Why spell it "Kohl?" Well, no matter. He seems like an interesting pick.
60 thoughts on “June 7, 2013: #4 Pick”
I am currently at United Methodist Annual Conference. The one thing Annual Conference always does for me is re-affirm the fact that I have absolutely zero desire to be a Big Wheel in the United Methodist Church. All I really want to be is what I am--a community pastor for a small-town parish. So I guess you could say that, in my own way, I'm living the dream.
Haven't looked, but I'm hoping his middle name is Rabi.
Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that. Well, it is now.
(Also, pickled kholrabi is awesome.)
I read that as "Rabbi" at first.
there is none more jewish root vegetable.
every time he hits a HR, we yell "Kohl's is having a SALE!"
Here's to hoping he doesn't have a whole lot of opportunity to hit HR's, what with the DH and all.
'kay then, every strikeout -- "30% off at Kohl's!!"
definitely gonna need a Kohl's-sponsored K meter for his starts!
It'll certainly make coming up with a 'K' image easy.
Babe Kohl. But, yea. I guess I still had "Mauer wannabee" in my head.
There's always interleague.
Got linked to Kohl's twitter by Lavelle last night. Saw a picture of the kid and was reminded just how young 18 year olds really are.
I'm going to my sister's grad party tonight. There will be many reminders.
That was a pretty terrific game last night. SA never let Miami get away from them. It seemed like every time Miami went on a run, SA immediately reeled them in.
Well, the season ended for the Newmark Rays last night in the league semifinals, but not without a fight. The Rays came back from a 3-0 deficit in the third inning to take a 4-3 lead on the heavily favored Mets. Trey got a two-out hit to score the go-ahead run. Unfortunately, the Mets scored two in the bottom of the third and held on in the fourth for the 5-4 win. The game was called due to time limit. Trey pitched the first two innings and gave up two earned runs while striking out five against a great offensive team. The Mets only scored five less runs than the Red Sox, who went undefeated, during the regular season. The Mets' starting pitcher looked like he was 11 or 12 instead of 8 or 9 (can't imagine a 9-yr-old that good would still be in Farm), and the Mets pulled him after two innings to save him for Saturday's championship game. Almost backfired on the Mets. Oh, well.
How old is Trey again?
7.2 in Pujols years.
Even at that age I would have pouted incessantly about a game being called due to time limit. Baseball is wonderful because there is no time limit!
Normally, it is because we play on a field with no lights, but we were on the field with lights for this game. Plus, there was no game after this one, so we kind of wondered why they kept the time limit. The championship game on Saturday won't have a time limit. I think it will go 6 innings.
Back in the day, time limits on wee kid baseball games weren't uncommon. Limited number of fields, lots of teams/games to get through each saturday.
refs -- it's a union thing.*
*no, it's not, but we pull that line all the time with our brass ensemble. still, refs are only getting paid for 1 hr of work.
He'll be 8 tomorrow.
My son is playing up in a 10-year-old league because he is young for his grade. The league decided to introduce stealing at this level for the first time. What a cluster... The runner can go as soon as the ball leaves the hand of the pitcher, but none of the kids have enough arm strenth to make a strong throw to second.
So, at least five times per game, the batter reaches first base on a hit or a walk, and goes on the first or second pitch. The runner inevitably advances to third on some type of error on the throw and then scores on a passed ball. It's terrible to watch and doesn't look particularly fun to play. The focus is on stealing bases and agressive baserunning instead of just playing ball.
I think I remember stealing being introduced as the runner can advance as soon as the ball crossed the plate, but I don't know if that is a true memory or rose-colored reminiscence.
That is how Little League does it. The ball has to cross the plate before you can get off the base. We do allow stealing at this level. 80 to 90 percent of base runners score, mostly because of stealing/wild pitches/passed balls. We have had one base runner thrown out at second base on a steal attempt.
