Too early to throw out POOMA projections for players?  I’d say Robbie increases his power and walk totals, and develops more into the hitter we hope he can be.  I’ll throw out an early (avg/obp/slg) of 325/385/515.  With above avg defense (+4).

I’d take Garcia on a MiL deal, and then let Hughes/Aceves/IPK (I think Hughes will win) battle it out for the 5th spot.  If only one or two players go down for injuries/ineffictiveness, the only way we’ll see Garcia is if he’s outpitching at least one of Aceves/IPK/Horne.  If 3 or 4 go down he’s better than anyone else they could get this year.  Best case: everyone stays healthy through the All Star break and is pithing well, and Garcia has an ERA under 3 in the minors, and can be traded to fill a hole.

I liked this as well:

Posada recently estimated that he is at “75 percent” with his hitting and throwing…

If Jorge can improve by just 2% per week, we’ll be at 99% by the time the season opens.  Even if he improves by just 1% per week, 86% of Jorge Posada (pre-injury) is probably the 2nd best catcher in the AL.

Say he doesn’t improve at all by the time the season starts, can anyone name an available catcher who is 75% of pre-injury Posada?  The key term being available.

I’ll throw out an early (avg/obp/slg) of 325/385/515.

my POOMA senses tell me if he does this, the Yankees win the division in a walk.

i would do cartwheels for this line.

i know every single offseason is filled with the “Player X is in the best shape of his life” stories, but for whatever reason, i’m buying into the Cano storyline.  Long says he’s completely ripped and ready to go. 

as for Garcia, getting him on a minor league deal would be a fine move.

Last season at this time it was, “Cano is in great shape and concentrating on getting off to a good start for once.”

I’ll throw out an early (avg/obp/slg) of 325/385/515.

OBP seems too high given the average.  I still don’t see him walking more than 30 times. 

That line is probably close to 20 runs better than what most projections will have him at, which would be sweet.  We know he’s capable of it, but who knows if he will do it?

I’ll say he hits .295/.335/.485.
A solid year for a second baseman.

Last season at this time it was, “Cano is in great shape and concentrating on getting off to a good start for once.”

i don’t remember the fitness aspect of it, but yeah, i do remember the stories about getting off to a good start.  and he tore through Spring Training, but then April came.

FWIW, i’ve heard Melky has slimmed down as well and gotten in shape.  that’s not going to get him any more talent, but i also wouldn’t be surprised to see him in CF on opening day.

If Cano OBPs .385, Dogfish Heads all around, on the Frog.

Would those be 60s, 90s, or 120s?

I put no faith in Posada’s self assessment. He seems like the kind of guy who could walk into Girardi’s office with a tomahawk sticking out of his forehead and say, “I’m ready to go!”

OBP seems too high given the average.  I still don’t see him walking more than 30 times.

He walked 39 times - only 5 IBB - in 2007.  And had an IsoD of .047.  Kevin Long spoke a while ago about helping Cano with pitch recognition, so he could lay off the ones he can’t hit well.  Whether or not that actually happnes I don’t know.  But I’m only predicting like 5-7 walks more than 2007.  And if he’s hitting in front of Molina 40-50 times next year, I could see him getting more IBB’s as well.

that’s not going to get him any more talent, but i also wouldn’t be surprised to see him in CF on opening day.

Well, slimming down could help his quickness, which may allow him to be a (slightly) better defender in CF, and a better baserunner.  Possibly it could also help his bat-speed?  I really don’t know, but it seems logical.  You do have to wonder how razor-thin the margin is with bat-speed for a successful major-league hitter compared to a AAAA player, all else equal.

He seems like the kind of guy who could walk into Girardi’s office with a tomahawk sticking out of his forehead and say, “I’m ready to go!”

‘tis but a flesh wound!

Possibly it could also help his bat-speed?  I really don’t know, but it seems logical

I don’t see how being slimmer would help his bat speed.  The other stuff I agree with.

<i>Would those be 60s, 90s, or 120s?<i>

It should be something like: A .385 OBP means 60s, but if he leads the league, it will be 120s. 

Surely one of the statgeeks on this site can work out a suitably precise formula, throwing in the Raison D’Etre and (below that) the mahogany (is that it?).  There are probably more.  We need Thurm to collaborate on this.  But seriously, I’m only buying if he hits the 60 mark.

. . . And since I was responding to MC, I pulled an MC-like HTML gaffe.

I don’t see how being slimmer would help his bat speed.

I’m not *sure* if it will, but I think it *could*.  Seems that if there is less bulk he should be able to start the bat quicker, and get it through the zone quicker.  Perhaps it won’t be purely “bat speed”, but just thinking he can start to swing later and still square up the ball.  That would allow him to wait longer to recognize pitches, and also catch up to more fastballs.

You call that a gaffe?  Amateur.

