In case you haven’t read Bill1Chair’s latest nugget of goodness, you can find it here. As Bill often tends to do, he exaggerates and sensationalizes things to try and sound like a voice of authority, when in reality, he really provides very few facts and even less context. Here is the money excerpt from his latest piece, where he basically says taking Kyle Drabek was a mistake;
Drabek became the latest first-round draft pick to join an ill-starred list of can’t-miss righthanders who became damaged goods early in their Phillies careers and never amounted to much.
The list includes Roy Thomas (1971, No. 6 pick overall), Brad Brink (1986, No. 7 overall), Tyler Green (1991, No. 10 overall) and, now, Drabek (2006, No. 18 overall.) It turned out Thomas and Brink were injured before their signings. Green had been shut down in both high school and college. I am tempted to add Brett Myers (1999, No. 12 overall) to the list, but this was the first arm injury of his career and the jury is still out on the long-term implications of history’s longest-running shoulder “strain.” Lefthander Cole Hamels (2002, No. 17 overall) had back issues in the minors, but does a rigorous daily program that has kept him healthy as a major leaguer.
Bill attempts to paint the Phillies as incompetent because we’ve drafted 3 (4 if you count Drabek) guys who had major arm trouble in the low minors, over a 35 year time period. That’s right….4 guys in 35 years, considering the position and the unstable nature of amateur talent, and Bill is convinced the Phillies do no leg work on their draft picks. He somehow tries to sneak Brett Myers into the conversation, even though Myers hasn’t been hurt at all up until this year. Also, if you notice, he’s including Drabek in the same sentence that concludes with “never amounted to much”…do you think he knows that the recovery rate from TJ is high? Wanna see an organization that can’t draft pitching? Check out Pittsburgh over the last 10 years. Jon Van Benschoten, Sean Burnett, Brad Lincoln and Bryan Bullington were all first round picks who would up with major arm problems requiring surgery, and all were picked within a 4-5 year span.
This type of irresponsible journalism isn’t new, especially from Conlin. Every once in a while he spins a good yarn about the incompetence of the Phillies ownership group, but many times, like this instance, he’s way off base. I’d recommend sending him an e-mail, his address is right at the bottom of the article above. Just a warning, you may get a snappy return that does or does not mention his timeshare in the Dominican Republic.
Phuture Phillies 
Conlin was like that when he was a young man too. But his worst trait isn’t his bitterness; it’s his complete indifference to facts. He decides his conclusions first (oftentimes based on his personal animus toward certain individuals) and then makes up evidence to support his point after the fact.
It’s ironic that Conlin believes he has standing to criticize the Phillies regarding arm injuries, when he’s well-known for mocking the concept of limiting young pitchers’ pitch counts.
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Every constituency needs a mouth-piece.
The Montgomery/Giles Ownership ERA has created a generation of depressives who say they root for the home team while they live at home and cheer when someone like Drabek is injured. They cheer! They cheer because it feeds their hatred.
The blame for birthing this kind of “spawn” lies clearly with ownership, and the terrible economics negotiated by the city at the Vet. Like Zombies these fans will forever feed on the flesh of failure, cherry picking poisonous information while Conlin the Chef of misinformation stirs the pot.
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Wow- I had an entirely different reaction when I read the article… The highlighted portion was terrible- he just needed an intro. That fact that Drabek needs TJ surgery does not require an indictment of phils management- it happens all of the time all around the league. I agree that he looks like an idiot there, but that does not mean that the article doesn’t bring up a couple of good points.
1. These HS arms are SERIOUSLY overused. Playing on 3-4 different teams, pitching and playing SS is devastating for a young arm, and while I’m sure that the Phils management did its due dilligence on the matter, our recent handling of pitching injuries makes me question just how throrough they really are. Granted- we’re not the Pirates. However, we have been very bad on the diagnosis front lately so I wonder if we place too much trust in player’s personal doctors or whoever we rely on for information.
