Baseball America’s yearly prospect rankings are kind of a big deal. Every team has have individual preferences, but in the same way that US News and World Report is the standard for college rankings, so too has BA become the shorthand way to label a teams prospects. Maybe you personally prefer Stanford to Yale, but you have to make that switch because US&WR set the template.
Brown, up until this point has been seen as a toolsy project (he was a football player and a pitcher in high school, he’s a corner outfielder now) but apparently he has really been putting it all together. BA also rated him the Phillies “best prospect for average” and I suppose deadly athleticism and contact hitting is a pretty dangerous combination.
Bigger names Carlos Carrasco, Lou Marson, Jason Donald, and Kyle Drabek round out the top 5. Take a look at the site, it also included the Phillies’ prospects with the best specific tools and a projected 2012 lineup. It’s not a bad resource to have.
Today Peter King, SI’s in-the-know senior football writer, filled in for the legend Paul Zimmerman (Dr. Z is recovering from a November stroke) in naming the magazine’s annual All Pro team. Bradley, the Eagles’ middle linebacker, beat out bigger names like Brian Urlacher and Jon Beason for the coveted honor. He was the only Eagle selected.
King bends the rules a bit by including both an inside LB (Ray Lewis also made the cut) and a true MIKE, but being named the best 4-3 linebacker by a guy like King is nothing to scoff at.
Personally, I’d argue that the pick is a little premature; Bradley is a ballplayer for sure, but he struggled early against the pass and still occasionally appears to miss gap assignments. Still, this should go a long ways towards the linebacker’s Q rating and could be a harbinger of future pro bowls. No one is doubting the Birds wouldn’t be where they are today if not for his contributions.
Congrats Big Blue, you’re officially on the radar.
City Paper, on average, receives about a million plugs a day from individuals and organizations hoping to cop a little bit of free press. We’ll get movies and albums to review, flyers informing us about upcoming events, and a near constant stream of press releases hyping up one event or another. The sports-themed of these go straight to me. In many cases this is great - it gives me a heads up to events that I didn’t know were happening, or a book I might want to review from an author whose work I’ve either written about or requested before.
In other cases it’s bizarre.
Yesterday one of the later arrived in my inbox. After the jump … a press release that will blow your mind, presented in it’s entirety:
van Riemsdyk (left, obviously) and Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr
CREDIT
James van Riemsdyk, the silver lining on the cloud of that disasterous Flyers season a couple years back, has impressed at every stage (so much to the point that the pro club has begun to openly grumble that he’s not taking his game pro … anyone got a guess about why he’ll never hear complaints about going pro while college basketball is ‘ruined’ by such behavior? That’s besides the point though …) and the world junior hockey championships were no different.
Despite the fact that team USA didn’t so medal, JVR was named USA Today’s Olympic Player of the Week.
While it’s a bit bittersweet to name someone the Olympic Athlete of the Week when his team didn’t win a medal or she didn’t climb up the podium, it’s hard to overlook the credentials of USA hockey player James vanRiemsdyk.
[snip]
While the American squad was knocked off in the quarterfinals by upstart Slovakia, VanRiemsdyk helped the team to a fifth-place finish by scoring the game-winning overtime goal against the Czech Republic on Sunday. It was his sixth goal of the tournament, which tied him for third in that category.
I’m inclined to think no. The Phillies seem to have a fairly set roster and, until the eight arbitration cases they face are cleared up, will be unsure on how much of their assets are tied up already.
Besides, after re-signing Moyer and bringing in Ibanez the Phillies don’t have any glaring holes. They’ll almost assuredly bring in a short-term replacement for J.C. Romero and swap one of their lefties for a right handed bat off the bench, but neither of these moves are expected to amount to a huge difference when it comes to wins and losses. What would, however, would be the addition of a frontline starter.
Yet, if those whispers are correct, and if the oft times cantankerous Boras isn’t merely using the Phightins to leverage himself to a better deal with the Mets, then Philadelphia might emerge as the unlikely winners of the Derek Lowe sweepstakes merely by the simple act of quietly and carefully lying low.
Ariza has been wrong before, and I’m not inclined to put a terrible amount of faith into FoxSports nor scout.com, but I suppose it is worth noting that in a year when all of our assumptions (the Phillies will offer arb. to Moyer and Burrell; the Phillies will be sure to add a righthanded bat; Raul Ibanez wouldn’t be worth $14 million dollars and a first round draft pick more than Burrell if he was 10 years younger and a season of roids better, etc.) have been proven wrong, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to throw out the possibility that Junior has another move left.
It isn’t exactly a shocking realization that NC2A D1 athletics
are set up to exploit the student-athletes and promote the colleges and universities
themselves. Students are forced to sit
out a year after a transfer and often face harsh restrictions after doing so -
even if university promises of playing time or coaching continuity weren’t kept
- while coaches can switch with little or no penalty. Worse, if a coach violates NCAA rules and gets
his team barred from postseason play he is able to change schools and begin
illegally recruiting again (whatup, Kelvin Sampson) while his old team suffers
the penalties - and we haven’t even gotten to the millions of dollars made off
of athletes playing for their education, room, and board (I’m not saying what
Steph Curry is getting isn’t anything - far from it - but I’m real comfortable saying that that is
less than what Davidison’s President is making off his production).
So, with that in mind, count me among the seemingly few
people not horribly offended that Boston
College looks set to
follow through on their threat to fire head football coach Jeff Jagodzinski
after JJ interviewed for the New York Jets vacant coaching position.
When BC AD Gene DeFilippo caught wind of the fact that his
coach was gunning for a pro position he said, in no uncertain terms, “if you
take the interview you’re going to be fired.” I’ll ignore the detail that the decision
was more about communication than principle - reportedly, Gene D was pissed he was left out of the loop -
mainly because it’s the principle that I love. Jagodzinski was hired just two years ago, and
while he has been wildly successful (whatup, Matt Ryan), he clearly has seen
the BC job as a stepping stone towards greater riches. If you’re BC you can’t let that happen.