Yes, but if he’s slimmer he probably has less muscle mass in the core which is the primary group for generating bat speed.  How much weight you have doesn’t really affect the swing since we are essentially looking at hip rotation.
Think of the guys with the best bat speed, very few of them would be described as slim.

I think you two are just making different assumptions about what “slimmer” means.  There’s really no way to know from media reports whether a player described as having “slimmed down” has lost or gained muscle mass.

Wasn’t the whole point against Barry Bonds and steroid that somehow being more muscular increased his bat speed, propelling all those flyballs out of the ball park? That would be against the slimming-down-leading-to-increased-bat-speed theory.

Ken Rosenthal straying way, way outside the box:

Here’s a sinister thought: Varitek to the Yankees. The chances probably are slim, but the Yankees need to add a catcher due to their uncertainty over Jorge Posada, who is recovering from shoulder surgery. Varitek, 36, might recoil at the notion of joining the Red Sox’s biggest rival, and the Yankees might prefer to spend on pitching. But because the Yankees already have signed three other Type-A free agents, Varitek would cost them only a fourth-round pick ...

i just threw up in my mouth.

Have I not been saying sign Varitek as backup and A-Rod’s personal assistant?

I have been saying sign Varitek as backup and A-Rod’s personal assistant. 

And if I could search this site I’d prove it. 

MC, flattery’ll get you nowhere.

yes, but for $17 million??

I think you two are just making different assumptions about what “slimmer” means.

Yes, I think that’s it.  Melky has always seemed a little chubby - not Abreu chubby but chubby - so I had assumed that “slimming down” meant cutting down on body-fat.  So I figured less fat, same (or maybe a little more) lean-muscle = quicker to the ball.

That would be against the slimming-down-leading-to-increased-bat-speed theory.

Right, but again my assumption (which may be flawed) is that Melky has cut down on body-fat, *not* muscle.  Also I stated somewhere above that it may be more getting to the ball quicker than bat-speed per-se.  E.g. I seem to remember a few years ago that there was talk ARod had bulked-up too much (pre-2006) and was slow to the ball.  Part of his work-out pre-2007 was to “slim down” and be quicker to the ball, and that seems to have worked.

Of course, none of this means anything.  I’m just trying to find positives in Melky slimming down.  For all I know he got tapeworm this winter and can barely swing a bat.

I have been saying sign Varitek as backup and A-Rod’s personal assistant. 

I personally favor Varitek being A-Rod’s butler for an unspecified sum of money.

27:Wasn’t that the plot of a Seinfeld episode?

I have been saying sign Varitek as backup and A-Rod’s personal assistant.

I personally favor Varitek being A-Rod’s butler for an unspecified sum of money.

I think Arod should start dating Varitek. It creates controversy, thus taking pressure off everyone else, stops “Gay-Rod” from being an annoying slur and probably serves to make about half of Red Sox fans’ heads explode.

I’m not seeing any downside. Aside from Varitek’s grittiness, that may be a problem. I mean that just sounds uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Regarding Melky’s baserunning, maybe losing weight would help, but he has always looked really ungainly on the paths.  I didn’t see a lot of games last season so maybe this has changed, but his first motion when stealing pushes his body upright, so it seems to me, instead of towards second as a sprinter would do. And he looks to run very flat-footed.  I thought before that the Yanks should bring R Henderson to camp as an instructor to help him with baserunning.  Gardner would probably benefit too. 

Now Jeter’s first motion in stealing also pushes him more upright than towards second, if memory serves, but his results are better.  And you’re not going to fix his mechanics at this stage anyway.

As much as I love Posada, I have a very bad feeling he’ll become a liability within the next year or so.

Frog, I’ll take a 6er of Indian Brown Ale, please.  If Cano hits that .385 OBP that is.  I’m thinking more along the lines of .310/.345/.460. 

As for the “best shape of their career!” and “working hard on his plate discipline” stories… um, yeah, whatever.  Show me, Robbie.

And I dunno how Posada can even know if he’s at 75%, at this point.  Man… I’m gonna be crushed if he never really recovers from this shoulder thing.

I dunno how Posada can even know if he’s at 75%

I’d say that he probably knows how his arm feels better than anybody else possibly could.  And I’d also say that it should be taken with a large grain of salt.  It seems rather unlikely that a baseball player is actually trying to give a quantitative assessment of his own skill level relative to his prior performance just because he says “about 75 percent” when asked how his rehab is going.

27:Wasn’t that the plot of a Seinfeld episode?

Yes, that was the great Seinfeld pilot episode.

Most of the force is supplied by the pitcher. The bat should dissipate as little of that force as possible. Strong legs and wrists factors in that regard. The benefit of good bat speed is that it lets the batter start his swing later and make better contact. I can’t see how carrying a lot of excess body mass would improve anything.

“Most of the force is supplied by the pitcher”

?