2. The Phils may have had the opportunity to see this coming. he was terrible in the GCL with no velocity and despite pitching fairly well in Lakewood (I personally thinkt hat his record was better than he really pitched), his velocity was still down. Would it have hurt to have kept him in extended to see what was really going on with his arm and to strengthen his arm to keep this from happening? To this point I don’t know nearly enough to draw any kind of conclusion (as opposed to Conlin who has never met a perfuctory conclusion that he didn’t like). However, these questions need to be asked and investigated and our recent history does not allow me to give Phils management the benefit of the doubt anymore.
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There have been others not mentioned: Carlton Loewer, Brad Baisley, David Coggin and Zack Segovia to name a few. What Conlin doesn’t mention is that this is the nature of the game due to the stress pitching puts on an arm.
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Conlin is correct that some of these guys were damaged goods before we got them. He neglects to mention that most of his examples are pre-Arbuckle and the Phillies drafting was pretty horrible in those days. Phillies have been careful with Drabek but the end of his senior year in HS, he did seem to be used extremely heavily. Most of Conlin’s examples also were not HS kids. Coggin was overused at a young age by Phillies minor league staff
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Exactly. And Conlin seems to think that once a guy has TJ, it’s lights out. Drabek tearing his UCL at 19 is better than him tearing it at 23. 19-21 are the toughest years on a pitcher, in terms of putting wear and tear on the shoulder and arm. He’ll keep the mileage down in those years, which bodes well for future success.
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It should be interesting to see how Mathieson returns from his TJ surgery.
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Talk about lacking context. By the time Drabek’s second GCL start was in the books, Conlin was saying he looked like damaged goods. So what’s your beef, he called it before you did?
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Everyone was concerned last summer with his GCL numbers. Most assumed he was overused in high school, including myself. He pitched well for 6 weeks in Lakewood, and no one was assuming he was about to tear his UCL. Conlin is making broad assumptions and trying to pat himself on the back, and he ultimately reaches the wrong conclusion. That’s my “beef”
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I agree that Conlin’s article today was completely stupid, Drabek was heavily used in High School and was a bit of risk for this and other reasons, but, given where the Phils were picking, I thought it was a good pick and, as others have said, this is TJ surgery, not shoulder surgery, a full comeback is highly probable.
I think Drabek has a lot of ability. I also like that he’s projected as a really hard thrower. One of my criticisms of the team is that they fall in love with righthanders like Adam Eaton, with okay fastballs and great curveballs (if I read one more article quoting a Phillies official talking about some pitcher’s 12 to 6 curveball, I’ll scream). To me, absent a very unusual skill set, I want my young righthanded pitchers to be fireballers. Drabek fits that mold.
As for Bill, he is a well-known curmudgeon and he’s sometimes very wrong, but many times I read his articles and I agree with him. He’s often right about Phils’ prospects and about the repeated stupidity that he often correctly detects in the organization. For years he called Gavin Floyd the true dog that he is – that’s just one example, but he’s often right on the mark, so I won’t crucify him for being dead wrong today. Look, at least he feels free to criticize the team and not act as their personal lapdog as so many other writers do (calling Rich Hoffman, are you there Rich? Oh, never mind, I’ll get back to you when you finish polishing Uncle Charlie’s shoes).
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Let’s all hope Bill is wrong here, as others have noted he’s right more often than not. Before the season started, he and I had several e-mails back and forth about the state of the Phillies for the upcoming season. I felt that depending on Victorino to be the full time right fielder was a big risk because he’d only had 500 or so big league at bats and that we needed a Jason Michaels type player for insurance against Burrell slumping and a possible Victorino implosion. Conlin thought he’d hit about 15 homers and be just fine
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My reply from Big Bill:
“Four, high profile first round righthanders going down is a trend when you splice them in with the miserable first round draft history until the last 10 years. My thin line has 10,000 strands. . .”
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Guess I should post my mail as well:
Mr. Conlin,
Four pitchers in 36 years have arms problems and that’s a trend???? Actually, if you look around at the fragility of young arms these days, you could write a column congratulating the Phils for drafting just four pitchers in 36 years who later developed arm problems.
