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Post by jmei on Aug 21, 2015 7:19:47 GMT -5
Bear in mind that this is his first prolonged stay in the Bigs. Pitching staffs are bound to develop methods to get him out. How he reacts to enhanced defensive strategy is key to his success. I hope he becomes another Wade Boggs type late bloomer, but let's see how he handles increased scrutiny. With the amount of video and scouting now, I'm sure that every pitcher had the book on him before he took his first major league swing. At least compared to the old days anyway. And when he goes opposite field so well, that's a guy without many holes. I agree with what you said, I just don't think it's as likely that they find something severe that they didn't already know. Like in 2013, I remember CC Sabathia destroyed JBJ in his first game (I think) after he raked in spring training because the games finally mattered. I think you're exaggerating the extent to which opposing pitchers scout an unheralded rookie on a 55-win team in the middle of August. Shaw is not the kind of guy the advanced scouts are focused on or who the pitching coach chooses to bring up in the limited amount of time he has to discuss opposing hitter scouting reports. I'll also note that one of the concerns about Shaw coming up through the system was whether he had enough bat speed to catch up to quality fastballs on the inner half or up in the zone. He's always been lauded for his ability to hit to the other field, but his holes just happen to be elsewhere.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 21, 2015 7:25:44 GMT -5
With the amount of video and scouting now, I'm sure that every pitcher had the book on him before he took his first major league swing. At least compared to the old days anyway. And when he goes opposite field so well, that's a guy without many holes. I agree with what you said, I just don't think it's as likely that they find something severe that they didn't already know. Like in 2013, I remember CC Sabathia destroyed JBJ in his first game (I think) after he raked in spring training because the games finally mattered. I think you're exaggerating the extent to which opposing pitchers scout an unheralded rookie on a 55-win team in the middle of August. Shaw is not the kind of guy the advanced scouts are focused on or who the pitching coach chooses to bring up in the limited amount of time he has to discuss opposing hitter scouting reports. I'll also note that one of the concerns about Shaw coming up through the system was whether he had enough bat speed to catch up to quality fastballs on the inner half or up in the zone. He's always been lauded for his ability to hit to the other field, but his holes just happen to be elsewhere. m.mlb.com/video/v320060883/tbbos-shaw-launches-his-first-major-league-homer/?mlbtax=home_runOff a lefty too. Not seeing a hole there on that pitch anyway.
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Post by jmei on Aug 21, 2015 7:31:24 GMT -5
As noted in his scouting report, Shaw's slight uppercut swing means down-and-in is his sweet spot (as it is for many lefties). Jury is still out on whether he can catch up to quality fastballs up-and-in or just up. ADD: based on his contact rate heat maps and his slugging percentage heat maps, you can see that he has trouble with pitches up-and-in.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 21, 2015 7:37:52 GMT -5
As noted in his scouting report, Shaw's slight uppercut swing means down-and-in is his sweet spot (as it is for many lefties). Jury is still out on whether he can catch up to quality fastballs up-and-in or just up. ADD: based on his contact rate heat maps and his slugging percentage heat maps, you can see that he has trouble with pitches up-and-in. A lot of players do. Problem for pitchers is that you don't want to miss your spot up in the zone so they won't hammer you there in the same way that Bogaerts gets pounded low and away, for example. But pitchers will find some hole in his approach or swing and expose it eventually. We'll see how he adjusts.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2015 10:11:24 GMT -5
Bear in mind that this is his first prolonged stay in the Bigs. Pitching staffs are bound to develop methods to get him out. How he reacts to enhanced defensive strategy is key to his success. I hope he becomes another Wade Boggs type late bloomer, but let's see how he handles increased scrutiny. Boggs was a late bloomer defensively, less so with the bat, and not so late. He added a lot of doubles power at age 23 (Shaw is currently 25), which got him to MLB the next year; prior to that, he was a guy whose OBP ability was literally not valued by any GM in baseball. Davenport Translations go back to 1978, so we have Boogs as a career .289 Age-Adjusted TAv over his last 4 years in the minors, but including .306 his last year when the doubles came. Shaw is .274 with no pattern of improvement.
