Stop The Brandon Moss Meme!
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 9, 2010 2:42 AM EDT
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PrintI'm not sure why this bothers me so much, but I'm also not sure why the local media keeps advancing the Brandon Moss Magically Improved meme. Here's the Trib:
... Moss knew that long-term it would be best to go down and work out his swing troubles. He ended up hitting .266 with a team-leading 32 doubles, 22 home runs and 96 RBI in 136 games with Indianapolis and was named team MVP. He came up as part of this week's promotions. "I'm excited," said Moss, who spent all of 2009 with the Pirates. "I didn't think I was going to have this opportunity and had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I was going home. For some reason this season, the way I was playing in Triple-A, made me really see that I belong here and that I can be a really good major league baseball player. To have the opportunity to be here, when you didn't think you were going to have it, it just feels great."
At least in this case the Trib is simply quoting Moss rather than presenting his opinions as their own, but his opinions are baseless, and the Trib simply lets them through.
Here's a list of the International League's 2010 OPS leaders. 16 full-time players had OPSes higher than Moss'. Certainly a few of them, like Jesus Montero and Freddie Freeman, are very good prospects, but all those guys are young. Of all the ones who are older than 24, which would you be willing to argue would be "really good major league baseball players"? How about league leader Dan Johnson, who was sold to Japan in 2008? Or first-round draft flameouts Michael Aubrey and Russ Adams? Or Moss' own Indianapolis teammate Kevin Melillo, who many Pirates fans have never even heard of?
Again, there hasn't been anything special about Moss' AAA performance this year. It doesn't suggest he can hit major league pitching now. In fact, it doesn't even show that's he's improved. He went to Class AAA and put up bigger numbers because it's easier to hit down there.
I learned my lesson here, people. In 2004, right around the time when I started blogging, I was freaking out because the Pirates were ignoring J.J. Davis, who had just had a much more impressive AAA season than the one Brandon Moss just had, and at a younger age to boot. Davis flamed out in part because the Pirates seemed to do everything possible to make sure that he did, but also probably because he showed about the same symptoms Moss is showing now: good power, not quite enough OBP and trouble controlling the strike zone.
I'm fine with the Pirates calling up Moss now that rosters have expanded. I also agree that there's still some chance he breaks through and posts a couple of good big-league seasons. But I just don't see any evidence that's particularly likely, and I don't understand why it's now taken for granted that Moss put together this spectacular Class AAA season. He didn't. He put up a season that was good ... for a minor leaguer.
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Moss
I was part of the Moss debate in some earlier threads on here yesterday.
I agree with 95 percent of this posting.
I do think that if you look at Moss’s career OPS, and his numbers in Pittsburgh, a .700 OPS is reasonable.
And when you combine that with good defense, he looks like a #4 or #5 outfielder. Useful, but approximately Lastings’ value.
But let’s not get carried away. He’s not a future star. He did not “discover” his swing in Indy. And he’s not going to get anywhere close to those numbers in the majors.
We're supposed to believe we should only count his stats since he changed his swing.
But, he hit .250/.300 in August. 6 walks the entire month.
Oh for crying out loud
He hit .400/.667 in September, with 3 walks in 6 games. Combine his 6 September games with his 29 August games and you get an OPS of .747, which isn’t great, but is ~120 points better than his April (which is why his season-long numbers are so poor). And his July was an OPS of .964 – anyone here want to argue that players should be judged on a single month? SSS? Anybody?
Why do I have to repeat this? Why did Charlie post this without acknowledging the multiple, detailed, numbers-driven comments I made in two other threads yesterday? This is incredibly frustrating. As I wrote yesterday:
Starting June 1 (because I’m not going to pick through gamelogs to get the last 10 games in May, when he started hitting), his MLE is .235/.280/.418 – almost identical AVG to 2009, with an extra 30 points of OPS. Still not good enough, but a visible improvement.No one other than Brandon Moss thinks he can be a “really good major league player.” But his post-adjustment offensive numbers are just a bit below those of the guy we called our starting RF for most of this season, with equal or better offense. For a guy who couldn’t even hit AAA pitching in April, that’s noteworthy.
improvement is improvement
whether it be MLB or AAA. moss played well, was rewarded with a callup. end of story.
Why did Charlie post this without acknowledging the multiple, detailed, numbers-driven comments I made in two other threads yesterday?
