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The Big Bad Mookie Betts Thread
gerry
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Post by gerry on Sept 25, 2018 12:36:51 GMT -5
Anyone who wants to have a chuckle should read the first two pages of this thread. [br Excellent idea. Not just for the early confusion and debate about Mookie, but a walk down memory lane re: Lars, Lava, Marrero, Moss, Cole and Cechini, not to mention JBJ’s mL hitting prowess and Eric’s stat expertise. I read 3 pages and remembered alot about the always tenuous prospect evaluation process. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 25, 2018 13:12:30 GMT -5
I wonder if moonstone believes in Mookie yet. This thread has about 20 pages of him arguing with everyone about everything.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 25, 2018 16:06:40 GMT -5
Anyone who wants to have a chuckle should read the first two pages of this thread. Someone on May 26th asked about Mookie's prospect status, and I re-read the first four pages and reported how much fun it was.
And then on July 17 "dd" read the start of the thread and said the same thing, and some more folks checked it out.
It truly never gets old.
My "stats expertise" in this case was simply paying attention to and trusting Clay Davenport's Peak Translations, which said that Mookie's bat would play in an OF corner at a time when the scouts had it as a utility infielder's.
(My brain has been so addled by sleep deprivation recently that I actually forgot about the existence of Clay's numbers unrtil a few days ago, when I checked them out for the first time all year. I may report what he says about Chavis, Dalbec, and Ockimey at some later point.)
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Post by soxin8 on Sept 26, 2018 12:09:52 GMT -5
When I re-read the thread a few weeks ago, the thing I took away from it was the ceiling of a player is as much of a guess as the rest of their major league projection. Jim Shonerd saying he was not a huge prospect, Jason Parks saying he will never hit for power at any level,Baseball prospectus saying he had a ceiling of an everyday player then Keith Law saying his ceiling was an above average regular. Even Mike Hazen saying he had the potential to be a Ben Zobrist.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Sept 30, 2018 23:21:19 GMT -5
I hadn't realized it until Champs brought it up in the GDT, but Mookie is going to end up with a batting title and a MVP award this year. That doesn't happen a lot I'm sure.
He's the Willie Mays of our generation. Probably the best season baseball had seen since Bonds.
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Post by bluechip on Oct 1, 2018 5:05:16 GMT -5
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Post by natesp4 on Oct 1, 2018 5:34:11 GMT -5
I hadn't realized it until Champs brought it up in the GDT, but Mookie is going to end up with a batting title and a MVP award this year. That doesn't happen a lot I'm sure. He's the Willie Mays of our generation. Probably the best season baseball had seen since Bonds. In terms of bWAR it is. And it's the best non-Bonds season since Ripken in '91. Tied for second best Red Sox season with Ted Williams at 10.9
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 1, 2018 7:31:38 GMT -5
I hadn't realized it until Champs brought it up in the GDT, but Mookie is going to end up with a batting title and a MVP award this year. That doesn't happen a lot I'm sure. He's the Willie Mays of our generation. Probably the best season baseball had seen since Bonds. In terms of bWAR it is. And it's the best non-Bonds season since Ripken in '91. Tied for second best Red Sox season with Ted Williams at 10.9 Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Oct 1, 2018 8:16:50 GMT -5
ESPN reporting 10.9 WAR - simply incredible year for our Mookie. May he go blasting throughout the playoffs! Having the last two seasons under his belt for understanding playoff pressure sets him up to provide great leadership this time through, along with Xander and JD. Pedey on the bench, Cora with his experience from last year.
Should be Epic!
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 1, 2018 9:27:03 GMT -5
In terms of bWAR it is. And it's the best non-Bonds season since Ripken in '91. Tied for second best Red Sox season with Ted Williams at 10.9 Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 1, 2018 9:36:00 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Yes. Not just your regret but mine also. Williams likely played in a vastly inferior league the same way Speaker, Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, DiMaggios, Mantle, Yaz, even Mays and Bonds played in vastly inferior league. So what?
