Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Prospectus Q&A: John Schuerholz
Stathead interviews Schuerholz! It’s a premium article, I’m afraid.
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Baseball Prospectus | Articles | Prospectus Q&A: John Schuerholz
Stathead interviews Schuerholz! It’s a premium article, I’m afraid.
Use code “Journal” for a 5% discount.
You can’t access the article without registration and an ID. FYI
Yep. That’s why I said it’s a premium article.
I read it. And BP is well worth the price tag.
Two interesting parts to folks in here were the following:
“BP: How will the near-term future of Andy Marte be addressed? We rated him as our #1 prospect this year, he’s producing at Triple-A, you’ve got question marks at the corner outfield spots, and you’ve got Chipper Jones, by our metrics one of the worst defenders in the majors, playing third base. At what point do you bring up Marte and move Jones back to the outfield?
Schuerholz: Chipper Jones was a perennial All-Star at third base. We moved him to left field to accommodate Vinny Castilla, who by everyone’s admission was a better third baseman. Chipper did not take to it, he did not play his new position well. It was physically debilitating to him, hard on his legs. We brought him back to third base, not just for physical reasons, but with the idea that it would help his bat as well. If you have a player the caliber of Chipper Jones, a potential future Hall of Famer, you accommodate him.
Are we delighted to have Andy Marte? Absolutely. And it will likely happen for him at third base. On the other hand, could he be a Miguel Cabrera-type player, where he plays some left field, right field, some first base? Maybe. You can’t really analyze the value of Chipper Jones if you just look at statistical defensive analysis. Because then you don’t see what his impact is when he drives in the winning run in the ninth inning. It’s important to feed some positivity to a player like that. If Marte does what we think he’s going to do, he’ll be in the big leagues very shortly.”
And . . .
“BP Until Mark Wohlers came along–and he was homegrown–the Braves never really had a dominant closer during the team’s run, and certainly none who were signed for huge money. The team won with Alejandro Pena, with Jeff Reardon toward the end of his career–and with many other lesser names. What, then, was the thought process that led to trading Jose Capellan for Danny Kolb? Is the team’s philosophy now that you have to have an established, proven closer to win?
Schuerholz: Our team had finished last three years in a row when I became general manager, so we weren’t going to put a closer high on our shopping list. We didn’t feel like that was something we had to do. But it didn’t take long to recognize that we were going to need a quality closer every year. That’s the way to construct a quality team: First you get good to great starting pitching, then you find your closer–it was a natural progression. As far as Kolb goes–is he a different-style closer than Smoltz? Sure. His track record wasn’t real long, just one year, but we wanted to put John back into the starting rotation. That was the bigger issue in this case, rather than who it was we were going to get to replace him.”
There is lots more great stuff in the interview and people who haven’t subscribed should seriously consider it (or at least by the book
Still those two quotes should spark some conversations.
I find it very interesting that he didn’t even try to argue Larry’s defensive value. I wonder if that means that the organization is actually looking at in-depth statistical analysis. I guess it’s equally likely that he just decided not to go down that rat hole. I like how the question was phrased: “at what point do you…” Geez. As if it’s a foregone conclusion just because BP has decided it’s the right thing to do.
I don’t know what to make of what he said about Marte. Sometimes Scheurholz’s comments are only slightly easier to interpret than Alan Greenspan’s.
I know this is oversimplifying things, but if Scheurholz really believes that the bigger issue was getting Smoltz back into the rotation, then I have two comments:
1) For what it’s worth, I agree with him- getting Smoltz back into the rotation should have been the priority, but
2) Why make the trade then? If the who was secondary, why not try Reitsma until Capellan was ready, or go with Capellan right from the start?
Well, I think they decided Capellan wasn’t going to cut it (he didn’t) so they traded for a guy who did cut it (but now won’t).
Any reference to Kelly Johnson and the Jordan/Mondesi fiasco in the OF?
Darn I was hoping for more copyrite infringment since I’m too cheap to pay for BP myself.
Doom, you have to remember that the Braves are not a sabermetric centered team. They are a traditional scouting first, lets see how the guy looks type of team. They are also slaves to the baseball vogue of the moment. Thus they feel the need to have a ‘closer’. Both the Braves and the Brewers sold high on a couple of commodities. The Brewers on a journyman pitcher that had a good season as the ‘closer’, the Braves on a highly touted tnstaapp that until he learns to bend the ball a little has only a small chance of being a major leaguer.