Kennedy hasn’t been overworked unless you are concerned that being 6 feet and 185 pounds with similar workloads as the Scherzer’s of the world will somehow make him on the same track as Niemann (6-foot-8, 240ls) and company. All were average or bigger sized pitchers, had similar to worse workloads in college and all have had problems.

Kennedy only tossed 93 innings in 2004 at age 19 and 117 last year at age 20.

To compare and contrast, M’s lefthander Ryan Feierabend, at age 19, tossed 150 innings after going for 161 frames at age 18.

There’s very little wrong with 93 and 117 and age 19 and 20, especially when it’s often spread out over more time in college (they don’t play 9 games in 10 days).

His size would be a concern of mine, personally, but not as much as UW’s Tim Lincecum, who’s going 120 pitches per start, even on three days rest, and has concerns with mechanics that raise the risk of injury.

I saw Kennedy last year. He was very good. Not sure he’s top 10 material, however.

Scherzer appears to be the best of the group right now, with Miller having the biggest upside for the future.

And for what it’s worth, regarding post #19, you did make some pretty definitive-sounding statements based on second-hand reports; so I don’t see that you really had much in the way of grounds for complaint.

It is both funny and sad that you think that people have to somehow ‘earn’ your respect in order for their opinions to be dealt with in a respectful manner. It is really odd and ironic that someone with that type of outlook would devote so much time to developing a weblog, especially one that solicits comments from readers. This is not a me versus you issue either. I have seen you bash other posters here regularly. What excatly does someone have to do to be honored with the gift of your repect?

Regarding your nattering about citing references, a blog is not an academic outlet. I feel funny explaining this to you, since you run one, but comments posted on blogs are about as informal as a forum can get. Thus, the little button you hit to post information says “Submit Comment” not “Submit Fully-Referenced Publishable Essay”. In explaining why I didn’t think that Ian Kennedy was a good pick for the M’s, I backed this up by summarizing information from scouting reports that I have read. It was not from a single source, but information I have read in a variety of places. It was my opinion about a specific player based on a bunch of scouting reports I have read and from stats I have looked at. It wasn’t going into a book, online journal or article. It was off-the-cuff comments.

If you are going to start accusing people of plagarism, then you need to start leading by example, and include citations to back up every individual ascertation that you make, followed with a full bibliography. I hope that you don’t, because that would be pretty ridiculous. I just think that it is really hypocritical to expect people to treat the comment sections as an academic forum when it is clearly anything but. It may be appropriate to cite information in material put into original threads, but the posts are another thing all together. Get over yourself.

The real issue here is that you seem to be threatened whenever anyone posts any information on this blog that is not A) evidence to back up some point YOU have made, or B) a question for you to answer related to some thread you have started. Perhaps you are just insecure, and really need this blog to be the DAVE SHOW, and can’t stand anyone injecting any other relevant information. This is obviously the case, because you made no attempt to refute anything that I said. What I think happened is, you didn’t know the answer to the question that was posed to you in #16, you got upset about that, then you make a bunch of really odd, hypocritical attacks of me without really addressing the issue at hand at all.

The funniest part is, you do all the things you criticized me about all the time, like: making references to players strengths and weaknesses that are based on things you have read; making comments without citing specific sources, especially when it is pretty general info; or making comments that are not cutting-edge, original research, but reflect conclusions that are pretty widespread.

By the way, you should also be careful what you ask for. Basically, the gist of your little diatribe above is that people have to cite specific references to all relevant sources of information which they have drawn in formulating an opinion in any comments that they submit. Besides the common posting of citations to breaking news, I would say that 90% of the posts on this blog include summaries of various sources of information that people have read in the courses of their lives that are not accompanied with citations. I know that most of your own comments do not include citations, yet clearly you base your comments on things that you have read in magazines, books, other blogs, and numerous other sources. Do you really want to require every post that presents some sort of statement of fact or opinion to come with a full reference section. This is a blog, bro. Relax!

I take a lot of people’s opinions seriously, because they’ve earned it.

I try to get as much information from as many sources as I can.

Which you then redistribute without giving any kind of credit whatsoever. In academic circles, this is called plagarism.

You are right, I do read BA stuff. I also check out information on scout.com, the baseball analysts, Baseball Prospectus, and any other source that has good information.

When was the last time you posted anything that gave any credit to any of these places as the source for your information?

All of these sources are published by people who go watch draft prospects play in person and talk to scouts a lot more than you or I do.

Which are all valid reasons to take their opinions seriously.

For college players, I also look at a lot of stats.

Ever done any work on translating college statistics to the major league level? Run park factors or league factors to figure out how to adjust for different environments?

You can’t seriously suggest that you don’t read this information, and make your own educated evaluations about draft prospects just by watching them pitch one single game.

As it pertains to the 2006 draft, this post contains the extent of the “educated evaluations about draft prospects” that I’ve made public. And it was all based on primary source material.

Besides, I would find it difficult to believe that your evaluation of Bard and Miller is not heavily influenced by information on the internet by people more knowledgable than yourself on this matter, especially since your comments are excatly in line with easily available scouting reports.

Actually, my review of Miller is almost completely contrary to most publically available scouting reports. He is routinely described as a guy with a mid-to-high 90s fastball, poor command, and mediocre secondary pitches. If you think that’s the pitcher I wrote up, you didn’t read the post very carefully.

I will try to see these guys as much as I can, including tapes and the rare game in person. I really like following the draft. But I am not going to kid myself into thinking that I can evaluate a player’s potential by watching him pitch once. If you had a chance to talk to scouts at those two games you went to, then great. But that type of information is exactly the same type of stuff that you are criticizing me for using. It is silly to not realize that professional scouts and organizations like Baseball America know more than people with day jobs.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this. There’s also nothing in there that gives us any reason to care one lick what you think about the draft. You can have as many opinions as you want; if you want people to care about them, they need to be based on something besides your interpretation of someone else’s work.

Information is information. As an contributor to a sabermetrically-oriented blog, I would expect you to understand that.

I do. You just don’t contribute any information. You take someone else’s information, repeat it as fact, and give them no credit for the work they did.

I’m sorry that you’re offended that I don’t respect that. But I’m not sure why I would.

I try to get as much information from as many sources as I can. You are right, I do read BA stuff. I also check out information on scout.com, the baseball analysts, Baseball Prospectus, and any other source that has good information. All of these sources are published by people who go watch draft prospects play in person and talk to scouts a lot more than you or I do. For college players, I also look at a lot of stats.

You can’t seriously suggest that you don’t read this information, and make your own educated evaluations about draft prospects just by watching them pitch one single game. That seems pretty contrary to your MO. Besides, I would find it difficult to believe that your evaluation of Bard and Miller is not heavily influenced by information on the internet by people more knowledgable than yourself on this matter, especially since your comments are excatly in line with easily available scouting reports.

I will try to see these guys as much as I can, including tapes and the rare game in person. I really like following the draft. But I am not going to kid myself into thinking that I can evaluate a player’s potential by watching him pitch once. If you had a chance to talk to scouts at those two games you went to, then great. But that type of information is exactly the same type of stuff that you are criticizing me for using. It is silly to not realize that professional scouts and organizations like Baseball America know more than people with day jobs.

Information is information. As an contributor to a sabermetrically-oriented blog, I would expect you to understand that.

And Jerry, no need to be offended. I’m just not sure why you expect us to take your opinions real seriously, when all they really are is recycled material from Baseball America put into your own words.

Thanks for not being snarky Dave.

The one thing that I love about the USSM is how the organizers of the site are always respectful of other peoples opinion.