Most of the force is supplied by the pitcher

That’s why so many bunts make it past the pitcher’s mound.

That’s why so many bunts make it past the pitcher’s mound.

Bad bunts make it past the pitchers mound.  Good bunts absorb as much of the pitch’s energy as possible.

And yes, I understand what CT Yankee is trying to say.

Actually, according to a particle physicist with too much time on his hands, about 75% of the energy from the incoming pitch is lost during the collision. 

Force, momentum, and energy are all different measures with different units.  Energy is probably the most applicable to the concept in question.

It should be no surprise that such a collision is highly inelastic, with a significant fraction of the initial ball–bat energy dissipated into
heat.

I guess the thing to think about is whether batters can crush a 60 mph BP pitch about the same distance as a 90 mph fastball, which seems to me to be the case.  The 90 mph fastball has 2.25 times the kinetic energy of the 60 mph BP pitch, so it would seem that most, but not all, of the energy is supplied by the bat.  Josh Hamilton seemed like he was doing pretty well at imparting his own energy into the pitches thrown by his 70+ year old pitcher during the home run derby.

The biggest part of what dissipates the energy of the pitch into the bat is where the ball strikes and how that plays into the harmonics of the vibrations of the bat.  Since the impact time of the ball on the bat is so brief (0.6 mS), I’m not sure strong wrists or legs make much of a difference, other than what they can impart to the bat-speed.

Re 19 There was a skinny bastard outta San Diego that had a bit of bat speed. Teddy Something. Don’t forget old 5 for 1, Von Hayes.
Frog- I’ll take the World Wide Stout. A 4 pack will do.
To relieve you of a complete economic meltdown, I will purchase the effin burgers and dogs. Mrs OTF is up to the coleslaw and mac salad challenge.
Temp here is 17. A RLYW picnic sounds damn good.
My sister Colleen makes a lovely spud salad as well.
Have your lasses bring dessert.  If of course they are able to climb outta mom’s basement and take human form.

Actually, a major benefit of good bat speed is that you hit the ball harder.  Being able to wait longer certainly is another benefit, in theory at least.  Somewhat over-rated IMO, given that the entire event from release of pitch to contact (or not) takes less than half a second for an 80 mph pitch.  But all the bat speed in the world won’t help you make better contact if you misjudge the location of the pitch.

Anyway, a baseball weighs 5 ounces and the best major league fastballs are in the 95-100 mph range.  The bat weighs 6 or 7 times as much and the best hitters have swing speeds well over 100 mph.  So why exactly should we think that most of the energy is coming from guy throwing the ball?

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/Yankees_Pettitte_still_talking_deal.html

There continues to be a dialogue between the Yankees and Andy Pettitte, though the club remains unconvinced the left-hander will accept a one-year offer for $10.5 million. Still, the Yanks prefer Pettitte over the pool of current free agents, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The bat weighs 6 or 7 times as much and the best hitters have swing speeds well over 100 mph.

I think you’re confusing the speed of the ball off the bat with swing speed here. Swing speed is usually around 60 mph.

http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/bats-new/batw8.html
(There’s a graph towards the bottom of the page that shows the typical swing speed, compared to bat weight.)

kettering.edu?

So why exactly should we think that most of the energy is coming from guy throwing the ball?

Because back in the day, pitchers used to finish games, you know?  And players would get dirty sliding into second base.  It’s called hustle, asshole.  That’s just the way they played back then.  They didn’t need steroids, or VORP, or their mothers’ basements.  Ohhh…the bat weighs SO much more.  Look, anyone can see that the ball just carries out when a guy catches up to the fastball.  You gotta watch the game with your eyes, not with your numbers, Poindexter.  What, you believe in evolution, or something?

i think it’s cool that kent is retiring after the first year his ops was below average. and barely that.

Swing speed is usually around 60 mph.

I’m fairly certain that is bat speed after contact and bat speed before contact is indeed 90 - 100 mph.  In fact, I recall that post-contact bat speed is a good indicator of a hitter’s power.
I apologize for not having links, I’ll try to dig around and see if I can find some though I seem to remember learning this from a TV show so we shall see.

I’m fairly certain that is bat speed after contact and bat speed before contact is indeed 90 - 100 mph.

I seem to remember years ago, Shane Spencer being at the plate when they were trying out reporting the bat-speed (probably on MSG, I think it was pre-YES).  Never caught on, but it seems to me that Spencer’s bat speed was over 80MPH, and I remember the announcer saying the “average” was more like 70MPH.  I may have imagined it, but that picture’s in my head.  I could certainly imagine an elite hitter being over 100MPH.

I’ll say again that I may have erred when saying “bat speed” and it is more “quickness to the ball”.  That does allow you to wait longer, and get better pitch-recognition.  Something I CLEARLY remember is images of seeing Boggs hit, and he was so quick he could wait until the ball was right on him to swing; and his bat-control was so good he could make (solid) contact when the ball was actually past the plate! 