I think when we had a pitching machine, we were only allowed to advance when the ball was put in play (or on a walk, etc.) For 5th-6th grade, I think the rule was that the ball had to cross home plate before you could leave the base. IIRC, many extra bases were taken, but it was still difficult enough that most kids wouldn't try going if the catcher caught the pitch cleanly.
The worst year was 3rd grade when our town had 3rd-6th grades all lumped together. I made Drew Butera look like Babe Butera that year. No hits, some walks, a lot of HBP, and a lot of strikeouts. They mercifully split it 3rd/4th and 5th/6th the next year.
Trey played Pony League last year because he wasn't old enough to play Farm (missed the cutoff by five weeks) and he had already played three years of tee ball. Pony doesn't do any coaches pitch and most of the kids were 6-7. Trey's team was very young and inexperienced and they were no-hit six or seven times. However, they scored 14 or 15 runs in one game they were no-hit because of so many walks and hbps. Trey reached base a ton but didn't get a single hit all season.
Sounds like this league isn't all that unusual. I can admit to being a bit frustrated as well. I don't angle for my kid to get on winning teams, but this group isn't even competitive. They have lost every game and half of those have been 10-run mercy losses. The kids that can play are really frustrated. Their last game was a 5-3 loss in which the other team decided not to steal for some reason, so the kids saw a glimmer of hope.
The Book of Face is telling me that tonight's Twins/Nationals game has already been postponed due to inclement weather (Tropical Storm Andrea). So we'll get a double header on Sunday, 12:35 pm and 6:05 pm.
Every. Single. Time. Oi.
the new Star Trek flick is playing at the theater in town, I think I'll go see that tonight.
mc and I saw it on Tuesday night. She is a big Trekkie and I know almost nothing about it. We both enjoyed it.
Yah. We discussed last movie day, I think. Plot holes that are parsecs wide, but thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster.
He excels defensively, earning high marks for his plus arm and receiving skills. Turner won the Gold Glove for Division II junior colleges last year. His offense, however, is not as well regarded. [emphasis added]
right, cause we're short on that type.
Ah yes, stupid work getting in the way.
Fourth pick is Stephen Gonsalves, LHP out of high school. Fifth pick is Aaron Slegers, RHP.
another catcher, brian navarreto, out of high school in the 6th, seton hall RHP brian gilbert in the 7th.
The pitchers get bored if they don't have anyone to throw to.
plus, they can always be moved to third!
I don't have a good gauge on college stats, but he hit .315/.419/.432 in SEC play last season, which was best on his team at any position. For a sobering comparison, Drew Butera hit .325/.434/.481 as a junior, but that's for his whole season (including non-conference) and he played in the Atlantic Sun conference.
I would note, though, that even by the 3rd round, basically everyone has some kind of significant problem.
I can't imagine what color Dennis Rodman's lawn is today, but regardless, get off it.
I really don't know enough about the subject matter to have much of a say here, but my take on Rodman's comments is that maybe he's overrating Jordan a bit relative to LeBron, but at the same time, in a hypothetical Bulls-Heat matchup, I have to figure that the Zen Master would have found a way to solve the Heat. It also would not surprise me if Rodman could neutralize Bosh.
Yeaaaa. Yes, it is a different era. But has Rodman looked at Lebron lately? Dude is a beast. That said, I probably agree generally that the Bulls were better than these Heat.
I don't disagree that the Bulls of that era were better than this Heat team. Frankly, the Heat, sans LeBron, aren't very good. By contrast, the Bulls, sans Michael Jordan, were reasonably close to a championship when he was off playing baseball.
"reasonably close" being 55-27 and losing the Eastern semis to Patrick Ewing's Knicks in seven games (1993-4). Despite starting Pete Myers 81 times in the regular season.
They were 22nd in ppg, but third in points allowed.
The topic of the day appears to be high school pitchers drafted in the top 5 picks.
John Patterson: 1996, 5th pick. <$1.4M signing bonus. 5.5 career rWAR. 4.8 peak rWAR. Great season in '04, got injured, kept getting injured, didn't get back on track.
