Jo Adell

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, cals said:

Outfield defense isn’t simple but it’s also not like hitting the baseball.  I just don’t understand how he has gotten to this stage and this age and not figured out how to field his position.  It’s difficult not to assume, based on his other behavior, that he simply doesn’t want to put in the time.  I mean it’s possible he’s busted his butt to become a better OF and it’s just not clicking.  I don’t know.

Except everyone says he puts in the time. 

[cals]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Except everyone says he puts in the time. 

I specifically added that part so you’d respond.

[cals]

So if he’s genuinely “putting the time in” that’s more worrisome than not putting the time in.  It means he’s hopeless defensively because it’s not like there’s some OF guru coach who is going to make things click for him.  Any professional coach has the knowledge and skill to teach OF defense.

So what Strad is trying to say is that Adell is hopeless and that sucks.

[Stradling]

11 minutes ago, cals said:

So if he’s genuinely “putting the time in” that’s more worrisome than not putting the time in.  It means he’s hopeless defensively because it’s not like there’s some OF guru coach who is going to make things click for him.  Any professional coach has the knowledge and skill to teach OF defense.

So what Strad is trying to say is that Adell is hopeless and that sucks.

Or it’s a mental issue on defense. 

[cals]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Or it’s a mental issue on defense. 

While there have been examples of that I don’t believe his issues are mental.

[eligrba]

I think Langston made the observation this week that Adell begins each pitch in a flat footed position, unlike every other fielder.  That's the standard athletic position for a beer league softball player, not a baseball player who is reportedly being coached to play at a high level.

 

Adell is a mystery.  At his point, I have more invested in solving the mystery of what happens to one sock when laundry is done.

[CaliAngel]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

I think Langston made the observation this week that Adell begins each pitch in a flat footed position, unlike every other fielder.

Honestly I could care less how he starts each pitch as long as he can stop a slow ground ball or catch a fly ball like a major league ballplayer should. 

If it's mental then the Angels have given him more than a substantial amount of time to get over that. We're talking the last 2 months in 2020, a little over a month in 2021, and then practically handing him a permanent full time position to start 2022 despite knowing his offensive and defensive issues. Apparently he's still not getting the mental aspect of the game over the course of 3 years. 

If he's putting in the work then, again, the Angels have given him more than a substantial amount of time, but he's still not getting it.

I've never seen this board more sympathetic to a guy who has clearly had enough time for the mental and physical aspect of the game, apparently hasn't got past either/or, can't figure it out at the plate, and to top it off is an absolute liability in the outfield. I have seen very little besides one-off isolated examples of how he's "supposed to be good" and if it's going to take him 4 years more to "figure it out" trade him or leave him in the minors so we can open up a roster spot to someone who has it figured out now. 

[79CAAman]

1 hour ago, eligrba said:

I think Langston made the observation this week that Adell begins each pitch in a flat footed position, unlike every other fielder.  That's the standard athletic position for a beer league softball player, not a baseball player who is reportedly being coached to play at a high level.

 

Adell is a mystery.  At his point, I have more invested in solving the mystery of what happens to one sock when laundry is done.

“Coached to play at a high level”?  It seems that there is very little coaching on this team/organization. 

[Stradling]

109 MLB games. 

[Blarg]

2 hours ago, cals said:

Outfield defense isn’t simple but it’s also not like hitting the baseball.  I just don’t understand how he has gotten to this stage and this age and not figured out how to field his position.  It’s difficult not to assume, based on his other behavior, that he simply doesn’t want to put in the time.  I mean it’s possible he’s busted his butt to become a better OF and it’s just not clicking.  I don’t know.

Between Covid and injury he has missed nearly two seasons of minor league instruction. Whatever rough edges he has on defense, those years were stripped from him and still need to be replaced by playing time. 

The Angels never should have called him up last season, exposing his deficiencies to fans on a national stage. The only reason he is up now is there is no harm to the team to play him, they've been out of contention and won't recover. 

I think him playing the rest of the season and maybe winterball could replace those lost years of instruction. What happens between now and spring training determines not only Adell's future but that of Marsh as well since he is glove only at this point.

[eligrba]

14 minutes ago, CaliAngel said:

Honestly I could care less how he starts each pitch as long as he can stop a slow ground ball or catch a fly ball like a major league ballplayer should. 

I thought you played baseball.

[Stradling]

1 minute ago, eligrba said:

I thought you played baseball.

Oh he did. 

[eligrba]

1 minute ago, Stradling said:

Oh he did. 