Because I’m traveling and don’t have time right now to read every comment. What you see as improvement I see as quite possibly just noise in the data – yes he was bad in April, but he wasn’t very good in August either. I don’t see much of anything that makes me think that he won’t have his standard Brandon Moss season in 2010 – although I don’t have any problem with him as a bench outfielder.
by Charlie Wilmoth on Sep 9, 2010 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
But you’re missing the human element! It’s a story of redemption, and triumph of the human spirit! It’s a story of how a player went from sucking in the majors to . . . sucking in the majors!
Moss is the same STIFF now that he was with the Red Sox and the Pirates last year
You don’t have to look around too far to see what a real legitimate prospect and baseball player is: Tabata, Walker and to some extent Alvarez – these guys came up and immediately made an impact.
Moss is at his best at AA, struggles at AAA, and sucks at the Major League level. Here’s hoping NH is smart enough not to play him this or next year. I’d much rather see Presley at this point to see what he can do.
Bowker/Moss/Clement/LaRoche = trade them all to the Japanese League for a bucket of Terriaki Chicken and we’ll have gotten the better end of that deal.
Another attempt to rile up Yinzers against the FO and ownership
I don’t know if it is intentional or not, but it seems like these things have an underlying purpose.
1. Convince everyone Moss has magically gained hitting prowess
2. Convince everyone Moss is a “baseball player”. Plays hard, great locker room guy, smiles, likes children, walks on water, etc.
3. Crush the FO when they cut Moss loose at the end of the year.
4. Hope Moss has a hot month somewhere else so they can crush the FO again next year
Even though is is supposed to be a good story, the theme is how the FO missed out on Moss this year. Just wait for the tissue piece when they cut him and hoe he :loves this city" bs.
At least they didn't mention...
…that Moss was part of the return in the Jason Bay trade, yet another sore spot the media likes to poke to get the Yinzers all in a lather.
Moss is what he is, a guy who will spend a few years riding the bus between AAA and MLB, sitting on the bench behind guys who are better than he is, occasionally doing enough to be considered MLB-worthy but never living up to the burden of being included in the deal for the Pirates’ #1 trade chip.
Charlie...
If you’re basing the media bias for Moss on the excerpt you used in your blurb, I have to respectfully disagree. Nowhere in the excerpt does it say anything that would link the Trib to that bias. It simply says what he hit and then it quotes him, nothing wrong there.
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
All due respect,
what do you expect Moss to say? “The numbers look decent but I still suck”?
Moss didn't ask himself the question...
…or writea big puff piece about himself and publish it in both of the city’s newspapers.
Charlie isn’t complaining about Moss – he’s complaining about the media’s coverage of Moss.
Look..
The newspaper’s cater to the everyday yinzer fan that really doesn’t follow the team that closely, agreed?
Brandon Moss is a name most casual fans see and go, “Oh, I remember him from last year, wonder where he went.” The newspaper’s are taking a familiar name who is back on the big-league roster and probably drawing some amount of curiosity as to where he went, how he did, why he’s back, etc.
Are they overblowing the season he had at Indy? Sure, but the casual fan doesn’t know that and they’re the target audience, not us.
Why does targeting the casual fan...
…mean that they can’t be accurate in their reporting? If anything, being scrupulously accurate is MORE important in that situation, not less, in that casual fans don’t have enough context to know whether they’re getting good intel or bad.
not sure about this
they decided to run a story on Moss, and regurgitated what Moss told them. Come on, if ROY voters can use dated methods, newspapers get a pass!
Only thing I can say to this is that..
The casual fan doesn’t care enough about the context to know whether they’re getting good intel or bad. If it was the Steelers, you can bet they’d dig a little deeper and find out the actual truth on the matter.
The newspapers have to write something on the Pirates, just to fill some pages. The writers (Much like the fans they’re writing towards) see that Brandon Moss is now back on the team. Whether these writers know Moss hasn’t been all that good or whether they’re choosing to ignore it is really irrelevant.
Their thoughts are probably 1. I need to fill space 2. Moss is a familar name 3. How to take a familiar name and fill space. It’s not going to fill much space by saying Moss has been slightly good at AAA, but that likely means nothing at this point.
Reporters should have enough self-respect...
…to want to do good work, rather than just slogging through and filling space because they get paid to fill space. If they’re such unmotivated zombies that they can’t be bothered to take 30 seconds and look up the numbers on the story they’re writing, then they should clean out their desks and find jobs that don’t reduce them to uninspired blobs of suet.
You don't think there is aleast a little intrigue with this guy?