Either way, that’s a pretty thin line you’re fishing with there, Bill.
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But “the last ten years” would seem to be just a little more relevant than the previous 25, no?
For that matter, going back that far means implicating Paul Owens, Dallas Green (in his player development role), “Minister of Trade” Hughie Alexander, and other generally well-regarded personnel types.
The successful pitcher picks–Myers, Hamels, even Floyd to the extent that he’s never had huge injury troubles–seem a lot more relevant here, IMO.
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The attrition rate for pitchers is VERY high, that’s just reality. Again, just look at the Pirates. I seriously don’t think the Phillies track record with first round prep pitchers is bad at all. But maybe that’s a good case study.
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Please, Conlin will forget more about baseball than “phuturephillies” will ever know. And he’s gained his knowledge from years of being up close with teams and players and picking some of baseball’s great minds – not by reading Baseball America. i like your site but don’t flex too much in front of a baseball heavy-weight like Conlin.
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Giving Conlin credit for being around a long time and forgetting a lot about baseball is just wrong in my view. Conlin is a public figure who writes a public column. And when he’s wrong or lazy or something, he deserves to be called on it, as James has done quite well here in my view.
Conlin doesn’t really take very much advantage of his position in my view. I like to point out the Garcia affair as a good example of this. Conlin, an allegedly professional journalist with all sorts of access to sources none of the rest of us have, should have been out there getting answers. We should have known from him for example, what the normal procedure is for doing medical exams on guys who you trade for. How often are physicals given as a condition of the trade going through? What was Garcia’s condition this winter? What did the White Sox team doctors say? What is normal due dilligence in these circumstances?
Conlin found out nothing about this kind of stuff. In fact, I don’t think he does find stuff out that is important very often if at all. He shoots his mouth off a lot in my view.
Conlin has been around a long time. And my impression of him is that he is a very intelligent and pretty well educated guy. But it isn’t reflected very well in his columns. He just doesn’t do the due dilligence and get the answers he should be getting. And he should be getting it done.
Cripes, look how well James does with this blog and how much good info we get from many of the other contributers here and on TGP and on the high quality Phillies message boards. And these guys don’t have near the experience and access and sources that Conlin has. And to me, that’s a pretty damning thing.
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Hey, I actually followed the advice and wrote Conlin, and this is what he wrote back:
“I don’t have a timeshare in the DR. . .I recently sold my condo there for a handsome profit. Meanwhile, chew on these draft gems for a while, fool:
Adam Eaton, Gavin Floyd and Wayne Gomes. . .Oh, hell, toss Carlton Loewer in with them, too.
Chad McConnell. . .12th pick overall 1992. He was 5-10. They said he was 6-1. Could not play!
2004 – 23rd overall pick, Greg Golson. Think of Michael Bourn with zero plate discipline. Same draft, Yankees took Phil Hughes with the 25th pick.
1998 – 1st overall pick, Pat Burrell. No. 2 RHP Brad Baisley. Mark Mulder? Lance Berkman? Adam Dunn in the second round? Baisley blew out and it no longer in baseball. Burrell simply blows. Baisely only cost about $750,000.
1995 – 14th overall, Reggie Taylor. Del Unser: “Can’t miss 5-tooler. . .” Roy Halladay went three picks later. But Reggie came cheap. Carlos Beltran went 7 picks after Marlon Anderson in second round.
1989 – 4th overall pick, Jeff Jackson. Got all the way to Double A. Picked BEFORE Frank Thomas AND Charles Johnson.
1990–Mike Lieberthal third overall. Actually, one of their more inspired picks. At least he had a career.
1982 – 13th overall, John Russell. One claim to fame: Caught Nolan Ryan’s 6th no-hitter. Has a chance to be next Phils manager.
1974 – 3rd overall, Lonnie Smith. On the board after “Skates” Dale Murphy (5th overall), Willie Wilson, Garry Templeton. Phils worked out Murphy. Didn’t like the way he was going to rightfield with everything. Worked out Wilson, were convinced he was going to Maryland for football. Royals did homework and learned his mom was broke. Signed Willie on the cheap.