Boston
College may not be a perennial
powerhouse, but they’re headed that way - the Eagles have straight ACC Atlantic
division titles and a bowl win over the last two seasons. If all they wanted to do was attract elite
level talent they’d let JJ interview and not mind turning
themselves into a stepping stone for NFL jobs. If they want to do right by that elite level
talent, make sure that the kids who pledged to represent them are treated with
honor and respect, well, then they’ll find a coach who can live up to the
promises they make.
Of course, the problem is even if this stand works - if JJ is fired and BC wins whatever legal battle will ensue - the problem is that moving forward this is not likely to ensure that head coaches remain loyal. In fact, the opposite may happen, where the contracts they sign will likely be laden with specific terms guaranteeing them the right to interview for other positions. All of this leads me to one final, free market solution: a retention bonus.
If I’m BC I know that the next coach I hire is probably going to demand contract language that allows them to interview with pro teams. To that I say, fine, I’m putting in contract language that rewards the coach for not seeking these positions. Oklahoma just cut Bob Stoops a million dollar check for staying in place for 10 years, which seems to be win-win-win for the coach, the university, and the kids the first two are bringing in. You want to interview for another job? Fine, you’re losing bonus money that you’d get for not considering them. That way the school gets either the continuity of the coach or the name-boost that comes with the fact their head coach is interviewing for a pro job (the fact that we’re all talking about BC here isn’t nothing); the coach gets an incentive to stay put beyond his set-in-stone contract; and the kids get a better chance at being taught by the men who promised to teach them. Making this type of bonus common practice would be a baby step in the right direction.
Scottie Reynolds, whose 40 points led Nova to a 89-85 win over Seton Hall last night in Jersey
“Momentum, fine, whatever it is, confidence, whatever that is, the bottom line is it is the team that wants it more, the team that plays harder on Sunday and makes the plays.”- Giants Center Shaun O’Hara
Kate Beale, a young lass who may be best known as the second most attractive/talented member of the Beale brood (no shame there), knows very, very little about sports. This does not, however, discount her from being an authority on the subject - a fact she does not try to hide come gametime. The justification for her yearly NC2A picks are one of the highlights of my tourney (one you’ll get to share in come march).
Anyway, she got a hold of my last post and gave me an excited call. Realizing that what I had was pure gold I asked her to write it up. Here it is, without edit:
Ok, I think that AJ McFealy is a perfect example of what you’re talking about…
In terms of their starting QB, teams are going to pay as much as they can for one of the limited amount of players who are certifiably awesome - in this bracket pretty doesn’t matter so much.
But, since even awesome AND pretty players get injured, (Tom Brady, if you’re reading this sorry -kinda- for the whole J.E.T. thing, and get well soon) teams are also going to need some backup, and they won’t necessarily be willing or able to pay top dollar. In this price bracket there are a lot more players, which makes it much more difficulty to determine comparative skill or potential with any level of certainty… so at this point, why not pick the pretty guy (welcome aboard AJ)- it’s not going to hurt you (in any way that can be proved after the fact), and it might actually help you. Yes, AJ did pull through for the team - but I have to think that part of that might have been that his prettiness helped to make him an instant fan favorite, surely boosting his confidence, which I would think might improve his playing. (–Jamsie, Can you find footage of AJ receiving the biggest standing O of the night at a Sixers playoff game? I was at the game, and I was cheering, a little less so when I realized that he was sitting with his fiance, but still–)… [Ed: there is no way that footage of AJ Feeley taking in a 2005 Sixer game exists. None. I'm 100% positive about this.]
Anyway, long story short- it seems like in this situation it seems like picking a prettyboy worked out for the Eagles.. and isn’t AJ a starter now too?
Alright, first of all I would argue that this is not “a perfect example of what I was talking about.” I argued that second tier QBs might be valued for attractiveness because scouts are used to attractiveness correlating with competence on lower levels.
But, apparently, I was saying to throw money at attractive quarterbacks because, hey … why not? People love attractive people. Good thing I made that clear.
Oh, for those of you who don’t follow sports … no, sadly AJ is not a starter. He’s back on the Birds, two injuries away from pretty boy fan favoritism.
economists Rob Simmons, Jennifer VanGilder and I collected data on 121 N.F.L. quarterbacks who played from 1995 to 2006. We looked at the factors that determine player pay - career statistics, experience, Pro Bowl appearances and draft position - as well as the symmetry of each quarterback’s face. Sure enough, symmetry had a positive impact on a quarterback’s salary. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in facial symmetry led to a nearly 8 percent increase in pay.
I’ll ignore the really shocking news here - the fact that symmetry is the only
determining factor of attractiveness, a dumbing down of pretty that ignores so
many of my wonderful qualities - and instead try to focus on why the PBB could be.
Berri notes that those most affected by the PBB are the lowest paid
quarterbacks. On one hand this makes intuitive sense - in the end, no one is signing anyone to be the QB just
because they’re attractive; if you’re awesome it is going to become clear
regardless, and if you’re terrible, being pretty isn’t going to get you signed.
But since the bulk of players fall between these two extremes, players that don’t stand out are more likely to be judged by
different criteria, even if unintentionally.
I would guess that one reason that attractiveness
comes into play is that many of the same qualities that go into making
you attractive also play into how you’re scouted.
I’m with everybody. It sucks, it is, lets move find a cheap
stopgap solution and applaud the hell out of J.C. the minute he gets back for standing up and refusing to say he
cheated. Anyone got anything I’m missing?
Staff Blog
The Unborn (PG-13)
