Saturday, February 09, 2008
Who would you start a team with?
Posted by Sal BaxamusaWe hear this question all the time. But at the Baseball Analytics panel of the Sloan Sports Conference, this question was posed to some serious baseball insiders: author Vince Genarro, Diamondbacks, Diamond Mind creator Tom Tippett, scout Joe Bohringer, and sabermetric legend Bill James. Who did they pick, considering age and contract status?
Vince and Tippett spoke generally, saying they wanted a player with all six years of service time remaining. Vince said that two years ago he would have chosen Hanley Ramirez or Justin Verlander. Tom didn't name names, but he didn't want a pitcher. He preferred a position player who wasn't a defensive liability.
Bill chose David Wright.
Joe had the hometeam pick: Justin Upton. He said that he has as much talent of any player he has scouted, including Hall of Famers.
Sal Baxamusa is a graduate student in chemical engineering. He can be reached here.