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Post by thursty on Dec 12, 2014 19:40:50 GMT -5
I thought it might be fun and enlightening to invite posters to come clean and admit to their glaring/mistakes in player (or team) projections/predictions. We all know how fraught projecting players is and how prone we are as humans to remember when we nailed it and yet have a surprisingly flimsy memory to when we didn't. This inspiration was triggered by a tidbit that Jeremy Hermida (remember him?) was headed for Japan. When Theo acquired Hermida in the 2009 offseason (the Red Sox gave up nothing in return), I was fulsome with praise: something akin to 'just you watch - this will turn out to be Epstein's greatest acquisition' (it seems I was unaware of one David Ortiz) 170 PA and a 605 OPS later he was gone Just brutal |
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Post by pasadenasox on Dec 13, 2014 12:44:32 GMT -5
I was all over Chad Spann back in the day, and like a lot of other people I thought Lars was the second coming.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,923
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 13, 2014 15:10:01 GMT -5
For a while at SoSH, my sig was something like "I'm convinced that Tony Clark will have a monster season." When I wrote that, I was unaware that he had collapsed so severely at the end of his last year with the Tigers that the difference was statistically significant.
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Post by tomhouse on Dec 13, 2014 15:51:58 GMT -5
Michael Bowden.
Caught looking.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 13, 2014 16:41:19 GMT -5
Jeremy Reed. I really wanted to Red Sox to go get him after losing Damon in free agency, and I was sure that he'd outplay Damon over the course of that four-year deal he signed. Oh well.
I saw Jose Malave at New Britain when I was about 13 and I was convinced he'd be a beast.
I'm one of those people who thought Jeff Natale was for real.
On the other hand, I still maintain that I've been right about Rudy Pemberton for the last 17 years, and that the Red Sox were stupid to give up on him after 70 plate appearances in 1997. He finished with a career line of .336/.395/.515. I'm not letting that one go.
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Post by jmei on Dec 13, 2014 19:37:52 GMT -5
I remember being furious that they let Jeff Natale sign with the Yankees. I was convinced he was going to be the next Nick Johnson. Hell, I kind of still think he could have kept with it another year or two and at least gotten a few cups of coffee in the majors, but he retired when he was 28. I really enjoyed listening to this interview with him which discussed his career and his post-playing life. |
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 13, 2014 20:52:53 GMT -5
I was pretty high on Gibson at one point. Middlebrooks was always a binky but I never believed fully because of his K rates and inability to walk. I thought his work ethic would get him there. Hard to concentrate though when JD is waiting for you at home or in the locker room.
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Post by adiospaydro2005 on Dec 13, 2014 21:20:35 GMT -5
Donnie Sadler...saw him play a number of times when the Red Sox AA team was in Trenton....He looked like he could a pretty good utility player with some speed...However he never did much of anything in the majors
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Post by chrisfromnc on Dec 15, 2014 14:00:30 GMT -5
Because my prospect rating skills are solely consist of learning from posters here, I am not so much wrong in that I was high on these guys and they were busts. More that I was irrationally pulling for them long after there was plenty of evidence to indicate major league baseball was not in their futures.
So for me it is two guys that bookend the 2006 Draft. I thought Jason Place just HAD to have some kind of future. If Theo was that high on him, there had to be some substance there. Eh...not so much. Then, just because it seemed like a good story, I wanted Josh Papelbon to blossom.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 15, 2014 16:27:44 GMT -5
I used to have a tendency to get way too high on under-the-radar small-sample-size guys in my time. Paul Smyth and Dennis Blackmon come to mind. I'll always remember thinking Smyth was a deep sleeper candidate only to have him get cut in Spring Training.
This is probably why I push back so hard against people doing the same thing? This couch is comfy by the way, doctor.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 15, 2014 18:11:55 GMT -5
I spent far too long believing that Che-Hsuan Lin would eventually become what Mookie Betts now is.
As I look over the rankings history, one of the things I realize is that I'm usually one of the first guys off the bandwagon when a player has a disappointing season or otherwise hits a rough patch, and what's sad about that is that I've usually been correct in that response. It's been pointed out countless times that most prospects fail, and this exercise shows that it's not just random 20th round roster filler that fails. Lots of guys with real promise don't make it, and if a player you like suddenly looks like he might not make it, there's a pretty good chance that's the case.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 16, 2014 5:16:38 GMT -5
I remember being furious that they let Jeff Natale sign with the Yankees. I was convinced he was going to be the next Nick Johnson. Hell, I kind of still think he could have kept with it another year or two and at least gotten a few cups of coffee in the majors, but he retired when he was 28. I really enjoyed listening to this interview with him which discussed his career and his post-playing life. I was also convinced Natale was going to have an MLB career, and told him so when I met him at a SABR meeting. He only had 28 pro PA after that. Oh, and James -- I'll second you on Rudy Pemberton and raise you a Reid Nichols. At ages 23-24 he had 1.9 bWAR in 572 PA, despite playing only half the time, while hitting RHP better than LHP. He was toolsy as heck and, given his lack of platoon split, should have been given a shot at the everyday CF job. Instead we traded Carney Lansford for Tony Armas, a deal we lost in bWAR 27.2 to 3.3, and buried and then dealt Nichols, who never did get 175 PA in a season again. |
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 16, 2014 11:22:38 GMT -5
But then they traded Tony Armas's son for Pedro. So maybe that was some sort of karmic realignment.
I'll be honest that I'm too young to remember Nichols (was born in '81, my mother taught me to read a box score when I was seven, I've been hooked since). But the '80's seemed like a really good time for ignoring OBP and loving stolen bases and misunderstanding what made Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines great.
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Post by dmaineah on Dec 17, 2014 12:25:29 GMT -5
I thought the future of the Outfield was drafted with Murphy & Murton in '03. I still have hope for Brentz
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mobaz
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Posts: 2,765
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Post by mobaz on Dec 17, 2014 13:43:19 GMT -5
Love me some Rudy Pemberton as well.
Lee Tinsley looked like a capable long-term replacement for Ellis Burks to 12-year-old me. Though our seats were in Section 36 right above the CF garage, so I probably thought highly of every center fielder to come through.
On name alone I though Matt Murton would make it. He just sounds like a successful major leaguer.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 17, 2014 22:14:11 GMT -5
On name alone I though Matt Murton would make it. He just sounds like a successful major leaguer. Wow, I'd forgotten about Matt Murton. What an odd career. He hit .297/.365/.444 in close to a full season at 24, but never got close to that much playing time again. He's done pretty well for himself in Japan though. |
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