Mike Stodolka: 2000, 4th pick. $2.5M signing bonus. 0.0 career rWAr. 0.0 peak rWAR. Shoulder problems, then Tommy John in 2003. Converted to position player in 2005. Hit .286/.366/.405 in AAA in '08, which could have been promising but it doesn't like he didn't have much to offer on defense. Royals.
Clint Everts: 2002, 5th pick. $2.5M signing bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Solid strikeout numbers, but outside of 2004, his walk rate was pretty high (4-5ish BB/9), indicating that he probably didn't have good enough control/command to keep advancing up the ladder. Potential injury in 2005? (Limited to 35 IP after a good 2004.) Did typical conversion to bullpen in '07/'08 after it was clear he wasn't working out as a starter. Expos.
Adam Loewen: 2002, 4th pick. Signed a $4M contract. 0.7 career rWAR. 0.8 peak rWAR. Somewhat similar to Everts, good strikeout numbers in the minors, but with about a 5 BB/9 in the minors.
Chris Gruler: 2002, 3rd pick. $2.5M bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Injured so much that he only pitched 92 innings over 4 years in the minors.
Mark Rogers: 2004, 5th pick. $2.2M bonus. 1.0 career rWAR. 0.6 peak rWAR. 27 years old this year, placed on the 60-day DL in March. 3.51 xFIP in 49 innings for the Brewers is really solid in a small sample. His minor league rates are 9.3 SO/9, 5.8 BB/9, and 0.7 HR/9. He seems to profile more as an Everts or Loewen given the walk rate, so I wonder if the 3 BB/9 in his 49 innings with the Brewers is a SSS fluke.
Matt Hobgood: 2009, 5th pick. $2.4M bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Technically too early to tell (he's still just 22), but he had rotator cuff surgery last year and judging by the numbers, he struggled with an injury starting in '11.
Jameson Taillon: 2010, 2nd pick. $6.5M bonus. Solid minor league numbers, currently 9.6 SO/9, 3.6 BB/9, and 0.7 HR/9 in AA as a 21-year-old. Probably a little disappointing given that he was the 2nd overall pick, but still looks like he'll be a useful pitcher in MLB.
Dylan Bundy: 2011, 4th pick. $4M bonus, plus 5-year major league contract. Great numbers (Verlander-esque) last year in the minors. Not sure what's up with him this year (injuredy?)
Judging by this brief review, it appears that the biggest pitfalls to watch for are injuries and ability to throw strikes. All pitchers get injured, so I don't know how much to hold that against a HS pitcher. Yes, he's got a couple extra years where you have to cross your fingers that he doesn't get hurt, but if the talent is there I can see where it would be hard to pass based on the chance a guy might get hurt in the next two years. There seems to be some correlation with bonus/contract size and how the pitchers have turned out. Beckett got arguably the best contract of the bunch and has had the best career. A lot of the flame-outs were <$3M bonuses from the '00s.
Seen on the Bookface: beer data maps. Awesome hop sauce!
ND saw an almost 10% decrease in production and fewer than 900 barrels, total. That's ridiculous. Minnesota, on the other hand, is exploding.
Sam: "What in the name of Walt Whitman's six-cylinder riding lawnmower just happened here?"
I happened to see that socal is moonlighting on us, writing a Dad Knows Best column for cash monies on teh Intertubes instead of for free here.
I was going to share a link in the comments section of the next one, but feel free to share whenever. I am scheduled for a Dad Knows Best column sometime in the fall.
first 100+ day. so, uh, the power is out. Sweeeeet! and I have to catch a plane early tomorrow.
I am currently at United Methodist Annual Conference. The one thing Annual Conference always does for me is re-affirm the fact that I have absolutely zero desire to be a Big Wheel in the United Methodist Church. All I really want to be is what I am--a community pastor for a small-town parish. So I guess you could say that, in my own way, I'm living the dream.