He got sent to AAA, hit well, wasn’t on the 40 man and wasn’t expected to be called up for that reason, yet the Buccos made room for him.
How is that poor journalism or uninspired?
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
NO ONE SHOULD EVER MENTION MOSS AGAIN!!!!!
Seriously, you guys are being insane about this. I’ll repeat myself: it was a little mention in the Notebook section*. You know what else gets mentioned there? Bullpen pitchers having babies and bench players visiting elementary schools.
WHY IS THE P-G IN THE POCKET OF BIG CHILDBIRTH!?!?!
- I assume it was in the equivalent in the Trib
This particular article...
…was a little mention in the notebook section.
This particular article was also one in a long and continuing series on the growth and development of Brandon Moss through swing adjustments. Individually, they are inconsequential, but collectively, they are maddening, like Chinese water torture.
A few more examples:
*This full-length article about Moss’s new stance/swing in the Trib, printed on August 28, 2009 (!).
*This interview with Moss’s hometown paper, where he extensively discusses the alterations to his swing, printed on June 6, 2010.
*This full-length piece from the P-G on June 20, 2010.
*This full-length article from PiratesDugout.com (part of the Scout.com network), published on August 6, 2010.
*This full-length article from MLB.com, printed on August 28, 2010.
There are more, too, but I think that’s enough to demonstrate the point. All of those writers didn’t just happen to independently arrive at the same angle for their stories. This is a narrative that’s being pushed by somebody. Which is fine – but reporters don’t have to uncritically print whatever crosses their desk.
Are you kidding?
His hometown paper? Batboys get articles in their hometown papers. “Robbie really knows how to handle tossed balls from the umpire!”
I do think the 2009 article is an interesting example, but not really relevant to the matter at hand: he was a guy on the ML roster who’d done something (slightly) noteworthy at the end of another lost season, so he got a few hundred words. Note, btw, that it was a different, and smaller, modification to his swing & stance than what was done this year. I can’t see it as part of a grand conspiracy.
More importantly, while it’s true that the overall results don’t promise that the guy has become a legit major league starter, a guy who looked destined for nothing but a few more years on the minor league bus instead raised his average 55 points and got himself put back on the 40-man roster. That’s a story as much as anything else that happens in this godforsaken organization.
"raised his average 55 points and got himself put back on the 40-man roster"
He started getting saturation coverage on his swing work long before he actually raised the average, though.
Because he was hitting like crazy
He raised his average 15 points in 10 games, and didn’t stop there.
Must be hard typing with your fingers in your ears, going LALALALA.
There were articles this spring...
…about him working on the swing, too.
And if ten hot games were all it took to get fawning articles written about your new swing, why didn’t Adam LaRoche get more ink when he was here?
Oh no...
5 articles/blurbs in a span over a year…
You’re really blowing this out of proportion, imo.
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
Those aren't the only ones.
Those are ones that I found after about 30 seconds of googling. There are more.
Of course, If I find and post another five, you’ll probably just say that those aren’t a big deal, either. Or the five after that. Or the five after that…
To be honest...
…if one of the Pirates’ bullpen pitchers had a baby, it would be front-page news in every newspaper on the planet, the lead story on every news program and the cover story on the AMA journal.
Just sayin’
He didn't hit all that well.
That’s the point. You’re just taking the same incorrect premise as the reporter and running with it.
Among guys with 100+ PA at Indy this year, Moss ranks eighth in raw OPS, behind (in descending order) Pearce, Walker, Pedro, Clement, Kratz, Kevin Melillo, and Presley. He’d be ninth, but Bowker only had 98 PA.
In raw OPS, he’s a whole three points ahead of Iwamura, whom most people here would cheerfully shove into the river if he showed up at PNC tomorrow, and twelve points ahead of Jim Negrych, who’s basically a non-prospect despite being younger than Moss and playing a more difficult defensive position (albeit pretty badly).
OT
I think Iwamura was my biggest disappointment for the season. When he was acquired, I viewed him as a trade chip, and he really should have been. I didn’t see him falling off the way he did, and I think it cost us at least 1 solid prospect.
Same tactic, over and over
Use his full season numbers, compare them with minor leaguers, dismiss Moss.
From a defined date, at which point he completely changed his stance (to the one he used back when he was a no-doubt prospect), he put up a MLE OPS of .700. Any full-season numbers you use are bullshit attempts to obscure that fact. A .700 OPS is 15 points behind Milledge and 25 points behind DY. IOW, taking into account defense, his post-modification season was equal to or better than 2 guys who combined for 601 major league PAs.