Now, make copies and mail them to your suck-up fantasy league pals.
Take the original and Express Mail it up your sorry butt. . .
PS: Oh, by the way, jackass. Do you know the Kyle Drabek incidents that scared away so many clubs, including the home town Astros? I do. . .”
Well, Bill’s a fiery bastard, eh? Gotta say, this guy’s been writing a variation of the same story for 10 years or more. What a gig!
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I’m nowhere near a baseball expert; I don’t have much time to follow it. However, I know that Conlin’s response to Ben is way off-topic. He had to draw from position players as well to write his reponse. The article was only talking about pitchers, so the fact he shot back about all the draft busts the Phillies had, not just pitchers, shows me that he knows he’s in a weak position.
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Oh man, that’s just a flat-out idiotic response by Conlin. It’s more amusing than irritating. If you didn’t know the author’s background, you would have assumed it was written by someone who’d never been exposed to the game of baseball. I mean, seriously:
1. Bad drafts from the 1970s and 1980s are not relevant to the talent-evaluating ability of the current Phillies’ front office. Gillick, Arbuckle, Amaro, and Wolever weren’t around back then, nor was anyone whom any of those guys worked for.
2. Twelve unsuccessful draft picks in 32 years isn’t a lot. EVERY team has drafted AT LEAST that many bombs in the past 32 years. Selectively cherry-picking evidence that supports your point and ignoring everything else is not a sound method of argumentation. In order to prove that the Phillies are poor talent evaluators, you’d have to compile ALL of their picks, both good and bad, and then compare that overall record to the drafting records of other teams.
At least we know Conlin reads this blog. Hey Bill, time to retire! The only reason why you have a job is because you’ve been grandfathered into it. The only reason why anyone ever thought you were a knowledgeable baseball man was that you were the beneficiary of the artificial filter of the old media. In the modern era, any fan can post his thoughts on the Internet. Guess what? A whole lot of them know a whole lot more about baseball than you, and that’s without the benefit of your connections, your experience, and your wholly undeserved reputation. They can produce better sportswriting as a hobby than you could after devoting your entire life’s work to the field.
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kashmir makes a good point too. I think Conlin’s tactic there is called moving the goalposts after you realize you’ve been caught BS-ing.
There are just too many errors in Conlin’s response to address them all.
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He acknowledged the timeshare….that’s AWESOME! 🙂
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Who’s got the timeshare, you phuturephillies?
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Haha, no, he does.
For those who don’t know, in the past, when people have e-mailed Conlin to call him on some ridiculous claims, he’d go on a rant similar to the ones above, and then end with “and I have a timeshare in the Dominican Republic”, as if to rub it in our faces. I always found it amusing.
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Conlin’s always been a douche bag. Today on Daily News Live, he hinted that the Phils might be embarassed to put JD Durbin’s name on the video screen showing the NL leaders in shutouts, then 10 minutes later kept interrupting the kid who twirled an excellent game in LA and SD. He’s a snake in the grass, and he’s just pissed the Phils ownership group took away his seat in the scouting section of the stands. Take every word he has with a shot of penicillin. Ever see the movie “Accepted”? Bill Conlin’s like the smart fat kid’s grandpa — an old, sensationalizing, bitter, miserable, and somewhat oafish man.
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For what it’s worth, here’s my email to Conlin:
Dear Mr. Bill “1” Chair,
First off, I’d like to compliment your outstanding choice of e-mail address.
Secondly, why were you such an inexcusable ass to JD Durbin today on Daily News Live? It took some balls to say something about the kid before he came on — that the Phils would be embarassed to list his name among the NL leaders in shutouts — behind the kid’s back. Personally, I would’ve liked to see him kick your sorry old ass. I would’ve actually paid money to see it. You were not only rude, but somewhat bullish and histrionic — always wanting the attention to be on yourself.