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Post by incandenza on Oct 1, 2018 10:20:31 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Among other things, if Mookie Betts had been around in Williams' day Williams wouldn't have had to compete against him, at least in his highest WAR years in the '40s.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 1, 2018 10:29:33 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. I don't think I can agree. Was the league inferior? Yeah, probably, although it's tough to staff 30 teams with constant quality as the O's, Royals, ChiSox, and Tigers can attest. In a way this year feels a bit like a throwback when you had 3 dregs in the AL every year (The A's, the Senators, and the Browns). Mookie's all around performance was amazing, but watching Ted Williams hit .406 with a sky high OBP would have been extremely impressive to watch. We get to watch Mookie. We didn't get to watch Ted Williams every day. He is just a stat line in baseballreference.com You can say the league wasn't integrated which is a fair point but it was in 1957 when he batted .388 at the age of 39 along with his power and OBP skills. Williams' hitting mastery would be extremely impressive in any era. Betts would still stand out likewise with his all around ability to be excellent at everything. Willie Mays-like indeed, although Willie had more power (32 HRs would be an off year for him) and played CF every day which can wear a player down more. Cora managed Mookie brilliantly to ensure that he was rested and not worn down as the season went along. The fact that the Sox won just about every day helped.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 1, 2018 10:36:20 GMT -5
I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Yes. Not just your regret but mine also. Williams likely played in a vastly inferior league the same way Speaker, Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, DiMaggios, Mantle, Yaz, even Mays and Bonds played in vastly inferior league. So what?Those who don't understand history are doomed to say some really ridiculous things, at a minimum.
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Post by fenwaydouble on Oct 1, 2018 11:20:23 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Maybe Mookie's 2018 is more impressive than any one of Williams' seasons (though that's very debatable), but Ted's career taken in its entirety is way more impressive than one spectacular year from Mookie.
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Post by sarasoxer on Oct 1, 2018 14:14:44 GMT -5
Waay more impressive. Let's see Mookie dethrone Ted as "the greatest hitter ever".
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 1, 2018 15:11:48 GMT -5
Ted Williams wRC+ for his career was higher than Betts' this season so he has a way to go.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 1, 2018 15:59:58 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Well I am assuming that we are only talking about baseball because Williams landed a plane that was on fire and he also served in 2 different wars. Williams could play in this league, and he would still be one of the best hitters in it. His hand eye coordination is probably greater than Mookies. It's probably the best the league has ever seen. He played in a worse league? Okay, but he still didn't play down to the competition. Hitting over .400 in any league is an impossible feat and he did it. He's the only person in the modern era to do it.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Oct 1, 2018 18:38:20 GMT -5
Williams lived in a time of primitive conditioning. If Mookie had played in (and been allowed to play in) 1939 he never would have gained the strength that the early scouting reports say he needed. If Williams had lived in this century, given his dedication to maximizing his abilities, he would have been 20-40 pounds heavier and a beast.
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Post by sarasoxer on Oct 1, 2018 18:48:07 GMT -5
Lol Ted Williams, he sets the standards so high for everything. The red seat that I haven't seen anyone come close to and still way ahead of Mookie's best year, which is a all time great season. I'm going to regret bringing this up but Mookie's 2018 is a more impressive performance than anything Ted Williams ever did. I know Williams raw stats and WAR numbers are crazier but that's just a reflection of the vastly inferior league that Williams played in. Really?? C'mon man! You are myopic and perhaps showing your relative young age. Williams was the quintessential hitter of his, and maybe any other era. Some opponents confessed to be willing to walk Williams even with first base occupied. He was that dangerous. Look at his lifetime OBP...and compare that to Mookie's to date or others of his era. I have no doubt that Williams would be equally dominant in this era. He never had the advanced workouts, nutrition, training, analytics available today. He was so consumed by his craft that he would have avariciously welcomed and assimilated all of that.
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Post by natesp4 on Oct 1, 2018 19:39:07 GMT -5
I think a lot of you are kind of putting words in fenway's mouth. He never said Mookie has the better career, or who he thinks would be better in modern day, or anything like that. Just comparing the best season between the two players. Using a strictly numbers based argument since I wasn't alive to watch Ted Williams (admittedly makes my argument more irrelevant than others), they are pretty easy to compare.
Mookie's 2018 and Ted's 1941 had them both at 10.9 bWAR. Ted had a much better offensive season than Mookie, putting up ridiculous numbers, but provided no value on the basepaths or on the field. Mookie on the other hand put up a great season in terms of offense, defense, and baserunning. They were two totally different players. I think it's an interesting argument to say that perhaps Ted's 1941 offensive numbers would have looked a little more like Mookie's had he been playing in a de-segregated league (thus making Mookie's 2018 more impressive). On the counter point, Ted's numbers may have looked even more impressive if he had access to advanced scouting reports on every pitcher and was able to reap the benefits of modern training/nutrition/etc.