Haven't looked, but I'm hoping his middle name is Rabi.
Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that. Well, it is now.
(Also, pickled kholrabi is awesome.)
I read that as "Rabbi" at first.
there is none more jewish root vegetable.
every time he hits a HR, we yell "Kohl's is having a SALE!"
Here's to hoping he doesn't have a whole lot of opportunity to hit HR's, what with the DH and all.
'kay then, every strikeout -- "30% off at Kohl's!!"
definitely gonna need a Kohl's-sponsored K meter for his starts!
It'll certainly make coming up with a 'K' image easy.
Babe Kohl. But, yea. I guess I still had "Mauer wannabee" in my head.
There's always interleague.
Got linked to Kohl's twitter by Lavelle last night. Saw a picture of the kid and was reminded just how young 18 year olds really are.
I'm going to my sister's grad party tonight. There will be many reminders.
Man, that just creeps me out.
My work here is done.
You do know what it's from, right, Phyllo?
Minnesota Twins MLB Draft: Stewart is Great Talent, but Eades Could Be Faster Impact
That was a pretty terrific game last night. SA never let Miami get away from them. It seemed like every time Miami went on a run, SA immediately reeled them in.
Well, the season ended for the Newmark Rays last night in the league semifinals, but not without a fight. The Rays came back from a 3-0 deficit in the third inning to take a 4-3 lead on the heavily favored Mets. Trey got a two-out hit to score the go-ahead run. Unfortunately, the Mets scored two in the bottom of the third and held on in the fourth for the 5-4 win. The game was called due to time limit. Trey pitched the first two innings and gave up two earned runs while striking out five against a great offensive team. The Mets only scored five less runs than the Red Sox, who went undefeated, during the regular season. The Mets' starting pitcher looked like he was 11 or 12 instead of 8 or 9 (can't imagine a 9-yr-old that good would still be in Farm), and the Mets pulled him after two innings to save him for Saturday's championship game. Almost backfired on the Mets. Oh, well.
How old is Trey again?
7.2 in Pujols years.
Even at that age I would have pouted incessantly about a game being called due to time limit. Baseball is wonderful because there is no time limit!
Normally, it is because we play on a field with no lights, but we were on the field with lights for this game. Plus, there was no game after this one, so we kind of wondered why they kept the time limit. The championship game on Saturday won't have a time limit. I think it will go 6 innings.
Back in the day, time limits on wee kid baseball games weren't uncommon. Limited number of fields, lots of teams/games to get through each saturday.
refs -- it's a union thing.*
*no, it's not, but we pull that line all the time with our brass ensemble. still, refs are only getting paid for 1 hr of work.
He'll be 8 tomorrow.
My son is playing up in a 10-year-old league because he is young for his grade. The league decided to introduce stealing at this level for the first time. What a cluster... The runner can go as soon as the ball leaves the hand of the pitcher, but none of the kids have enough arm strenth to make a strong throw to second.
So, at least five times per game, the batter reaches first base on a hit or a walk, and goes on the first or second pitch. The runner inevitably advances to third on some type of error on the throw and then scores on a passed ball. It's terrible to watch and doesn't look particularly fun to play. The focus is on stealing bases and agressive baserunning instead of just playing ball.
I think I remember stealing being introduced as the runner can advance as soon as the ball crossed the plate, but I don't know if that is a true memory or rose-colored reminiscence.
That is how Little League does it. The ball has to cross the plate before you can get off the base. We do allow stealing at this level. 80 to 90 percent of base runners score, mostly because of stealing/wild pitches/passed balls. We have had one base runner thrown out at second base on a steal attempt.
I think when we had a pitching machine, we were only allowed to advance when the ball was put in play (or on a walk, etc.) For 5th-6th grade, I think the rule was that the ball had to cross home plate before you could leave the base. IIRC, many extra bases were taken, but it was still difficult enough that most kids wouldn't try going if the catcher caught the pitch cleanly.