Also, I really like how you’ve been basically writing the same old shit for about 10 years. What a gig that must be — constantly re-hashing yourself and whining about the Phillies front office. When you have enough money, I’d like to see YOU buy the Phillies and run the ship. Actually, you have to have a thorough knowledge of baseball to run a baseball organization. You, Mr. Conlin, would have trouble running a minor league team — too distracted by beer and hot dogs to make any sort of logical decisions or give the kids any meaningful instruction.
You’re actually a pretty fun pincushion on Beerleaguer.com and puhturephillies.com. We have a lot of fun at your expense, especially after you shoot off an angry piece that has underpinnings in it about the state of the Phillies front office. Drabek hasn’t even had an opportunity to amount to much, and you’re already throwing his name in the hat with the only other truly awful picks the Phillies have made in the past 30-40 years. Sure, Drabek’s having Tommy John surgery, but the success rate for that is over 90%. Some guys actually come back throwing harder AFTER the surgery than they did before it. Obviously, you don’t follow the Pirates at all do you? If you want to talk about drafting bad pitching, there’s the place to start. The guy who runs phuturephillies.com points out Jon Van Benschoten, Sean Burnett, Brad Lincoln and Bryan Bullington as poorly-drafted pitchers who ran into arm troubles.
One of my other favorite posters, taco pal, says this about you:
At least we know Conlin reads this blog. Hey Bill, time to retire! The only reason why you have a job is because you’ve been grandfathered into it. The only reason why anyone ever thought you were a knowledgeable baseball man was that you were the beneficiary of the artificial filter of the old media. In the modern era, any fan can post his thoughts on the Internet. Guess what? A whole lot of them know a whole lot more about baseball than you, and that’s without the benefit of your connections, your experience, and your wholly undeserved reputation. They can produce better sportswriting as a hobby than you could after devoting your entire life’s work to the field.
And that pretty much sums it up. Your anger and creative “juices” both exist solely because you’re angry with the ownership of the Phillies. Journalism suffers as a whole as long as you have access to a keyboard and an internet, and your hands and mouth still work.
I very truly hope you can feel the foundation of your sportswriting career eroding beneath you. I also hope that the same can be said about the foundation of the timeshare you had in the Dominican Republic, it’s just too bad it didn’t give out with you in it.
Sincerely,
Rob Murray
PS – how is it watching the games from the seats that everyday citizens can buy? I know you were REALLY ticked off when your seat in the scouts section was taken away. I guess that’s reserved for people who actually know a thing or two about the game they’re watching. Come to think of it, you don’t really belong in the ballpark anywhere, at all. Those seats are for people who cheer for and love the Phils.
PPS – have you ever seen the movie “Accepted”? You REALLY should, it’s cinematic brilliance. The resemblance between you and the smart fat kid’s grandpa is uncanny in every facet.
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You know what I love about this? Conlin’s targeting the Phillies talent evaluation of pitchers. How about this list
– Brett Myers
– Cole Hamels
– Kyle Kendrick (to a lesser extent)
– Ryan Madson (decent to good middle reliever)
– Mike Zagurski
and our boatload of promising minor league pitching
– Carlos Carrasco
– Scott Mathieson
– Patrick Overholt
– Josh Outman
– Antonio Bastardo
– Andrew Carpenter
– Ben Pfinsgraff
– Sergio Escalona
– Drew Naylor
– Edgar Garcia
– Chance Chapman
– Miguel Matos
– Antonio Florentino
– Jacob Diekman
among others who I have failed to mention. If three or four of these guys pan out (which isn’t too much of a stretch), how does Conlin justify his comments? He’ll just ignore them.
Then, he says we can’t draft position players? Excuse me while I laugh.
– Ryan Howard – ROY and MVP, one of the best power-hitting 1B in the MLB
– Chase Utley – chance to become arguably the best 2B in history if he keeps performing for years
– Jimmy Rollins – top 5 SS in the NL
Anyone who can draft those three alone deserve props. He may tell you that anyone can luck into picks like them, but just think about it.
