SILLY STUFF
Del Olaleye: It's draft season, which means a lot of idiotic takes
Del Olaleye
Feb 21, 2018, 7:52 am
Never forget Johnny Manziel. Jamie Squire/Getty Images
We’re in the middle of the least accountable time on the sports calendar. Analysts in a particular field make a pretty healthy living this time of year writing and saying things they never have to answer for. I’m talking about draft season, where only the internet has time to call you out on your awful misses. The business of the draft is a year-round thing. Writers and TV personalities for ESPN, CBS Sports and the NFL rank players by position throughout the year. The writers for these three outlets aren’t even a piece of lint when compared to the monster that is the totality of draft coverage. Every blogger has a position by position write up. Every sports network has a draft insider with a mock draft. I saw a different mock draft on the front page of CBSsports.com with Baker Mayfield’s name in the headline probably three times last week. The vast amount of outlets that produce draft content provide a sort of cover for awful evaluations of players and incorrect predictions on a team’s draft plans. You just can’t remember all the times someone was wrong. There are those special occasions though.
Do you remember a draft evaluation that was so bad that you hold it against the evaluator to this day? I still think about the time Mel Kiper ranked Logan Thomas the fourth best prospect in college football. Thomas played QB for Virginia Tech and Kiper was so enamored by the former Hokie’s physical tools that after a sophomore year that included 19 TDs and 10 INTs Kiper elevated Thomas to a top 5 pick. Some context to go along with that nonsense. Thomas’ sophomore year came a season after Cam Newton was selected #1 overall. Thomas and Newton are of similar builds but Newton was far more dynamic in the QB run-game. Newton totaled more yards rushing in his fourteen career starts at Auburn than Thomas did in his entire 4-year career.
Thomas peaked as a sophomore. His junior and senior years did not live up to the hype that Kiper bestowed on him but Kiper held steadfast and considered Thomas a potential first-round pick after a subpar junior year. The Arizona Cardinals eventually selected Thomas in the fourth round of the 2014 draft and that proved to be a mistake. Thomas has completed one pass in his entire career and was moved to tight end two years after getting drafted.
An evaluation so bad that’ll I’ll never forget it.
That evaluation of Thomas is not Kiper's most egregious flub and the thanks to the internet I don’t have to point them all out to you. Kiper, who may very well be the first draft insider, only faces scrutiny because of the size of his platform. Lesser known names continue to be wrong without any repercussions.
Kiper isn’t alone. I’m sure everyone can think of a guy who was so wrong that you would believe they never watched the prospect play. I won’t paint former Colts GM Bill Polian with that brush but some recents comments he made got me to do a little research. Polian had this to say on ESPN after evaluating Louisville QB Lamar Jackson: "Short and a little bit slight". Jackson is listed at 6’3” by the way. Polian goes on to voice other concerns that you might consider more valid. He talks about Jackson’s lack of accuracy and suggests that he won’t get away with running the football in the NFL. Polian sees Jackson’s physical abilities and thinks a transition to WR would be best. Those can be considered reasonable concerns but stature and build didn’t seem to be an issue in his evaluation of Johnny Manziel a couple of years ago. I wasn’t the only one to take notice. The internet will always keep the receipts. The employers of these “draft experts”? Not so much
The Dan Patrick Show provides a nightmare dreamscape for any draftnik. They bring NFL players on the show and read their draft profiles to them. For good TV they only read the weaknesses portion of those profile. ESPN 97.5’s Lance Zierlein provides the player write-ups for NFL.com and his evaluations are the profiles that show uses. The producers for the show now warn Lance when he could potentially catch some shrapnel from the players or fans who may not be thrilled with his evaluations. I work in the same office with Lance. I see the work he puts in for the draft. A miss by him can be considered an honest one. He does the work. I’m gonna doubt the same can be said for plenty of others.
When you’re working on mock draft 18.0 who has time for accountability?
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.