Apparently the main objective was to field slow ground balls and catch fly balls.  Back in the day, we would call that shagging for batting practice.

[Blarg]

10 minutes ago, eligrba said:

Back in the day, we would call that shagging...

[Angelsjunky]

Adell is especially disappointing, for the combination of a few factors:

• He's so athletic.
• He's a top 10 draft pick.
• He burned through the minors.
• He's not hitting or fielding.

Any of those factors on their own would feel like par for the course with most prospects. I don't know the actual rate, but how many drafted players even make the majors, let alone becomes stars? Even among 1st rounders or top 10 picks, very few become stars.

But then when you consider, how many top 10 draft picks who both excelled through the minors and made the majors in their age 21 season were absolute duds? I'm guessing most became at least pretty solid players, and a large number became stars. Meaning, if you take all the prospects who were drafted in the top 10 (or even 1st round) and hit .308/.390/.553 in AA at age 20, and completely flopped in the majors, it would be a clear minority. Most players that are that good in AA at age 20 become solid major leaguers, and a fair number become stars.

Further frustration is that last point. His defense would be somewhat bearable if he was mashing - he'd be our lovable Manny Ramirez type. Manny was an atrocious fielder - probably comparable to what Adell is now, but for a whole season, year after year - but was one of the 20 or 30 greatest hitters in baseball history, so you accepted that. Fun fact: Manny Ramirez has a lifetime WAR of 66.3, but with -276.6 Def Runs. If he was at 0 Def Runs, he'd have about 90 WAR. 0 Def for a corner outfielder means you're actually above average, but the point is that if Manny had been a slightly above average outfielder for his career (0 Def), he'd be among the top 25 or so greatest position players of all time. But because of his defense, he's at #81, between far inferior hitters, Robin Yount and Tim Raines.

Now Adell will ever hit anything like Manny. But if his defense doesn't improve, he has to at least become a significantly above average hitter - like 120 or better wRC+ -- to even be a league average player. And even that might not produce more than the occasional 2 WAR season.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Angelsjunky

[Angelsjunky]

In case you're wondering, Manny Ramirez is second worst all-time in Def with -276.6, behind only Gary Sheffield (-300.9). Most of the other guys in the bottom twenty are first basemen and DHs.

[ScottM]

There's something fundamentally broken with our organization that we turned Jo Adell (go watch his draft highlights) into a gigantic bust with the yips. Dude was destined to be a great player, and he still could, but it won't be with this org. 

[ScottM]

Look how quick his swing was in 2018... sigh 

 

[Taylor]

1 hour ago, Angelsjunky said:

In case you're wondering, Manny Ramirez is second worst all-time in Def with -276.6, behind only Gary Sheffield (-300.9). Most of the other guys in the bottom twenty are first basemen and DHs.

DHs have a Def stat?

[Angelsjunky]

11 minutes ago, Taylor said:

DHs have a Def state?

Def includes two components: Fielding and Positional Adjustment. The latter is a flat rate by position, adjusted to playing time and context, while the latter is performance.

The harder a position is to play, the higher the Positional Adjustment. Or for 162 games and 1458 defensive innings, it looks like so:

C +12.5

SS +7.5

2B/3B/CF +2.5

LF/RF -7.5

1B -12.5

DH -17.5

This is one of the areas that some people find a bit irking about WAR, due to its arbitrariness, but maybe someone like @Inside Pitch can tell us why it makes perfect sense, or at least good-enough sense. 

So if we look at Manny Ramirez in 2005, his lowest Def (-32.6), he's got a -6.5 Pos due to playing the corner outfield (149 of 152 games played), and -26.1 Fielding. -6.5 + -26.1 = 32.6.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Angelsjunky

[Angelsjunky]

To put that another way, the Pos Adj also represents what an average defender looks like at that position. For example, an average centerfielder who plays in 162 games should have a 2.5 Def (2.5 Pos + 0.0 Fld). While an average defensive 1B should have -12.5. 

So if we look at Albert Pujols, he was actually average or better defensively for most of his career, despite negative Def in every season from 2008 on. In 2008, he had a Def of -1.0, which means he was still an excellent defender.

You can see the breakdown by year right here. As you can see, his Fielding was mostly positive, and only regularly negative from 2016 on, when he slipped below average (though had a pretty good defensive year in 2020, and is above average this year).

Over the course of his career, he had -160.1 Def in 3029 games. That averages -8.6 per 162 games. Considering that most of that was 1B or DH, that's pretty damn good.

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Angelsjunky

[Slegnaac]

[Duren, Duren]

Fascinating exercises in math. Much appreciated. 

