Anonymous Club Official Provides Amazing Insight
From Jayson Stark's hard hitting, weekly baseball column:
But how much is Teixeira worth? If Scott Boras is serious about establishing a 10-year, $230 million price tag on Teixeira, he won't have many bidders to play the Yankees against. Most teams view him as a five-year, $90 million kind of guy.
"What really stands out, when you've got Vlad and Teixeira back-to-back in the same lineup, is what he isn't," an official of one club said. "Let's put it this way: I know which one I fear, and it isn't him. To me, when you see truly great players, they always have that extra edge, that killer instinct. Well, if this guy has it, he doesn't project it.
Vlad last 28 days: .302/.375/.593
Teixeira last 28 days: .396/.486/.670
I can't really decide which witticism to go with, so I'll do a choose your own adventure type thing:
A. Confounded anger: "Seriously, two people got paid to pass this information along. How come they have jobs in sports? ARRRGH!"
B. Norm MacDonald: "Yeah, Teixeira sure isn't PROJECTING. Definitely not hitting CONSISTENTLY and with...uh...POWER."
C: Snippy article ending comment: "Must be a reason this guy wanted to remain anonymous. ZING."
6 comments:
Though I completely agree with your sentiment about the "anonymous" nature of the officials, doesn't it make a significant difference that Vlad's career OPS+ is 147 and Teixeira's is a mere 133?
However, I'm pretty sure Vlad's in for a rough aging cycle. He's in his thirteenth season in the bigs. 28 days might be a little small for a sample size, but I think next year Teixeira will be much more feared.
Signing Teixeira might be a dumber move, since he's so tired from
BEATING US MERCILESSLY.
Stark's columns are simultaneously annoying and not annoying. He knows his stuff, but he jumps to outrageous conclusions based on poor insight from unnamed sources way too often. Plus, I'll never forget the article that prompted this post. I lost a lot of respect for Jayson that day.
Speaking of useless crap from anonymous sources, Stark's column also features the following winners:
In the section about the Mets/Phillies: "One part of it, obviously, is the difference in bullpens," one scout said. "But the other part of it is heart. I love the Phillies' grit. And now that [Jimmy] Rollins is hitting again, they're the team to beat again."
So the difference is... pitching, hitting, heart, and grit. Okay.
Regarding the (lack of) effort from Pittsburgh's Adam LaRoche: "To see that effort level is really disappointing," one scout said. "I'm stunned that the effort level has been so poor. To see a kid hitting .170 and not running ground balls out, it's hard to fathom. This isn't the kind of player this team needs. They need more dirt balls and fire guys who scratch and claw."
The cure for Adam LaRoche's atrocious hitting slump? Run harder, be a dirtball, be a fire guy, scratch, and also claw from time to time.
I guess the new baseball buzzword will be "fire guy."
Dan Bob:
Normally I would agree with you about the small/arbitrary sample size. However, the 28 days numbers covered all but 8 of Teixeira's AB's with the Angels, so I thought it worked as a pretty good common denominator between the two. Especially considering that the anonymous official said that Teixeira's lack of projection really came out when he was hitting alongside Vlad.
I have to agree and disagree with you on this one. Concerning Vlad versus Tex, I would much rather face Vlad and I think the numbers back that up.
Other than that, after see Tex play for one year for my favorite team, I have to say he is not worth what he is getting ready to be paid. He is an excellent Scottie Pippen but wants to be paid like Michael Jordan.
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