way from being a major league stud, but we need to keep things in perspective.
Maddux was a far cry from Maddux his rookie season.