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All I got from Bill was this:
No e-mail for you, greaser. . .
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Ughhh .
Happ got owned again today. What is wrong with him ?
Golson 4-5 again.
Now batting .286 with 12 HR,52 RBI,25 SB
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Pleeze, James. All of this is an hysterical overraction to Conlin.
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Olgrandad, our reaction isn’t about his latest piece of melodramatic, sensationalizing junk. It’s about ALL of his melodramatic, sensationalizing junk.
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Here’s a nice summarization of Conlin:
http://deadspin.com/sports/hometown-columnists/why-your-hometown-columnist-sucks-bill-conlin-130297.php
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Conlin is literate (and often amusing), which is more than
one can say about the rest of the scribes that follow the
Phillies…and most of Conlin’s critics as well.
But my initial thought here is that Conlin is a known
lightning rod–much like Stephen A. Smith, Dallas Green,
the Phillies’ ownership, etc. etc.–and I have a feeling that
James is doing something that Conlin and others have
been criticized for in order to sell papers. James felt he
needed some hits.
My advice, James, is to stick with what you do well (namely,
analyzing Phillies’ minor leaguers) and stay away from
Conlin-bashing. Hit numbers aren’t that important.
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There is good and bad in the Conlin article. I don’t like that he blames the scouts for taking a risk on a quality talent that fell to us in the draft and had enough off-the-field issues to be affordable. Unfortunately, with the penurious owners worshipping at the shrine of the Selig slot guidance, this is the only sort of guy we have a chance to score big with picking as far down in the first round as we do. So, I would rather Conlin take after the owners than the scouts, though in fairness he does both.
I think he is correct that Drabek reported as damaged goods, but in fairness to Phillies, the damage may have occurred after the draft. Still, guys do come back from TJ and Drabek still not a bad gamble, even given what we know today. Also, he has the possibility of becoming a position player if the TJ doesn’t work out.
Part of the problem with Conlin’s longevity as a writer is that he is as sick of the Phillies management as most old-time fans who have seen way too much of the Phillies Way under Giles and company. This naturally breeds cynicism and an occassional tendency to dump and reach too far into the past in the dumping process. Everything he says about Chad McConnell is true. He was smallish, he had a bad shoulder when picked, he was taken because the Phillies were fixated on taking a college OF and the guy they really wanted was snapped up right in front of them. But, he was around a 2nd-3rd round talent, if healthy, which he wasn’t and he never stood a chance.
I think a couple of the other older picks that Conlin rails against were damaged goods injured in the college playoffs which occurred after the draft. This is a big danger in drafting college pitchers from major teams.
He is dead on about the Golson pick. There was better talent available. That one is on the coaches.
Conlin is still the best phrase turner of the Phillies writers and he does have an encyclopedic memory of Phillies history. I wish he did more deep digging of current Phillies events. The medical problems with our FA and minor leaguers this season is ripe for some in depth reporting. Is Conlin the guy to do it? It likely takes a guy who has burned his bridges with management. Also, nobody has really reported in depth on just how much authority Gillick has.
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Conlin doesn’t really file too many investigative stories anymore because he generally writes columns… opinion articles based upon what was already reported. Again, just because his list of failed prospects is terrible doesn’t mean that his broader point should be ignored. The Phils have made the playoffs once in 24 years. Excluding Cole Hamels (he appears to be an ace but it’s still too early in his career to count him), the Phils’ record of developing pitchers has been terrible. Even under Arbuckle. Randy Wolf, Brett Myers, Ryan Madson, Adam Eaton, I guess Carlos Silva and Rob Tejeda. Not a great list.
As to the exhaustive list of Phils pitching prospects by DJRomano… Don’t get too excited yet, as most of the pitchers on that list are in A ball, even lower or struggling in the higher minors. Kendrick has surpassed expectations but has hardly been dominant and Zagurski is a nice story but come on, guys liek this are a dime a dozen in the MLB (and at this point we can’t even be sure of that). The Phils scouting team and management certainly deserve credit for Utley, Howard, Rollins, Hamels, Myers and Rolen. However, most other teams have developed at least that amount of quality major-leaguers in that amount of time, and I’d argue that we are far below average in pitching development over the last 10 years (again, there may be serious signs of improvement at the lower levels but until they set foot at the Bank, it looks like most other major league team’s farm systems and can’t be counted on).