Now, whether being slimmer helps that I don’t know for sure.  Part of it definitely is how quickly your brain processes images and allows you to react.  I doubt losing weight will help that.  However, less bulk in the torso would seem to allow you to have a shorter-swing.  With a shorter swing the bat has less distance to travel, so it should be through the hitting zone quicker.

What, you believe in evolution, or something?

As a matter of fact, yes.  Can’t argue with anything else in your post, though. 

when discussing bat speed in terms of mph we should also remember that the difference between barrel and tip is probably at least 10 mph even at the 60mph speed.

graph towards the bottom of the page that shows the typical swing speed

That doesn’t look like real world data to me.  Nobody swings a 49 ounce bat.

Anyway:

ESPN has been measuring bat speed on its Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts all year, and McGwire came up with the two fastest swings measured, a 99 mph swing on 8/30 and a 98 mph swing on 7/26. Both swings resulted in home runs. The other hitters who have had a swing measured at 95 mph+ this year according to ESPN’s “Bat Track” include Ken Griffey, Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez and Albert Belle.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/baseball/10419

i casually mention that Melky lost some weight, and the discussion ends up in a debate about evolution.  impressive.

Baseball is a powerful drug…

That doesn’t look like real world data to me.  Nobody swings a 49 ounce bat.

No one does anymore, but people did use bats that heavy in the past. With regards to your source, I guess there’s just more variation in swing speeds than I thought, since, like Mike K., I remember hearing once before that swings the average swing is around 60-70 mph.

people did use bats that heavy in the past

I guess we all know about the Babe’s 54 ounce model, but from what I’ve read, there’s no actual evidence that he ever used one that heavy in a game.  But either way, I’m pretty confident that no one had the equipment to measure bat swing speeds back when major league hitters were using bats even as heavy as 40 ounces.  Hence my comment about real world data.  Seems to me that those graphs must have been generated by using a machine to swing a bat at a predetermined speed and measuring the ball exit velocity.

<i>I guess we all know about the Babe’s 54 ounce model, but from what I’ve read, there’s no actual evidence that he ever used one that heavy in a game. </i

I had always thought Ruth’s game bat was 48 ounces.  And also that Yastrimski used a bat the same weight, at least early in his career.  A friend of mine used to have a Yas model 48 ounce bat; we could barely swing it never mind hit a ball 400 feet with it!  Paul O’Neill used to use I think a 36 ounce bat, but pretty much everyone else these days uses pretty standard 32 oz or so bats.

I agree with MC we won’t have any “game” data of people using a 40+ oz bat.  I suppose as opposed to a swing machine they could have used a player (probably an ex-player) to swing a variety of bats with a pitching-machine.

i think Soriano uses a heavy bat as well

And also that Yastrimski used a bat the same weight, at least early in his career.  A friend of mine used to have a Yas model 48 ounce bat; we could barely swing it never mind hit a ball 400 feet with it!

I really doubt that.  38 ounces I could believe, but not 48.  I’ve found some stuff on the intrawebs that suggests Yaz mostly used 34 ounce bats early in his career and lighter one later on.  Not sure if those people really know what they’re talking about, of course.  Anyway, I used the heaviest bats I could get my hands on back in my HS days (not because I was some big-time slugger; just the opposite in fact—I couldn’t catch up to a really good fastball, so my approach was basically to try to block the ball back over the second baseman’s head).  Anyway, the heaviest bat I ever owned was a 36 inch, 36 ounce Tony Oliva model.

i think Soriano uses a heavy bat as well

35-36 ounces, if we can believe what the announcers say.  That’s pretty hefty compared to most modern players, but certainly not Ruthian.

I really doubt that.  38 ounces I could believe, but not 48.

Well, I’m pretty sure - it *was* a long time ago - that the bat my friend had was 48 oz.  I mean, we could pick up a 32 oz bat and then this one, and I’m sure it was more than 6 oz heavier.  It’s very possible that model bat was produced just to capitalize on the myth.  Wouldn’t be the first time.  Didn’t Neyer ever have a book about basebally myth’s?  Anyone read it?  This is the kind of stuff that could be in there…

How does body fat reduction help plate discipline?

Anyway, didn’t Cano have a great spring training in 2008?  Yogi never cared about getting hits in spring training, you only get so many hits a year he would say.

DiMaggio once used a 42 ounce bat. Dick Allen used a 38-40 ounce one.

Yeah, I remember reading that Allen used a very big bat.  Frank Howard and Harmon Killebrew used 38 ounce bats too.  But bats that heavy were already pretty unusual by the late fifties and early sixties.

How does body fat reduction help plate discipline?

That depends; does reducing the amount of fat between the ears count?