The worst year was 3rd grade when our town had 3rd-6th grades all lumped together. I made Drew Butera look like Babe Butera that year. No hits, some walks, a lot of HBP, and a lot of strikeouts. They mercifully split it 3rd/4th and 5th/6th the next year.
Trey played Pony League last year because he wasn't old enough to play Farm (missed the cutoff by five weeks) and he had already played three years of tee ball. Pony doesn't do any coaches pitch and most of the kids were 6-7. Trey's team was very young and inexperienced and they were no-hit six or seven times. However, they scored 14 or 15 runs in one game they were no-hit because of so many walks and hbps. Trey reached base a ton but didn't get a single hit all season.
Sounds like this league isn't all that unusual. I can admit to being a bit frustrated as well. I don't angle for my kid to get on winning teams, but this group isn't even competitive. They have lost every game and half of those have been 10-run mercy losses. The kids that can play are really frustrated. Their last game was a 5-3 loss in which the other team decided not to steal for some reason, so the kids saw a glimmer of hope.
The Book of Face is telling me that tonight's Twins/Nationals game has already been postponed due to inclement weather (Tropical Storm Andrea). So we'll get a double header on Sunday, 12:35 pm and 6:05 pm.
Every. Single. Time. Oi.
the new Star Trek flick is playing at the theater in town, I think I'll go see that tonight.
mc and I saw it on Tuesday night. She is a big Trekkie and I know almost nothing about it. We both enjoyed it.
Yah. We discussed last movie day, I think. Plot holes that are parsecs wide, but thoroughly enjoyable summer blockbuster.
I totally agree with this.
Jalen Rose.
Awesome.
twins 3rd round pick is catcher stuart turner:
right, cause we're short on that type.
Ah yes, stupid work getting in the way.
Fourth pick is Stephen Gonsalves, LHP out of high school. Fifth pick is Aaron Slegers, RHP.
another catcher, brian navarreto, out of high school in the 6th, seton hall RHP brian gilbert in the 7th.
The pitchers get bored if they don't have anyone to throw to.
plus, they can always be moved to third!
I don't have a good gauge on college stats, but he hit .315/.419/.432 in SEC play last season, which was best on his team at any position. For a sobering comparison, Drew Butera hit .325/.434/.481 as a junior, but that's for his whole season (including non-conference) and he played in the Atlantic Sun conference.
I would note, though, that even by the 3rd round, basically everyone has some kind of significant problem.
I can't imagine what color Dennis Rodman's lawn is today, but regardless, get off it.
I really don't know enough about the subject matter to have much of a say here, but my take on Rodman's comments is that maybe he's overrating Jordan a bit relative to LeBron, but at the same time, in a hypothetical Bulls-Heat matchup, I have to figure that the Zen Master would have found a way to solve the Heat. It also would not surprise me if Rodman could neutralize Bosh.
Yeaaaa. Yes, it is a different era. But has Rodman looked at Lebron lately? Dude is a beast. That said, I probably agree generally that the Bulls were better than these Heat.
I don't disagree that the Bulls of that era were better than this Heat team. Frankly, the Heat, sans LeBron, aren't very good. By contrast, the Bulls, sans Michael Jordan, were reasonably close to a championship when he was off playing baseball.
"reasonably close" being 55-27 and losing the Eastern semis to Patrick Ewing's Knicks in seven games (1993-4). Despite starting Pete Myers 81 times in the regular season.
They were 22nd in ppg, but third in points allowed.
The topic of the day appears to be high school pitchers drafted in the top 5 picks.
Kerry Wood: 1995, 4th pick. $1.2M signing bonus. 26.7 career rWAR. 6.2 peak rWAR. 1998 ROY.
John Patterson: 1996, 5th pick. <$1.4M signing bonus. 5.5 career rWAR. 4.8 peak rWAR. Great season in '04, got injured, kept getting injured, didn't get back on track.