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Post by jchang on Aug 21, 2015 10:29:24 GMT -5
Shaw's home/away split are interesting Home .522/.560/.978 / 1.538 - 46 AB Away .091/.160/.091 / 0.251 - 22 AB
there were 6 road games in Shaw's Aug breakout, 3 of them I think he entered as a substitution with 1AB each.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Aug 21, 2015 11:07:47 GMT -5
As noted in his scouting report, Shaw's slight uppercut swing means down-and-in is his sweet spot (as it is for many lefties). Jury is still out on whether he can catch up to quality fastballs up-and-in or just up. ADD: based on his contact rate heat maps and his slugging percentage heat maps, you can see that he has trouble with pitches up-and-in. Speaking on behalf of Lefties (in general), as sweet as down and in is, high and in is a hole and or cold spot. It sucks.
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danr
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Post by danr on Aug 21, 2015 11:43:12 GMT -5
Ortiz always has had trouble with high inside fastballs and cutters but somehow he has managed to do pretty well even though everyone knows this. The problem is that if the pitch is not almost perfect he can kill it. I don't know if Shaw is like that but he has hit some long balls on inside pitches. I just was looking at fangraphs table on him and noticed that his minor league wRC+ and wOBA records are very good, except for this year's AAA record. www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=11982&position=1B/3B
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Post by iakovos11 on Aug 31, 2015 16:03:48 GMT -5
From Al Skorupa (Baseball Prospectus writer) on twitter today:
Al Skorupa @alskor 6m6 minutes ago Lowell, MA @jamescrawford6 No, though people don't always notice. & I've seen Shaw like... 40+ games last couple years. I don't buy it. Maybe NL bench.
Al Skorupa @alskor 15m15 minutes ago Lowell, MA @kringente I think his mlb success is mostly pitchers not reading reports/preparing for a rookie who had fairly bad aaa numbers.
Al Skorupa @alskor 32m32 minutes ago Lowell, MA Shaw swings at & swings *through* bad pitches in bad counts. No real plan at the plate. Can hammer a FB up & mistakes. P's will get the book
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 31, 2015 16:07:32 GMT -5
From Al Skorupa (Baseball Prospectus writer) on twitter today: Al Skorupa @alskor 6m6 minutes ago Lowell, MA @jamescrawford6 No, though people don't always notice. & I've seen Shaw like... 40+ games last couple years. I don't buy it. Maybe NL bench. Al Skorupa @alskor 15m15 minutes ago Lowell, MA @kringente I think his mlb success is mostly pitchers not reading reports/preparing for a rookie who had fairly bad aaa numbers. Al Skorupa @alskor 32m32 minutes ago Lowell, MA Shaw swings at & swings *through* bad pitches in bad counts. No real plan at the plate. Can hammer a FB up & mistakes. P's will get the book I really find that hard to believe. If it's true, it's pretty unforgiveable for teams in the middle of a playoff race.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 31, 2015 16:34:24 GMT -5
It's also true that as his sample size increases, the more detailed the book gets on him, and the more likely he is to be exploited. Just have to see what happens over the next month.
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danr
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Post by danr on Aug 31, 2015 16:59:17 GMT -5
Shaw also was screwed up for much of the time he was at AAA, and says so. If that is what Skorupa is basing his rating on, then his rating may be out of date. Shaw corrected a problem and began to hit significantly better at Pawtucket and he has not been showing those weaknesses recently, so far as know. Pitchers will work on trying to find weaknesses and he still may have them. However, he seems like the kind of player who will make adjustments when that happens.
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Post by okin15 on Aug 31, 2015 17:14:51 GMT -5
It's also true that as his sample size increases, the more detailed the book gets on him, and the more likely he is to be exploited. Just have to see what happens over the next month. If he's still hitting like this in a month, then he's for real (in my mind). If he craters, then he's probably more like what we thought he was. But of course, what if he's somewhere in between. I guess at 1B, it won't take much of a drop off for him to be back to a bench guy (at best) in 2016.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 31, 2015 17:40:41 GMT -5
Just queried up the Pitch/FX for all seven home runs. Four were down, in most cases way down in the zone. My impression is that's where he'll do a lot of damage. He can really generate lift. Two were chest high center of the plate - meatballs if you like - one was up and in. Need to check and see what that pitch was. I personally think that's where they'll test him, if the pitcher has the command to do it.
