Nageotte, AFL
Clint Nageotte had a mighty fine outing last night in the Arizona Fall League: 5 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, 1 HR. He wasn’t around to pick up the win, however, as Peoria had to score six in the top of the 10th to win it 8-2.
In what tends to be a hitting-friendly environment — league ERA sits at 5.70 after yesterday’s games — Nageotte has allowed three hits and just one walk, to go along with a dozen strikeouts, in 12 innings of work over three starts (he’s building up arm strength after relieving this season).
In other M’s-AFL news, Jeff Clement is hitting a robust .360/.500/.680 in 25 at-bats, while Adam Jones has struggled to a .154/.214/.333 line in 39 at-bats. Finally, Chris Buglovsky has posted one of the ugliest lines you’ll ever see thus far, with a 18.00 ERA and 20 hits allowed in just six innings.
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22 Responses to “Nageotte, AFL”
And, not to be a total wet blanket, but none of this matters.
The Arizona Fall Leauge is less than worthless.
This is one of those leagues where everyone gets excited when a player has fantastic stats, but then does a 180 when someone’s struggling and says the stats mean nothing in the AFL.
Like Dave said. Worthless.
but, as I understand it, fun to watch 🙂
but, as I understand it, fun to watch 🙂
Indeed it is. At least there’s that.
Just heard on KJR that Bobby Mandritch was claimed on waivers by the Royals.
Mads claimed by Royals: http://www.sportsnetwork.com/default.asp?c=sportsnetwork&page=/mlb/news/AAN3985533.htm
Why? I know he’s hurt, but he seemed to be part of the medium term future thereafter…
Madritsch has his own thread.
As an avowed Nageotte basher, here’s hoping he makes me look like a fool next season.
Do you mean that the AFL is less than worthless just for player evaluation purposes, or for all purposes?
It seems to me that it could be somewhat useful to get some guys more at-bats–maybe younger players who spent a lot of time on the DL this season and need to rehab. Certainly, from an evaluation standpoint, they may as well name it the Small Sample Size League.
It has the triple disadvantages of small sample size + a very “eh” level of competition (maybe A ball)+ some height above sea level (so you get Rockies-esque things like curveballs that don’t curve, etc., though not as bad as in Albuerquerque or Colorado), so you shouldn’t just take stats with a grain of salt, but a lick of it.
I can understand the argument for the hitting stats meaning nothing. But, is the same true for pitching stats? I know there is a very small sample, but it seems as if everything is going against the pitchers. This would make their stats even more impressive. Or, is the level of talent so low that you really can’t take anything from a pitcher having a good outing?
Do you mean that the AFL is less than worthless just for player evaluation purposes, or for all purposes?
It’s a development league where the focus is not particularly on the players’ performance, so evaluating their performance is not terribly enlightening. People are focused on other things.
For example, Clement is there to work on his catching skills, Jones to continue learning center field. How they do in games matters less than just the practice they get from being in them. Reports seem to be positive, but that’s to be expected (catching instructor Roger Hansen raved as much about Olivo this spring as he is now about Clement).
It’s glorified practice, basically. Guys are down there working on things, trying new pitches, different approaches.
If you wouldn’t get excited hearing that Nageotte dominated in a simulated game, you shouldn’t get excited over his AFL performances, either. Just like no one should be thinking any less Adam Jones because he’s struggling in Arizona right now.
The league has its uses for the players. I’m not calling for its abolition. For our purposes, though, its meaningless.
While the stats are pretty useless, there are two sorta important things here:
-Nageotte is healthy enough to pitch more than a few innings. That is a plus
-more importantly, the fact that the M’s sent him there to start makes me think that they might not have given up on him as a starter. That is good, since the M’s system is way thin on starters and pretty deep in relievers. If nothing else, this ‘last shot to make it as a starter’ is not going badly. Perhaps they will keep him in this role. I hope so.
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A question, if I may about the “meaninglessness” of AFL stats: Are we saying that it’s meaningless in the same way that an isolated month or so of minor league ball is (e.g. Greg Dobbs’ first visit to San Antonio)?
Or are we saying that it’s even more so (perhaps because the league is more instructional and less competitive in its purpose than the traditional minors– more like the Arizona and Gulf Coast complex leagues)?
(I’m not significantly disagreeing, mind you– just requesting clarification of the commonly held opinion.)
Performances in the AFL have shown to have no predictive value for the following season. The correlation between AFL performance and following year performance is about as close to nil as you can possibly get.
This is for a variety of reasons. I’d say the fact that the games legitimately don’t count, and as such, players experiment with all kinds of things, is probably the biggest factor. The ridiculous ballparks and organizational unwillingness to send quality arms doesn’t help either. Toss in the small samples and you get a league where looking at the statistics can serve to be far more misleading than informing.
You can learn more about a player from a week during a regular season than you can from a month in the AFL.
Dave mentions this, but I think the largest factor is that the pitching is so horrible. In general, because teams tend to only send pitchers who need innings (coming back off injury, for instance) or who aren’t regarded as serious prospects, the balance of power tilts severely towards hitters. Sending Brandon Wood up against some guy fairly early in his TJ recovery isn’t a fair match.
DMZ brings up a good point,
The pitching in the AFL is always bad. However, the hitters include some of the best prospects in the game. This actually makes sense, as teams don’t want to wear out their young arms. But the hitters are very good. The roster of each AFL teams consist of the best young hitters from 4-5 different teams farm systems.
Wouldn’t it then be fair to say that a pitchers performance in the AFL is more meaningful that a hitters? Nageotte has been shutting down very good hitters.
The only issue is that Nageotte is older than ideal. Most of the best players in the AFL, like Brandon Wood, Stephen Drew, and Clement are guys that will probably be in AA next year. Although the rule changes on who can play in the AFL include more players who are nearly big-league ready, or who have limited big league experience, the really elite players are ususally younger.
I don’t want to read too much into this either. But, the age thing aside, the fact that Nageotte is doing well against teams that include very good hitting prospects might mean something, then.
about some fellow AL West prospects
Shane Komine A’s moneyball pick from 2002…only around 5’8″ but throws mid 90’s with a plus curveball and developing change up…durability and size could be an issue, but he’s coming off TJ surgery and pithcing great..maybe in the mold of hard throwing throwing right handers like hudson and harden..robably not, but he should be in oakland in a couple years
also ethier and barton are hitting well..especially Ethier, described as a garrett anderson/shawn green type hitter..could be the A’s LF in 06/07
Excuse me while I put on my John Sickels hat…
Phrases like throws mid 90’s get tossed around quite a bit, but more often than not aren’t accurate. Komine, from everything I’ve read, has a fastball that occasionally hits 95. He doesn’t throw 95 with regularity. Rather — again, this is Sickels-like — he sits comfortably in the 92-93 range. To me that’s not mid-90’s.
Sorry, ray, I’m not trying to pick on you specifically.
i agree…he sits at low 90’s, but is capable of throwing 95+…but in AFL reports i read he was throwing 94 consistently…still he throws hard for a pitcher his size..thats considered plus velocity, along with a plus curveball..i’m not saying he’ll be a star or anything, but he should be a solid pitcher…definitely has better stuff that duchscherer and saarloos who both had very good years for the A’s