You told me, Vlad, that MLE isn’t a projection, it’s the actual performance. So stop pointing to his full season minor league numbers and explain why his post-modification MLEs are irrelevant.
Pretty sure
May 19 or 20. I don’t recall him naming a date, but the mentioning of the change in stance was (roughly) contemporaneous*. I suspect the first mention would be in the Indy paper, but I’m not hunting it.
- IOW, 2 weeks later someone wrote, “Moss changed his stance a couple weeks ago.”
We're talking about a guy...
…who had a nice month and a half. And then got cold again. With an arbitrarily-determined starting point, since you don’t have an actual date for when he made these magical swing changes (and there are articles about him making various changes to his swing from this spring, and the offseason, and the end of the offseason…).
To wit: His “post-modification” MLEs are irrelevant because you haven’t defined what dates “post-modification” actually covers, i.e. when he made the change that you’re crediting for his June/July performance.
Holy shit
Will you shut the fuck up about “June/July”? May 19 to the end of the season. That’s it. Not cherrypicking, not picking an arbitrary sample, not picking a small sample, not pretending that August happened but that September didn’t (which is what you’ve done about 5 times now). He hit one way (shittily) for 6 weeks (plus ST, plus pretty much all of 2009). He hit another way (MLE .700) for the next 17. His AVG, OBP, SLG, and BB/K rates all look different on either side of that dividing line. Can I prove that was the day he changed his stance? No, because I’m not paying for MiLB.tv. But it’s awfully suggestive. The change was immediate, drastic, and lasting (no matter how many times you shout “August!”)
Incidentally, Vlad, remember how last year I pointed out that Walker’s performance had really taken off after he had an injured spell, and you insisted over and over and over again that it was meaningless, that nothing had changed, and that Neil Walker was a terrible hitter who had no future whatsoever in the Major Leagues? You really fucking nailed that one, didn’t you? Your prescience with minor leaguers is breathtaking, really. I’m going to go and angrily link to every article that’s been written about Neil Walker, because we all know that he’s a bad hitter who doesn’t deserve to be written about.
With Walker...
…I said that he needed to keep it up in order to prove that his tiny sample of improved performance was legitimate and earn a shot with the team. He kept it up, he earned his shot, and he took advantage (so far). So what’s the problem?
You say that you chose May 19 as your date for Moss’s adjustment because that’s when he started hitting, and then you say that Moss’s stretch of improved hitting is legitimate because he made an adjustment at the start of it. You know that that’s circular reasoning, right?
It was identified as such soon after
I can’t prove that was the date without the video (turns out the Indy Star writes less than the AP does about the Indians), but it was cited as a change soon after. Yes, confirmation bias (other, failed adjustments don’t get cited), but as I’ve said before, sometimes adjustments work. Bautista has been the best HR hitter in baseball for over 162 games now, and the adjustment he made was cited contemporaneously. No doubt he made other adjustments over the years as well. But 17 no-doubt HRs suggest that this one worked. And the best 17 weeks of hitting Moss has done in 3 or 4 years – coinciding with a return to the stance he used 3 or 4 years ago – is suggestive.
Well, he's on the roster now.
And they probably wouldn’t have added him unless they were planning on keeping him. So we’ll see what he’s got to offer.
Steelers?
Have you READ Steelers coverage in either of the city’s papers? It is 10x more fluff than this Moss piece supposedly is.
My enthusiasm for the Steelers has really gone down over the past few years.
I’m hoping for a season-long strike next year that will bring the league back to reality and force some much-needed change on both sides.
Vlad
They didn’t write a puff piece, they wrote about a player that got called up. They quoted him, where is the lovefest?
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
As Charlie said...
…it’s not just the one piece. There has been continuing coverage of Moss’s “resurgence” in both papers, going back to this piece in June.
I'd say going from .210 to .266 is a resurgence
No scare quotes needed.
The June piece was Finder, incidentally.
Sure
To his prospect days.
I’m really astonished by this whole thing, since last spring I was constantly arguing with you and Wilbur and I think even Charlie that Moss was a POS 4th OF, while you all insisted that with his defense and MiL performances that he was an above-average RF. Now he’s the second coming of JR Fucking House.
"you all insisted that with his defense and MiL performances that he was an above-average RF"
Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Find this for me. I want to see it.
The closest thing to your quote that I ever said was that he was an above-average defensive right fielder. Which he is.
