November 8, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. 
Rich Barbieri
John Barten Brian Borawski Craig Brown Evan Brunell David Gassko Jonathan Hale Brandon Isleib Chris Jaffe Max Marchi Bruce Markusen Harry Pavlidis Jeff Sackmann Dave Studeman Steve Treder Bryan Tsao Tuck! Dan Turkenkopf Colin Wyers Geoff Young John Brattain And here's the full roster.
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Piazza, Hall of Fame Catcherby Dave StudemanMay 24, 2008 The legendary sabermetrician Craig Wright publishes a semi-regular baseball column called The Diamond Appraised (subscription required). In his most recent issue, he recounts the career of the great Mike Piazza and includes stories of his time with the Dodgers when Piazza was establishing himself in the minors. It's a fantastic read and easily worth the subscription price. Here are a few of the highlights... Wright discusses how scouts were skeptical about Piazza's swing, and shares his own thoughts: I remember my own first time seeing Piazza hit and having two distinct thoughts. One, that he must be incredibly strong in his wrists and forearms to make that swing work, and, two, this guy isn’t going to get hit by too many pitches. (He ended up never being hit more than 3 times in a season, and his overall hit-by-pitch rate during his career was less than half the normal rate.) I don't want to give away the entire story, but Wright began to champion Piazza after the catcher's 1991 season in the California League. I personally started to get excited about Piazza’s big league prospects during his 1991 season in the California League. He made gigantic strides in his command of the strike zone and led the league in slugging percentage. When I park adjusted his numbers, he really stood out as being in a class by himself as the best power-hitter in the 10-team league – and he was doing this while playing the most physically demanding position on the field (5th in the league in games caught). When I expressed my excitement about Piazza that off-season to general manager Fred Claire, I was very surprised to hear that the assessments of Piazza by our scouts and player development people were very mixed, and the consensus was, at best, lukewarm about his prospect status. Some felt he would never be more than a “minor league hitter,” and some also thought he would never make it as a catcher and would have to move back to first base. Claire eventually saw the light and essentially handed the 1993 starting job to Piazza by releasing Mike Scioscia. The rest is history. Craig's column includes his thoughts about Piazza's defense and the issue of scouting and drafting young catchers. As I said, it's a fantastic read. Dave was called a "national treasure" by Rob Neyer. Seriously. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Do you have a general question or comment for one of THT's writers? Send it in to our weekly mailbag We also welcome unsolicited op-ed pieces of approximately 500 words for consideration. We reserve the right to edit for length, clarity and consistency of style. Please include your whole name and location to be considered. If you have a comment about this specific article, please email the writer. |