Josh Beckett: 1999, 2nd pick. $4M signing bonus. 33.7 career rWAR. 6.5 peak rWAR.
Mike Stodolka: 2000, 4th pick. $2.5M signing bonus. 0.0 career rWAr. 0.0 peak rWAR. Shoulder problems, then Tommy John in 2003. Converted to position player in 2005. Hit .286/.366/.405 in AAA in '08, which could have been promising but it doesn't like he didn't have much to offer on defense. Royals.
Gavin Floyd: 2001, 4th pick. $4.2M signing bonus. 15.4 career rWAR. 4.1 peak rWAR.
Clint Everts: 2002, 5th pick. $2.5M signing bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Solid strikeout numbers, but outside of 2004, his walk rate was pretty high (4-5ish BB/9), indicating that he probably didn't have good enough control/command to keep advancing up the ladder. Potential injury in 2005? (Limited to 35 IP after a good 2004.) Did typical conversion to bullpen in '07/'08 after it was clear he wasn't working out as a starter. Expos.
Adam Loewen: 2002, 4th pick. Signed a $4M contract. 0.7 career rWAR. 0.8 peak rWAR. Somewhat similar to Everts, good strikeout numbers in the minors, but with about a 5 BB/9 in the minors.
Chris Gruler: 2002, 3rd pick. $2.5M bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Injured so much that he only pitched 92 innings over 4 years in the minors.
Mark Rogers: 2004, 5th pick. $2.2M bonus. 1.0 career rWAR. 0.6 peak rWAR. 27 years old this year, placed on the 60-day DL in March. 3.51 xFIP in 49 innings for the Brewers is really solid in a small sample. His minor league rates are 9.3 SO/9, 5.8 BB/9, and 0.7 HR/9. He seems to profile more as an Everts or Loewen given the walk rate, so I wonder if the 3 BB/9 in his 49 innings with the Brewers is a SSS fluke.
Matt Hobgood: 2009, 5th pick. $2.4M bonus. 0.0 career rWAR. 0.0 peak rWAR. Technically too early to tell (he's still just 22), but he had rotator cuff surgery last year and judging by the numbers, he struggled with an injury starting in '11.
Jameson Taillon: 2010, 2nd pick. $6.5M bonus. Solid minor league numbers, currently 9.6 SO/9, 3.6 BB/9, and 0.7 HR/9 in AA as a 21-year-old. Probably a little disappointing given that he was the 2nd overall pick, but still looks like he'll be a useful pitcher in MLB.
Dylan Bundy: 2011, 4th pick. $4M bonus, plus 5-year major league contract. Great numbers (Verlander-esque) last year in the minors. Not sure what's up with him this year (injuredy?)
Judging by this brief review, it appears that the biggest pitfalls to watch for are injuries and ability to throw strikes. All pitchers get injured, so I don't know how much to hold that against a HS pitcher. Yes, he's got a couple extra years where you have to cross your fingers that he doesn't get hurt, but if the talent is there I can see where it would be hard to pass based on the chance a guy might get hurt in the next two years. There seems to be some correlation with bonus/contract size and how the pitchers have turned out. Beckett got arguably the best contract of the bunch and has had the best career. A lot of the flame-outs were <$3M bonuses from the '00s.
Seen on the Bookface: beer data maps. Awesome hop sauce!
ND saw an almost 10% decrease in production and fewer than 900 barrels, total. That's ridiculous. Minnesota, on the other hand, is exploding.
Sam: "What in the name of Walt Whitman's six-cylinder riding lawnmower just happened here?"
I happened to see that socal is moonlighting on us, writing a Dad Knows Best column for cash monies on teh Intertubes instead of for free here.
I was going to share a link in the comments section of the next one, but feel free to share whenever. I am scheduled for a Dad Knows Best column sometime in the fall.
first 100+ day. so, uh, the power is out. Sweeeeet! and I have to catch a plane early tomorrow.