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Thursday, March 27, 2008 |
Brandon Wood Strains His ... Credulity
This is hilarious:
"It may be hard to believe based on my numbers this spring, but I feel good at the plate," said Wood, who's hit .130 with no walks and 20 K's in 17 Cactus League games. "My pitch recognition has been good. When I'm swinging and missing, it's not because I'm not recognizing that it's a slider that's coming. My timing is off. I'm missing fastballs because I'm doing things like planting my foot too early."At this point Wood has to be one of the most overrated prospects in baseball.
Comments:
And Chone Figgins looked like the worst hitting third baseman in baseball last May when he was hitting .133/.212/.211/.423 with 15 Ks in 25 games. What's your point?
One difference is that Figgins was a proven career .280+ hitter at the major league level. Brandon Wood, on the other hand, has not yet shown the ability to hit major league pitching. But scareduck is known for a bit of hyperbole from time to time (remember when the Angels were finished last year, destined to finish behind the Mariners?), so take his "overrated" comment for what it's worth.
Guys who strike out as much as Wood don't often turn into something useful. Rob Deer style careers are pretty rare.
I know he engages in hyperbole a lot (pretty much anything he writes on The Weave) and I also understand that Figgins was not going to remain a .133 hitter, but there were definitely those that thought Figgins was done (and even at his career average was basically worthless). My point is pretty much what you said, though, jjackflash, in that he has barely even faced major league pitching. And calling him "one of the most overrated prospects in all of baseball" strikes me as ridiculous aside from all of that. I mean, he is a prospect...by definition there isn't much known and guys who are #1 prospects fail ALL THE TIME. And the fact that it is "At this point..." because he has had a bad spring training? What the hell is with that? Sure he may have a tougher time than say Howie Kendrick or Casey Kotchman, but there are those who said they wouldn't make it in the big leagues because they don't walk. I would say that at this point, both have been fairly successful.
Rob provides a great service in how quickly and often he updates with real news pertinent to the Angels, but he does discredit to himself when he makes ridiculous blanket statement like this. And besides, what does he expect Wood to say? "Yeah, I basically don't know how to hit anything. I used to only have problems with sliders but I now find that global warming has affected my ability to hit a fastball and I may never get it back until we lose our dependence on foreign oil"?
Rob provides a great service in how quickly and often he updates with real news pertinent to the Angels, but he does discredit to himself when he makes ridiculous blanket statement like this. And besides, what does he expect Wood to say? "Yeah, I basically don't know how to hit anything. I used to only have problems with sliders but I now find that global warming has affected my ability to hit a fastball and I may never get it back until we lose our dependence on foreign oil"?
His 2005 got him a lot of attention, but .272/.338/.497 last year in Salt Lake while whiffing in nearly 28% of his AB's... ugh. And that marks a step forward!
Another flameout waiting to happen. I know that's a radical departure from most of the prospect mavens out there, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. (Sickels, as recently as a month ago, still likes him, and of course BA still ranks Wood the Angels' top prospect.) The whiffs are too much for me to swallow. I'm not the only one -- see also Rich Lederer in his 2008 list of the best young players by age:
Wood was one of the top five prospects in baseball after clubbing 58 HR in the minors, AFL, and Team USA as a 20-year-old in 2005. However, his star potential has waned a bit the past two seasons, primarily owing to the fact that he is no longer playing shortstop and is whiffing nearly once every four plate appearances. The raw power is still there and will play at third base if Brandon can show that he can handle breaking balls and lay off pitches outside the strike zone. [Emphasis mine.]
Wood hasn't shown any of that in spring training, and he'll have to do better at Salt Lake to impress me.
Another flameout waiting to happen. I know that's a radical departure from most of the prospect mavens out there, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. (Sickels, as recently as a month ago, still likes him, and of course BA still ranks Wood the Angels' top prospect.) The whiffs are too much for me to swallow. I'm not the only one -- see also Rich Lederer in his 2008 list of the best young players by age:
Wood was one of the top five prospects in baseball after clubbing 58 HR in the minors, AFL, and Team USA as a 20-year-old in 2005. However, his star potential has waned a bit the past two seasons, primarily owing to the fact that he is no longer playing shortstop and is whiffing nearly once every four plate appearances. The raw power is still there and will play at third base if Brandon can show that he can handle breaking balls and lay off pitches outside the strike zone. [Emphasis mine.]
Wood hasn't shown any of that in spring training, and he'll have to do better at Salt Lake to impress me.
That still does nothing to say that he is "one of the most overrated prospects in baseball." Prospects are pretty much rated on potential, and regardless of his prolific strikeout rate (which I think is below what Dallas McPherson and Ryan Howard did in the minors), he still has HUGE potential. And you mention that people are starting to sour on him and that is fine...he does have big problems in his swing...but that has nothing to do with him being "one of the most overrated prospects in baseball" because of a bad month. In fact, if people are souring on him, then that means he can't possibly be one of the most overrated prospects in baseball. I could possibly see the claim that he "was" one, but was he REALLY overrated when he hit the 58 home runs or has he regressed? I mean, he is still only, what, 22?
It's not just this month, though, Josh. My point with the trailing sentence of the original post is that I don't believe him when he says X, Y, or Z is wrong with his game, especially as far as pitch recognition is concerned. You're right, his age is a reason for optimism, but I get a feeling we won't be seeing him in an Angels uni for good until the year before he becomes a minor league free agent (2010?), by which time his 2005 season will be a distant memory.
And one of my points is, what the hell do you expect him to say? You make the same comments generally about Juan Pierre and others when they say something like this. Well, do you think they would actually say "Yeah, I suck. I am completely worthless and I am just hanging on so that I can get my ridiculously large paycheck for playing a kids game (and remember, I don't even do that very well...because I suck). Oh yeah, by the way, I suck." Ripping people for what amount to very political quotes about their playing ability is a futile and worthless game.
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