I was more optimistic about Moss a year and a half ago than I am now, but that’s mostly because he spent last year sucking and then spent this year putting up pedestrian numbers at AAA.
Getting a little too sensitive
Vlad, are you guys accusing the PG and Trib of trying to incite a Brandon Moss riot? I mean, I think you guys are reading a little too much into this. When we last saw Brandon Moss, he stunk. He looked REALLY bad. That he did enough in AAA to warrant being added to the ML roster is somewhat of an interesting story. I didn’t read that post as an endorsement of the guy or suggesting he is about to inherit Clemente’s thrown as the king of RF.
BTW, if you subscribe to Scott McCauley (the Indianapolis broadcaster) he fairly gushed over Moss’s clutch performance throughout the year — not isolated incidents, consistently all year.
I haven’t watched a single Indy game this year, so I’m inclined to at least partially take the word of someone who watched every game. He saw more in Moss than even the stats.
Oh, and for the record, I think he’ll blow chunks again here … assuming he even gets in the game.
I'm accusing them of being lazy...
…and running with a narrative that’s being offered to them, without bothering to actually verify whether it’s true or not.
But hey, it’s not like Chuck Finder would ever be lazy or slipshod at his duties, so I must be a lunatic crazy person.
verification
What do you want verified? I think his stats in AAA can be verified and aren’t in dispute. Not really appropriate to verify his opinions about himself…
They could verify...
…whether or not Moss really showed all that much improvement this year. That would be a good place to start.
His stats in AAA are pretty easy to verify – and yet all of these writers apparently missed the fact that a .800 OPS in the International League isn’t really an unusual or feature-worthy performance.
So what?
Why does it bother you that a couple of inches in the local papers would be dedicated to a Pirates player?
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
It bothers me...
…because I’d rather be reading things that are demonstrably true or interesting or at least original than a bunch of warmed-over PR tripe that I’ve been served at regular intervals for more than a year.
Like...
Like how horrible this team is? But you complain about those stories, too! You just don’t seem to like news reporters. Something tells me neither the Trib nor the PG saw a single dollar from you last year, though, so the feeling may be mutual.
I like news reporters just fine, when they do good work.
Dejan has done some great work over the years. His series on the Dominican academy was sensational.
Which is why it’s so disappointing to get pointless, warmed-over filler. I KNOW that these guys can do better. They’ve done it before. There’s no reason why they couldn’t do it again.
Writing "The Pirates still suck" 162 times
isn’t the best way to sell newspapers. Pretty much anything of interest will get a few column inches. Moss hasn’t gotten a Sunday special feature or an off-day main article. He was interviewed for the Notebook section, as was Alex Pressley.
OH MY GOD STOP SHOVING ALEX PRESSLEY DOWN OUR THROATS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Writing “The Pirates still suck” 162 times
isn’t the best way to sell newspapers.
It is, however, the best way to start a 300-post thread.
Actually...
…Brandon Moss HAS gotten quite a bit of coverage this year. In addition to the two pieces Charlie’s talking about in his post, there’s also this puff piece from back in June.
Puff piece...
Did you even read it…it wasn’t a puff piece. It was an article on a minor-leaguer. The season is a long one, you need stories.
As a lad that covered D2 baseball, a season that is MUCH shorter, it is tough to come up with different ideas that aren’t retreads.
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
Yeah, it was a puff piece.
A puff piece I’ve already read a dozen times before, in that paper and other papers.
You need a puff piece? Write one about some other aspect of Moss’s life, or a different player.
Oh, you mean...
Oh, you mean one of the other highly relevant prospects in AAA? Which one, exactly? Last I checked, Indy was full of Brandon Moss, Brandon Moss clones, Brandon Moss’s cousins, and Brandon Moss’s illegitamite stepchildren.
OK, I'll play.
How about Brian Friday? He plays a position where we need help, he’s eligible for the Rule 5, he’s got a reasonable track record, and he was even hotter than Moss in June and July. And best of all, the only things written about him recently in either the Trib or the P-G in the last couple of months were a two-sentence answer in a chat and a two-sentence mention in a list of players who got hurt this year.
He’s at least as relevant to the team’s future as Moss, and yet no endless stream of articles about him. I wonder why not?
Hey, if you'd rather read another puff piece about Moss's swing...
…be my guest. There’s certainly no shortage.
Or how about Alex Presley?
He got a recent promotion, just like Moss. And he made an even bigger improvement this season than Moss did – he basically went from marginal organizational filler to legit ML player in five months. So why isn’t anyone in the Pittsburgh media writing reams of pieces analyzing his offensive development this year?