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smitty’s points about Conlin’s journalistic laziness are dead-on correct. He breaks a lot more wind than news, throws in irrelevancies by the gross (Chad McConnell? C’mon already…), and doesn’t own up to his own misjudgments (didn’t he think Utley was going to be a bust?). His anecdotes about the ’60s, sitting at the generic hotel bar with Paul Owens and the crew, are sometimes amusing and sometimes just predictable and lame.
This is far from saying he’s an idiot or a bad writer. He’s a pretty good writer, and sometimes he gets things right in a huge way–when Baseball Prospectus still thought it was more likely than not that Ryan Howard would be Rob Deer, Conlin saw Willie Stargell, and obviously he was correct.
But his legacy is going to be as a fat, bitter jerk, and my personal impression of him was set in stone ten years ago when I got to cover the 1997 NLCS for nbcsports.com and I saw Conlin sitting in the press area after one of the games. He was by himself, in a room full of people, with three plates of junk food sitting on the table in front of him, grabbing at the plates like someone was going to take them away. It was just sad. A guy like that should be sharing his knowledge with younger colleagues, telling them stories, passing on his sincere appreciation for the game, sharing a legacy. Instead you got an old fat guy eating pastry like it was his last meal.
The internet is a great thing, and one of its best attributes is that it’s democratized the discourse in every area where the public has an interest. Fifteen years ago there was little public interaction, much less discourse and accountability, for people like Conlin or (to take a political pundtry example) Joe Klein of Time magazine. Now you can push back on them. Some of them seem to be invigorated by it; others just get pissed off.
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oldgrandad, I don’t “need the hits”, and I suspect that the same number of people visited my site yesterday as they did the day before. Conlin took a shot at Kyle Drabek, an unwarranted shot, and he ran his mouth about something he clearly doesn’t understand. I think this is “sticking to what I do best” and that’s analyzing our minor league system. Conlin is way off base with his comments, and I’m not the only one that feels this way. His article was directly linked to our farm system, and therefore, I wasn’t going out of my way just to take a shot at him, I was just calling him out for a few stupid remarks he made.
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I still don’t understand what you believe to be “stupid remarks”. You don’t like him being critical of the farm system? A farm system that is regarded as one of the worst in baseball. I didn’t take it that he was being overly critical of Drabek but rather the consistent errors in judgement the organization has made, especially when it comes to young arms. How can you ignore the organizations track record for selection and developement of pitchers? Look, Cole Hamels is a special player and Myers has been pretty good and i guess Wolf to a much lesser extent but how do you ignore the rest.
Conlin is as good a columnist as there is in the country especially when it comes to writing about baseball. So for all those living in the fantasy world of potential and “what could be” rather than reality, that’s your perrogative. Keep holding out hope for the “A” baller with the good ERA – more often than not it’s a Gavin Floyd not a Cole Hamels – especially when they’re wearing red pinstripes. My advice: read Conlin. He knows of what he writes. His opinions are based on a lot of experience and first hand knowledge, of years talking to scouts, coaches, players …not mock drafts and the opinions of those sitting at home behid a keyboard.
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Had you been more restrained, James, I might have
responded differently or (more likely) not responded at all.
In any case, I thought your Golson vs. Berry idea was a
good one.
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The Phillies farm system isn’t among the worst anymore. Baseball America ranked us 21 out of 30 this past year. That’s not in the top half, but it’s not in the neighborhood of Washington and Pittsburgh, who are far worse. Again, the problem is he seems to think the Phillies are worse than other teams when it comes to drafting pitching in the first round of the draft, and that simply isn’t true. He’s also seeminly blind to the fact that the attrition rate is very high for pitching prospects across the board. Most of them don’t pan out, for every team involved, and guys who are 100% healthy when drafted can easily blow out their arm on the next pitch. That’s the nature of the beast.
