Bobby Bonds got tagged as "the next Willie Mays" when he broke in with the Giants. Now Bonds was a terrific player, one we were privileged to watch, and he had a great career. But comparing a rookie, any rookie, to one of the very best players in the history of the game is a comically limiting view. Bonds was Bonds. Not Mays. And to appreciate him was to appreciate his Bonds-ness and not his Mays-like-ness.
Which brings me to Tyler Beede. Tyler Beede was a first-round draft pick (2014). Expectations are higher for fellows with that sort of pedigree. After four seasons and 70 starts in the minors we expect our number one guy to be ready. We've been spoiled by Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Madison Bumgarner. We think all number one picks are like that. We forget about David Aardsma, Craig Whitaker, and Tim Alderson. And Zack Wheeler, Kyle Crick, and Phil Bickford have all been traded. Fellow first-round pick (2012) Chris Stratton is almost three years older and finally (we think) finding his groove. And he'll get there by being the Chris Stratton-est Chris Stratton that he can be, not some ersatz version of Matty, Timmy, or MadBum.
So Tyler Beede needs to become Tyler Beede, whoever that is. And we need to watch and appreciate his Tyler Beede-ness. What that will turn out to be is anybody's guess. Today was a little disappointing but it's only one day. There will be, we hope, many more.
Johnny Cueto is pencilled in to start Tuesday in Arizona. Hallelujah!
--M.C.
p.s. boxscore for today's debacle
10 comments:
Another 1 run effort. Jeez.
Beede showed us that he actually has some great stuff. The team is not hitting, and it does not look as if our trades, and signings, did much to improve our offense, despite having such a great offense in Spring Training. Can anyone on this team get a hit with runners in scoring position? I know analysts deny it, but there really is something to clutchness.
125 hits is 12th but 33 XBH is 25th and 41 BB is 29th. Dink, dink, dink, and too many ground balls.
Beede goes back to AAA.
Back to yesterday's discussion - I totally agree w/ Mark about the replays. The fingernail deciphering nonsense is just too time-consuming & downright silly - the NBA has the same problem. I think placing a time limit on replay analysis is a great idea. Supposedly, they are trying to speed up games, but in both sports, they can drag out one of these replay analyses for 5 minutes.
Goal line technology in soccer seems to be instantaneous & is working well, but the baseball parallel to that is that sensors make the ball-&-strike calls (which I favor). Having sensors deciding such things as someone diving back into 1B on a pickoff throw is probably still too far-fetched.
It would be a lot better if the video replays actually got the calls right.
There should be ways of detecting whether a plate is struck by the runner (and not, say, the catcher) by timing the device within the plate to another timing that is used by their video system, kind of like viewing the video and audio (via, say, the wave form), to eliminate the need to watch to video to see whether a player strike the plate or not.
Also, I've seen someone say that there is no way to set up cameras to get the same view of the plate in every stadium. I disagree. If you take home plate as a 360 degree circle, if you place cameras at 90, 180, and 270, where 0 points to the pitcher, as you pace off that angle from the plate, eventually you hit the stands, somewhere, no matter the configuration, and just aim the cameras at homeplate. And to get even better view, station cameras at 135 and 225 degrees, to get other angles.
There is also a camera system that, once you take a picture, it's software allows you to focus onto any point in the picture, allowing one to change the focus point, to get a clearer look into what exactly is happening.
Combine all that tech (and eventually, clothing can be manufactured for IoT in order to detect when and where it is touched by a mitt or ball), and safe/out calls should be easier to call.
I've also seen someone suggest that instead of touching the plate, that like a touchdown, you just need to cross the plane of the plate. I wouldn't be against it but that's something that has always been a part of baseball, touching all the bases, and so I would prefer that it not be implemented when there is tech that can improve the calls.
Beede is Beede, I agree. It is just when people get desperate for a good prospect, they put their expectations on the player, instead of accepting the player for what they are. I know I was guilty of that during the mediocre 70's and 80's, for sure.
Also, most do not know that the odds of even a relatively high draft pick like Beede much more often than not, do turn out to be a good player. Only around 15-20% of them become the good starters we expect/hope from a first round pick. I don't see that understanding among baseball fans, but the NBA draft offers a good analogy, as everyone knows that the top picks are often sure things, but by the back of the lottery, you have to get lucky to find a good starter, and by the end of the first round, you just have to get lucky period, to find a usable player. And the odds are so bad further, that the NBA only does two rounds.
Also, whatever his draft position, most expert reviews of him notes that he has the stuff to be a #2 type of starter, but for whatever reasons, he pitches more like a middle rotation starter. Thus, his talent tantalizes and frustrates.
That's why I wrote this offseason that I wouldn't be surprised if Suarez pitched well enough to win a spot in the rotation, but didn't make the same statement about Beede. I believe he has the talent, but Suarez so far is much better at executing his talent, which most scout experts rate as lesser than Beede. I see Suarez as a Kirk Rueter-type (but with more stuff), whereas Beede has the talent and stuff to be a better pitcher, but so far has been very inconsistent in displaying that talent on the baseball mound, for whatever reasons.
I've no doubt we could technologically do a better job of wiring up players, bases, etc. to robo-call much of the game. But that may be overkill, and certainly would take quite a bit of tweaking to get right. Statcast, for example, is not perfect by any means, and the tracking systems have errors and biases that may take some time to fully flesh out and improve.
My comments were strictly about the current implementation of video replay, which I think is too clunky.
supposedly, replay had to be decisive to overturn a call. Again today Blanco steals second, his front leg comes off, they tag him, but it looked to me that his back leg easily got in before the tag anyway. He was called out. Did they just look at his front foot? The giants had some good angles on their videos. I wonder if N.Y. got to see those. Three calls in the last few games went against the giants. One overturned vs. the giants a safe, into an out, saw no reason for the out, the tag was missed, no was you can decipher that Panik may not have touched the plate from any of those videos. Giants have had bad enough luck, without help from N.Y. Replay booth. The best thing that Longoria did today was hit a foul line drive that hit Cuzzi. How about the giants break out, with a long overdue 6 or 7 run scoring inning.
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