We will have to disagree then...
A puff piece would focus on his love of puppies or how he makes Easter Eggs with his kids, not on how he has handled being demoted, how he has changed his approach, etc.
If you want to say it’s a positive look at Moss, then you would be correct.
Puff pieces are usually in the Features section.
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
You want a substantive piece about Moss's swing?
Fine. Give us some biomechanical details. Why does the new swing work better than the old one? What does it allow him to do that he couldn’t do before, and how? What methods did they use to reinforce the new set of mechanics? Or some historical details. How did the coaches diagnose the problem? What was the breakthrough moment where they realized what was wrong? Have they taken any measures to prevent him from falling back into bad habits, and if so, what were they?
But no. We don’t get any of that. We get the same old crap: Moss’s swing was bad, they made some changes, and now everything’s all kittens and rainbows forever! Huzzah!
Excuse me while I go throw up.
Did you spill anything on the toilet?
So, which is it? Do you object to the piece because Moss stinks and doesn’t deserve airtime, or do you object to the piece because it isn’t thorough enough?
What you just clamoured for would essentially be a 1,000 feature story. I have a feeling that would elicit more vitriol than a 200 word notebook mention.
I object to the piece...
…because it’s lazy and uninformative. They could address that flaw by a) finding and presenting new information on the chosen topic or b) writing about a different topic.
Either would be fine with me.
Seems like you are moving the goal posts on this one Vlad...
Besides, you write for your audience.
DK’s audience wouldn’t understand the bio mechanical details. You write for a general audience, not the die hards that we are on BD.
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
Vlad's a laughing stock
if he writes for anyone other than his ki$$a$$ cronies.
He feels Milledge is a very good fielder, Doumit a very good hitter, and that Moss’s 22 dingers, 32 doubles, and doubled milledges runs/rbi’s plus a better fielder…well he’s not productive enough to play over our current bums.
Vlad, the world would laugh at your Milledge being a very good fielder and your genius statement about “OTHER WAYS TO SCORE RUNS”…milledge doesn’t score nor knock them in, look at Moss’s numbers and try explaining how Milledge deserves any ab’s?
Milledges AAA numbers last year 130 plus ab’s. ZERO HR’s.
VLAD, go play your computer games frickn geek
Huh?
A lot of the detail you claim to be looking for has been written up. His AAA coach dug up video from his MiL BOS days. He showed it to Moss and asked why it had changed. Moss told him that the ML BOS coaches changed it, supposedly to up his contact rate. He changed it back and, according to him, had instant results [I suppose we should put Woodward and Bernstein on that part of it]. So no, they haven’t written the book-length expose you want, but they’ve included some of the very things you ask for.
Incidentally, your claim that the hometown article is one “where he extensively discusses the alterations to his swing” is bullshit. Apparently you linked to it because… it appeared to support your assertions! What a shock! But in the real article, he never says the word “stance,” and the only times he says “swing” he’s talking generically:
But, it’s been so long since I played at Loganville and my mechanics are so different, my swing is so different, my approach is so different.Loganville was his high school. So yes, he mentioned that his swing was no longer the one he used in HS. But neither he nor the interviewer say a word about the stance. He was back in his hometown, and so they interviewed him. He did mention that he’d been feeling better at the plate, so I guess that’s pretty awful.
If I remember correctly he went back to his HS coach to ask his opinion during the time he was DFA’d in the spring.
He credits the coach at Indy for looking at the video from several years ago, and I think that happened in early-mid May.
Anyway, looking at his chart, you can see wild inconsistencies even now. I just did Walker’s chart from AAA and MLB, and it is crazy how consistent he’s been this year.
Puff piece
If we are going to rant about puff pieces, let’s not forget the DM one.
I believe it’s when the wipeout slider reappeared.
Seriously, that article was far more unrealistic than the Moss blurb.
Oh, well then ...
carry on.
But I’ll just add that self-delusion has been a huge part of sports since … well, sports.
Well, sure.
The day Moss doesn’t think he can make it is the day he takes off his spikes and becomes a coach or an insurance salesman or something. You need absolute, unwavering (and quite possibly unreasonable) faith in your own abilities to make it in professional athletics, or the business will chew you up and spit you out.
But that doesn’t mean that writers necessarily have to play along, right? You know that better than anybody.
For some reason this season, the way I was playing in Triple-A, made me really see that I belong here.