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With the Phillies budget 21 out of 30 is quite bad. When you are trying to improve the big league team into a post-season player and the minors rank 21st with most of the strength at the bottom, and consequently years away, that is a serious problem. Also, the minors got to be #21 through increased depth rather than through having dominant players. Carrasco is our only top 50 prospect going into the season. We are trying to catch the big league Mets, who have more salary budget money and flexibility than Phillies and the Braves. There farms were #13 and #16. When you are third strongest in your division at both major league and minor league levels and unable to buy your way to success, that is a problem.
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Allentown, you are also moving the goalposts. Conlin made a specific factual claim, which on closer inspection turned out to be false. It’s no defense to say on Conlin’s behalf: well, the Phillies’ farm system is subpar, so the facts don’t matter and you should just be allowed to criticize them for anything. No one’s saying you can’t be critical of the Phillies’ front office – FTN criticizes them all the time on this blog. But these criticisms need to be based in fact – not Conlin’s and your scattershot approach, which just throws a bunch of BS arguments against the wall indiscriminately without distinguishing valid critiques from invalid ones.
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What further inspection???? The Phillies have developed a grand total of 3 pitchers worthy of speaking about in 10 years… and one has been around for a total of 1 year. We have one crack the top 50 prospects now and that’s it. Noone here has disproven his factual claim (and btw, he wasn’t criticizing the Phils’ first round selections as much as their overall inability to develop pitching as a whole). While his list was terrible and probably just an opening to his opinion piece, noone here has shown anything to make me believe that the Phils are good at drafting and developing pitching. 21 out of 30 is pretty bad btw and when we have to be excited that we aren’t Pittsburgh, we are just excusing the powers that be from being 100% inept- that’s not a good enough measuring stick for me.
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BTW- I mean no disrespect to you PhuturePhils- it’s you rblog and you should criticize whoever you want- I just disagree in this instance. Keep up the good work!
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taco pal —
Don’t see how I’ve moved the goal posts. That post was not a defense of Conlin, merely a response to phuturephillies statement in the post above mine that the Phillies pharm isn’t among the worst anymore. To me, bottom third is among the worst. Especially for a team with about top third budget. Also, his statement implies that we have recently improved. Using his BA metric, we have been 20 – 22 for each of the past 4 seasons. So, we have gotten worse and sustained the bad. In 2002 and 2003 we were ranked 11th and 7th. Then as the Phillies viewed themselves as contenders and shifted spending to major league vets, our minor league budget was cut in relative terms. This could be viewed as an ok natural cycle if we had actually reached post-season as a result of this push, but we didn’t.
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No, Comack, his factual claim was:
Conlin was clearly NOT writing generally about the Phillies’ ability to develop pitching as a whole. His article was ENTIRELY DEVOTED to the factual claim that the Phillies’ have a propensity to draft pitchers who are damaged goods. That claim was false, and no amount of creative post-hoc fudging of his exact words can change that.
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OK then. If it’s not a defense of Conlin, I’ll withdraw that statement.
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One more point. In what universe is Greg Golson anything like “Michael Bourn with zero plate discipline”? Golson is also Michael Bourn with a LOT more power. And Golson is 21, while Bourn was older than that when he was drafted. Golson’s also both taller and heavier at age 21 than Bourn is at age 24.
I’m not saying Golson is guaranteed to make it, or even that he’s a better prospect than Bourn. Golson’s got holes, everyone knows that. But the comparison between him and Bourn is absurd. They’re not alike! The only similarities between those two guys is that they’re both black and they’re both fast. Just another example of the amazing depth and insight of Bill Conlin’s baseball analyses.
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There was a time when the would be “King of the World” beat the bushes and based his articles on personal knowledge through interaction with those in the know. Have read him for decades.
He’s been mailing it in for years, the ego has long since trumped reality.
ime
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