Regardless, the biggest takeaway of this discussion to me is how crazy and awesome it is to look at the skepticism about Mookie in the beginning of this thread and fast forward to now when we're having legitimate discussions comparing Mookie Betts to Ted Williams.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 1, 2018 19:48:35 GMT -5
I just kind of look at it the complete opposite way. Mookie did everything he could to reach that almost 11 WAR season (legs, defense, baserunning) yet Ted Williams only did it with his bat. It's just way harder to do it with just 2 tools with the bat and power, yet Ted did it multiple times.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 1, 2018 23:49:58 GMT -5
I'll settle this. Ted Williams can play LF and Mookie Williams can play RF and we can marvel at the 1941 season Ted Williams had and the 2018 season Mookie Betts had.
I can only imagine how hard it was for Williams to maintain .400. I do remember George Brett's pursuit of .400 in 1980, him topping .400 in September and then slumping late to finish at .390. Makes you realize how hard it is to actually maintain .400. The only other 162 game stretch of .400 I saw was Wade Boggs from mid-1985 thru mid-1986 until his mother was tragically killed and Boggs understandably slumped at the plate. I also remember Tony Gywnn climbing toward .400 before the 1994 strike prematurely ended his season and he had risen to .394.
Meanwhile Mookie was the ultimate 5 tool player who excelled at absolutely everything. Keep in mind Mookie hit about 100 points higher on his BA. 2018 was a great year for power but an awful year for batting averages which makes Mookie's .346 even more impressive. If this had been the 1990s when league BAs were up near .270 perhaps Mookie might have batted .380 to go along with his power and speed and awesome defense and strong OBP skills.
Imagine if Mookie and Ted had been teammates. Think of how Mookie likes to pick JD Martinez's brain. Imagine what Mookie could have learned from Ted Williams! I think Teddy Ballgame would have loved Mookie Betts!
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 2, 2018 10:47:27 GMT -5
Yes. Not just your regret but mine also. Williams likely played in a vastly inferior league the same way Speaker, Ruth, Cobb, Gehrig, DiMaggios, Mantle, Yaz, even Mays and Bonds played in vastly inferior league. So what?Those who don't understand history are doomed to say some really ridiculous things, at a minimum. LOL. I study history. Minored in history. Taught history. Am observing an historic replication, a tutorial, on the creation of a dictatorship. The players of each era play against the competition of each era within the technoligical and cultural confines of that era. The accumulated experience and knowledge gained from having played the game for 100+ years (training regimen, diet, health, shifts, use of starters/closers/openers, coaching expertise, positional expertise, the development of minor leagues, spring training, year round training regimens, instructs, gloves, bats, uniforms, college and HS ball, the draft, medicine, transportation, communication et alia) should improve the game generation to generation. And it has. This doesn’t even include integration, international signings, the Dominican League or Mexican or Korean or Japanese Leagues. In fact, to your apparant point, Mays did not play in a fully integrated league, though moreso than than Mexican-American Williams did. Without any evidence, it would not be off base to say that the skill sets and dedication of Williams, Mays, Ruth, Cobb, Robinson would, if playing today, in a fully integrated league, and having the same historic, medical and training advantages shared by Mookie, Trout, Altuve, etc., would make these historic legends as fully competitive superstars in 2018 as they were in their own eras. That was my point. And Mookie and Trout would likely be stars in any era, past and future, within the historic confines of that era.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 2, 2018 11:43:05 GMT -5
Top 20 qualifiers, leverage-adjusted Win Probability Added per 150 G (635 PA), with extra players with 335 or more PA listed: Name Team WPA/150 1 Mookie Betts Bos 6.14 2 J.D. Martinez Bos 5.15 3 Alex Bregman Hou 5.09 4 Christi. Yelich Mil 5.09 5 Mike Trout LAA 4.44 * Juan Soto Was 3.84 * Daniel Descalso Ari 3.83 6 Xander Bogaerts Bos 3.80 * Gleyber Torres NYY 3.74 7 Pa. Goldschmidt Ari 3.71 8 And. Benintendi Bos 3.69 9 Khris Davis Oak 3.40 10 Gregory Polanco Pit 3.33 * Aaron Judge NYY 3.11 11 Freddie Freeman Atl 3.11 12 Jose Ramirez Cle 3.06 * Shohei Ohtani LAA 2.96 13 Mitch Haniger Sea 2.94 14 Matt Carpenter StL 2.90 15 Jose Martinez StL 2.88 * Robin. Chirinos Tex 2.87 16 Ni. Castellanos Det 2.82 17 Anthony Rendon Was 2.81 18 Jed Lowrie Oak 2.80 19 Brandon Nimmo NYM 2.69 20 Bryce Harper Was 2.68 Judge, Soto, and Torres missed qualifying by 4, 8, and 18 PA respectively.
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