Just take that quote out of context and Moss has it exactly right.
The Pirates do not have ONE corner outfielder on the major league roster or top end prospect who can consistently put the ball in the right field bleachers. That’s why when ANYONE shows even modest potential everyone jumps. Moss showed some HR potential over the last few months. Who else is there?
Jones, actually
As I’ve said many times, his defense and offense play better in RF than at 1B. Still below average on both sides, but only just, and it would free up 1B for Pedro so we could upgrade the IF defense (per the Duke non-tender thread).
Just sayin’. Optimally you platoon him with Milledge. It’s a two-headed RF worth probably .350 of wOBA, which is just above average for RF, and with D that’s close enough to average not to matter.
Why does it have to be about home runs?
There are other ways of scoring runs, and all runs are created equal.
A good point ...
I think we do focus on HRs too much because of the short porch in right field and DK’s Lefty McThump nonsense.
Garrett ...
I think he would be an average RF. And a platoon with Lastings may help.
But the question is the bat. Can he hit enough to be a corner outfielder?
I’m not sure based on the past few months.
But I do think Pedro at 1b would help the defense. If Moss is around as a #5 outfielder and defensive replacement, I’m fine with that.
If he’s with another organization, I’m also fine with that.
Eh
I don’t really care. Moss has hit much better than before, but not good enough to really do anything for the Pirates.
But Moss is a guy who was kind of touted coming here, and flamed out pretty terribly. And he HAS improved his play, though as many have mentioned, not nearly enough to matter. Still, that’s why these stories are written. A pretty big piece that came in and flamed out, now he’s at least getting better. People want to hear about that, I guess.
Puff pieces are puff pieces and they happen all the time. If these lead to Moss being the Pirates starting RF next year, then I’ll be pissed. Until then, whatevs.
Santa Roberto Clemente
Ora Pro Nobis
FireRickReilly
You know, in the end Moss is going to have to prove himself on the field.
I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that his new/old stance is helping him. I don’t think it’s enough to make him actually good, though.
I think we all agree on that
No one here thinks he should be our starting RF. The question is whether he’s a better 5th OF than DY or Bowkers or whoever.
yeah
i think this one is blown out of proportion too. It hardly bothers me that Moss has had a few articles written about him in quick succession…
"Stop The Brandon Moss Meme!"
“Stop The Steve Pearce Meme!”
There…killed two birds with one stone.
What IS the Steve Pearce meme?
And how many articles have been written about it?
I don’t think I’ve seen even one exciting filler piece news bulletin about the latest developments from Pearce World in the last month… they might have taken his leg off on the operating table, for all I know.
There isn't one-I just wanted to get you worked up.
Although I would say Pearce shouldn’t be any more in the plans of the ’11 Pirates than Moss.
They’re both AAAA players who may or may not contribute a bit more to the club before moving on.
Being semi-serious for a moment...
…I really would like to see a more in-depth medical update on how Pearce is doing. The only things I’ve seen have been along the lines of “progressing as expected”, which don’t really tell us anything without knowing what the expectations were in the first place.
Do you ever send questions in to DK or ask during chats?
"It WILL happen."
Bill Mazeroski
June 19th, 2010
DK and other PG reporters, writers
DK is very good when you send him corrections.
I sent Smizik a correction last year. He ignored the e-mail and reposted the error a few months later. He didn’t fix it until I posted the error on the blog and others made fun of him.
Actually, the biggest jerk on the staff is Ron Cook when you alert him to his many factual errors. I remember one time he made a ridiculous error, something like not knowing who the Pirate manager was.
When I tried to gently correct him, I got a sarcastic e-mail.
Now I just copy the sports editor on his factual errors and he doesn’t bother to respond.
A former co-worker of mine used to work with Ron Cook.
He said that Cook was a real ignoramus, and that in casual conversations about sports he often didn’t know really basic things, like which player played which sport, or which team was located in which city. He also said that Cook was a jerk.
For whatever that’s worth.
I sent Paul Meyer a correction once.
Then noticed that I’d made a relatively trivial error in my message, and sent him a follow-up message. He printed the initial one, and then the next day selectively edited and printed the follow-up in a way that made it look like I was retracting my whole point, rather than just one specific example illustrating that point.
One thing is for sure:
The Pirates have a lot of candidates for 1B/RF and backup CF/LF that most other teams wouldn’t be particularly interested in, most definitely not for regular PT.
Pirates PR
I actually suspect the Pirates PR department is pushing this story, in the absense of much else to talk about besides the chase for 110.