I'm sure Skorupa has got his own anecdotal impressions. But so far, that location analysis, undoubtedly off the top of his head, is not what we've seen.
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Post by benogliviesbrother on Sept 1, 2015 14:45:40 GMT -5
I don't see the significance of the player's lineage or the number of wins the team has — any given Sunday, and all that. I really doubt that MLB teams treat advance scouting in the cavalier manner you suggest. If there's nine guys with a bat in their hands and the coaches haven't prepped the guy with the ball in his hand as to the strengths and weaknesses of (at least) those nine players, then that's malpractice. I find your claim entirely unbelievable.
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brendan98
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Post by brendan98 on Sept 1, 2015 15:39:50 GMT -5
It's also true that as his sample size increases, the more detailed the book gets on him, and the more likely he is to be exploited. Just have to see what happens over the next month. If he's still hitting like this in a month, then he's for real (in my mind). If he craters, then he's probably more like what we thought he was. But of course, what if he's somewhere in between. I guess at 1B, it won't take much of a drop off for him to be back to a bench guy (at best) in 2016. You do realize that Shaw has already cratered, right? Over his last 10 games, in 34 at-bats he is batting .118 with 2 BB and 14 K.
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Post by jmei on Sept 2, 2015 5:58:56 GMT -5
I don't see the significance of the player's lineage or the number of wins the team has — any given Sunday, and all that. I really doubt that MLB teams treat advance scouting in the cavalier manner you suggest. If there's nine guys with a bat in their hands and the coaches haven't prepped the guy with the ball in his hand as to the strengths and weaknesses of (at least) those nine players, then that's malpractice. I find your claim entirely unbelievable. David Ortiz, for one, disagrees with you:It is one thing for the coaching staff/front office to produce advanced scouting reports for each opposing player. It is quite another for the pitcher and catcher to review them all in detail, come up with a cogent plan to attach each hitter's weaknesses, and implement that plan in-game. I strongly doubt that they spend the same amount of time and effort going coming up with a place to attack Travis Shaw as they do David Ortiz, and it is a common view that it can take a little bit of time before the league fully processes and implements a plan to target a hitter's weaknesses (see, e.g., Xander Bogaerts 2013 versus 2014).
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Post by wskeleton76 on Sept 2, 2015 6:07:43 GMT -5
Pitchers can blow him away by up and inside fastball any time. Shaw looked stunned after be struck out by that. The worse thing is he is losing his confidence at the plate.
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Post by benogliviesbrother on Sept 2, 2015 16:03:57 GMT -5
I don't see the significance of the player's lineage or the number of wins the team has — any given Sunday, and all that. I really doubt that MLB teams treat advance scouting in the cavalier manner you suggest. If there's nine guys with a bat in their hands and the coaches haven't prepped the guy with the ball in his hand as to the strengths and weaknesses of (at least) those nine players, then that's malpractice. I find your claim entirely unbelievable. David Ortiz, for one, disagrees with you:It is one thing for the coaching staff/front office to produce advanced scouting reports for each opposing player. It is quite another for the pitcher and catcher to review them all in detail, come up with a cogent plan to attach each hitter's weaknesses, and implement that plan in-game. I strongly doubt that they spend the same amount of time and effort going coming up with a place to attack Travis Shaw as they do David Ortiz, and it is a common view that it can take a little bit of time before the league fully processes and implements a plan to target a hitter's weaknesses (see, e.g., Xander Bogaerts 2013 versus 2014). I don't see Ortiz's comments contradicting mine at all. Unless we're to interpret "pitcher's don't know him know," literally. It seems clear enough he's speaking figuratively — in the offseason they will have more data and time to study him extensively, and they will. In your second paragraph you move the goalposts: whereas before you suggested opposing teams spent a nominal amount of time scouting an "unheralded rookie" on a "55 win team" you now revise that claim to suggest they don't spend as much time on the rookie as a HOF'er. I get why you moved the goalposts — the first is a silly claim, as I pointed out. As to your new claim: it may be correct, intuitively it seems a pitcher would spend more time studying Ortiz then some rookie. But isn't the book mostly written on Ortiz? What new information is there to study? Maybe it would be advisable to allocate some of that time to studying the unfamiliar? I don't know — I'm not in MLB. And frankly, despite your tone of certainty, I doubt you do either.