But being old school indoctrinated I still like to prioritize things like situational hitting and clutch play both at bat and in the field. Even an emotional or attitude  quotient, which would be hard to quantify. 

Think maybe of Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse to win an all star game! Ty Cobb attitude at it's extreme. I always admired Ron Hunt, who was the all time leader in being hit by pitch when he played. He had limited skill but willed himself into a pretty good player for over a decade. Guys like that did the little things that helped teams. Often sacrificing their own personal stats.

Players like that who battle and are smart and selective with their aggression, using it to pick up their team. And are booed in other ball parks. 

Economics are so different today that most players don't have the survival hunger that animated many players in the past. Read biographies and histories from earlier eras to get a feel for play in other eras. Very revealing. 

 

[Angelsjunky]

7 minutes ago, Duren, Duren said:

Fascinating exercises in math. Much appreciated. 

But being old school indoctrinated I still like to prioritize things like situational hitting and clutch play both at bat and in the field. Even an emotional or attitude  quotient, which would be hard to quantify. 

Think maybe of Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse to win an all star game! Ty Cobb attitude at it's extreme. I always admired Ron Hunt, who was the all time leader in being hit by pitch when he played. He had limited skill but willed himself into a pretty good player for over a decade. Guys like that did the little things that helped teams. Often sacrificing their own personal stats.

Players like that who battle and are smart and selective with their aggression, using it to pick up their team. And are booed in other ball parks. 

Economics are so different today that most players don't have the survival hunger that animated many players in the past. Read biographies and histories from earlier eras to get a feel for play in other eras. Very revealing. 

 

Good post. And yeah, I agree with you...it is hard to quantify, though, and doesn't show up in the numbers. Furthermore, we just have more data now - everything is examined with a fine-tooth comb. Whereas just 20 years ago, Derek Jeter could make one flashy play and people would think he's a good defensive shortstop, now we have actual numbers to see that he was merely decent at best.

So, internet + more data = greater transparency, and generally better assessments of players.

But I do think GMs take the intangibles into account, all under the general umbrella of "make-up." When drafting, one would hope they would consider things like how a player got along with his team-mates, whether they ran out grounders, etc. The somewhat underrated film football film Draft Day goes into this.

What is puzzling about Adell is that his make-up was actually one of the things that people liked about him. It may be that he just knew how to say all the right things and give the appearance of working hard, or it may be that he had bad guidance, or didn't work hard well, or there are some other factors at play that are hard to pin-point. Or some of all of the above.

 

 

[Inside Pitch]

On 7/30/2022 at 8:09 PM, Angelsjunky said:

Def includes two components: Fielding and Positional Adjustment. The latter is a flat rate by position, adjusted to playing time and context, while the latter is performance.

The harder a position is to play, the higher the Positional Adjustment. Or for 162 games and 1458 defensive innings, it looks like so:

C +12.5

SS +7.5

2B/3B/CF +2.5

LF/RF -7.5

1B -12.5

DH -17.5

This is one of the areas that some people find a bit irking about WAR, due to its arbitrariness, but maybe someone like @Inside Pitch can tell us why it makes perfect sense, or at least good-enough sense. 

So if we look at Manny Ramirez in 2005, his lowest Def (-32.6), he's got a -6.5 Pos due to playing the corner outfield (149 of 152 games played), and -26.1 Fielding. -6.5 + -26.1 = 32.6.

I find the Def stat maddening and have no clue how they go about normalizing their positional component.  Assigning a single number like that across both leagues ignores park tendencies and is IMO flawed.  

My opinion is that individual defensive stats are really limited as a whole.  I believe teams can gain more from looking at batter/batted ball tendencies and aligning the defense accordingly than they can by trying to apply defensive metrics to individual players, in part because not all teams are getting the same data or universally applying it.  If you want to measure how much ground a guy can cover, his foot speed, assign a level of difficulty to a batted ball (again batter dependent), or how sure handed a fielder is....fine.  I believe that stuff is useful, but ultimately I think they eye test may be just as useful if not more so when talking about individual players.

Jo Adell is a super athletic DH or an OF than is fine going left or right but can't read the ball off the bat, and has awful mechanics in general.  Nobody that has had as many balls bounce off him as he has in such a tiny sample size should be comfortable playing matador defense or one handing shit.  Watching how Marsh positions himself to make a catch and then watching Adell try to make it look free and easy then fail is one of the most frustrating things ever for me.

It may be in his head or it may be that he's so busy trying to look good he's not putting in the effort to actually be good.  Either way he embarrasses himself on a regular basis.