Looks like a flat line to me.
I’d note that he’s explicitly said that his goal is power, not average, since his attempt to hit for average yielded neither.
Question
Is this SPSS? What did you use to create the chart?
I reckon
it was probably Excel.
Excel is good at simple stats stuff.
by BlindSquirrel on Sep 9, 2010 8:33 PM EDT up reply actions
Throw out the first two months
This is a big overreaction.
1) How do his numbers stack up once he made his adjustments? I think we can throw out the first two months because he was still struggling to make some changes. What were his numbers once he made the changes?
2) So what if you are correct? If he is basically the same player then he will prove that as well sooner or later and he will be gone.
3) I suspect he would be an improvement on Lastings Milledge. If Moss could bat .250 or .260 in the Majors and slug .450 or so I would be happy with him until something better comes along.
gaudesemper, your thoughts are correct and 97% of all MLB GM's would agree
Milledge avg’s 1 HR about every 95 AB’s, and less than 1 run and rbi per 10 AB’s. Add the fact he gets himself out on the bases often along with terrible fielding (every routine flyball is an adventure as he cant judge a flyball off the bat)
Doumit avg’s more HR’s but again his runs and RBI’s per 10 AB’s are terrible, plus the fact he cant field nor run.
Moss stunk last year yet his runs/rbi’s per 10 AB’s were better than these two bums plus a better fielder, and the fact he hit near .300 over the last 3 months at AAA w/ a power surge, there’s a CHANCE he figured thinks out and possibly can put up the G Jones type of numbers out there. That’s a heck of alot better than the NO GLOVE no production crap that’s out there now.
Only an idiot like NH or Vlad would feel Milledge is the answer, this team is 47 games under. They have suspect SP and poor fundamentals and fielding in RF, yet they play those 2 bums 75% of the time. Sounds like what they did w/ Walker last year.
Moss should be playing daily, by playing him so little, they are guaranteeing him to lose his timing and fail (like Walker last year) and like G Jones would have failed the previous year if treated the same way.
by Dan Jenkins on Sep 12, 2010 10:15 AM EDT up reply actions
Hi, Dan!
Always nice to hear your perspective on things.
Given your concern over not playing every day leading Moss to fail, I’m wondering why you think Moss failed last year, even though he was receiving regular playing time.
He stunk last year yet his production of runs and fielding are better than your 2 bozo's
He changed his whole swing up and produced at a relatively high level afterwards. He deserves a chance to see if he has “found it”. As a GM, you have to see if his almost .300 BA along w/ the HR’s ect…carry to the bigs (like Walker,Tabata,Cutch ect) the only way to find out is to play him daily.
Only you and NH appear satisfied with our bum RF’ers. We are 47 games under yet reading you and NH/JR comments, we sound like 40 games over. Milledge nor doumit would start anywhere else in baseball, they cant give the 2 away.
I guess I wouldn’t take losing like the bad news bears sitting back praising bums. If there’s a guy who’s hot and productive in AAA or AA to that matter, I’d surely find out if they are ready (it’s obvious Milledge nor Doumit aren’t MLB players you can win with)
It’s be nice having half a clue to what you really need and have going into the off season, so that resources are spent where the need truly is (Not like the Iwamuri fiasco which you applauded at the time).
If Walker played daily last sept, he would have played well as he was hot for last couple months at Indy.
You gain NOTHING playing Vazquez/Young last year and even less playing Milledge and Doumit this year.
47 games under yet we shouldn’t be interested in finding out what our MOST PRODUCTIVE and quite hot hitter at Indy can do up here?
Great logic there Comp geek.
by Dan Jenkins on Sep 12, 2010 11:42 AM EDT up reply actions
I saw 100+ comments
in under 24 hours and thought BFD1/Nutting had been in here. Nope, just a good old fashioned Vlad/JRoth argument.
Just like old times.
He'll get twenty at bats
between now and the end of the season, and will end up released because nothing will change. I’m happy to rubberneck and see what he does because there isn’t much else out there (except of course letting Milledge play with some regularity). What intrigues me here is the fact that neither Moss nor anyone else can get this story straight. Moss himself said on the radio Tuesday that he just opened his stance a few weeks ago and that made a bug difference.
I think all the coverage stems from Moss’s penchant for endless chatter. He sounds like he’ll talk to anyone who’ll listen. In the interview I heard, the dude barely took a breath.
by RichieHebner on Sep 9, 2010 11:05 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
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