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Post by jmei on Sept 2, 2015 18:10:02 GMT -5
I'm happy to defend the original goalposts as well. There is less advanced scouting and less video and PITCHf/x analysis available on rookies than there is for more established players. It's less that opposing front offices, coaches, and players spend less effort on a per-plate-appearance basis (although I believe that to be generally true as well; see below) and more that there are fewer major league plate appearances to evaluate him with. Minor league scouting reports have improved significantly in the past few decades, but they're still nowhere as robust as major league scouting reports.
No, I don't know for certain how MLB players and coaches spend their limited preparatory time. But I think they generally focus on the guys they think are the toughest outs to get, which generally means established stars rather than unheralded rookies. It's not necessarily about new information (though there is some of that as well-- think the oft-repeated refrain about it being a cat-and-mouse game of mutual adjustments), but also about refreshing yourself about the strengths and weaknesses of a guy you likely pitch against a couple times a year.
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Post by benogliviesbrother on Sept 2, 2015 19:19:53 GMT -5
Well goody then. Let's hear (read) it! Well, sure. But that's not the "original goalpost," this is: What was the "exaggerated" claim? It was this, compliments of JimEd: That's not much of an "exaggeration," in my opinion. Any modest due diligence would do the trick, seems to be the meaning of this post. Maybe you can point out specifically where he "exaggerates" the efforts of the other team? Is it when he says they have a "book" on the hitter, at least compared to the old days (i.e, information age vs. non-information age)? Or when he claims there'll be no big surprises? Well sure. But again, that has nothing to do with the original goalpost.
Well sure. But again ... Good. Me neither. Finally, common ground. You suppose the heralded ones get all the attention? Even if they're not in the lineup? I don't know, as I said earlier, how they allocate their prep time, but if it's me, I'm spending some time (kind of like JimEd said back in the first post) on every guy with a bat whether he's heralded or not, whether the team has won 55 games in mid-August (what, I mean WHAT, on earth has the number of games a team has won have to do with how another team's advance scouts do their job? Seriously? I mean, seriously!) or not. Well, sure. I guess. I mean, how much cat and mouse you suppose goes on with Big Papi? Isn't he pretty much hitting what he's "always" hit and to the same places? But, who knows. I don't. You've been in a clubhouse and talked to pitchers and pitching coaches and catchers and managers and such and got a handle on who spends what amount of time on what? Your original goalpost also said:What exactly are the advanced scouts focused on if not the guy with the bat in his hands? You suggest they're not watching the game when the "unheralded rookie" comes to the plate? Maybe they go to the bathroom, make a phone call, go for a beer and a bag of peanuts? What exactly are they focused on if not doing their job?
And how limited is the time available to the pitching coach that he can't spend any of it on an "unheralded rookie"? How long does it say to "Pitch the kid hard in, soft away. He'll chase up with two strikes. Got it?" Sir, that you choose to defend a couple of silly remarks rather than just admit, "Yeah, I talked out my arse a little on that one," does not speak well to your credibility. Admittedly, that I choose to take my time responding to your foolishness makes me equally complicit and speaks a different sort of reality about me, and one not terribly flattering. But here we are. I suppose I still rankle from the comment that maybe "I should read more." I've read plenty. Certainly enough to know hooey when I come across it.
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Post by iakovos11 on Sept 2, 2015 21:12:20 GMT -5
wtf? Nevermind, I just don't care
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 2, 2015 21:30:25 GMT -5
He did have another hit, and a walk, today. Eric believes he's a streaky hitter. One thing we might do is look at when the he tops out, if there's a pattern to it, and how far apart the peaks are. I did that chart on the guy and we can probably get some idea there. My guess is it will have some statistical randomness, stuff that could be calculated to give a mean-time-to-next-peak and the variation around that mean. This is a small sample, of course, probably less than 20 peaks.
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Post by costpet on Feb 4, 2016 8:26:43 GMT -5
I hope they work out Shaw at 3B in spring training. I don't trust Panda to last more than a month. Does anybody here know anything about Shaw's 3B defense?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 4, 2016 10:33:09 GMT -5
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