No research necessary

September 29, 2007 by Joe Pawlikowski 21 Comments

Why I continue to acknowledge writers like Bill Madden, I’ll never know. This one comes via MLBTR, which links to the second page of a Madden column. The quote:

And, please, enough about Austin Jackson. The guy hit .285 with nine homers in Double-A ball – hardly superstar-in-the-making numbers.

Nevermind that straight batting average is a terrible, terrible number on which to base any kind of projection. We’ll go with this, though: One Bernabe Figueroa Williams hit .281 with 8 home runs in his age-21 season at Double-A. Feel free to test out your scouting skills with another player, Bill.

http://www.mvn.com/milb-yankees Ashish Skaria

Why newspapers allow assholes like him to write such columns is beyond me. What a jackass!
Steve

“Tagged: Horrendously Retarded”

Is this a new category? I’ll have you know that when Bill sobers up, he’s only semi-retarded. So there!
- Joey
  
  Not new, it’s been used before, Joe used it to describe Schilling and his comments a little bit ago
  - Joey
    
    and after clicking on it they used it for a lot of shit, all horrendously retarded
Ivan

He lost the little, I mean very little credibility he had when he lied about Cole and Bleich situations.

Bill Madden is just awful, awful, awful and did I saw very awful.

Fuck you Bill Madden, FUCK YOU.
- Steve
  
  Well sure he has zero credibility, he’s awful, consistently wrong, an asshole and semi-retarded.
  
  But even with all that, he’s still not as bad as George King.
Tripp

What an asshole.
Ivan

He’s been killing the yankee farm for Years, neverthemind the fact that the yanks have a top 15 system and was in the top 7 a year back. He’s a yankee hater and his columes are just terrible.
- Steve
  
  Or that Clay Bucholtz has regressed horribly, Ellsbury did nothing this year and Masterson is still very much a work in progress. But when you make the playoffs, in his eyes all is forgiven.
  
  Its called lazy reporting. If you want to see the fruits of the Yankee farm system, look at the completely rebuilt bullpen. What was a never ending problem has now become a strength.
  
  Look at the Nady/Marte trade, which we had the pieces to make this year, unlike other years where we were on the outside looking in because nobody wanted our prospects.
  - Bo
    
    Ellsbury did nothing?
    
    What does that mean Melky did???
Steve

Loved this quote from Tyler Kepner’s blog

“Cashman offered no apologies about putting faith in Hughes and Kennedy, offering the Twins as a parallel.

“They’re contending, and they have five young guys in their rotation,” Cashman said. “In New York, they talk about, ‘You can’t contend with two young guys,’ but in Minnesota you can with five? It just comes down to getting the job done, simple as that.””-Brian Cashman
- ceciguante
  
  disagree, i thought this quote by cashman was completely disingenuous. i checked the ages of the twins’ “five young guys.” if my memory serves, they are aged 24, 24, 25, 26 and 27. the yanks tried to start two guys aged 21 and 23. for cashman to suggest they are the same is BS, and he knows it. fact is, the MN guys were ready for MLB (probably due to their greater body of MiLB experience), and the yanks kids, rushed through the system, weren’t.
http://RiverAve.Blues Joseph M

I’m no fan of Bill Madden but he was making a point related to the Yankee minor league system and a point on Cashman. Austin Jackson is most definitely a prospect but Bill has been around for a long time. He remembers can’t miss prospects like Rusty Torres, Ricky Ledee, Otto Velez, Terry Whitfield, Charlie Spikes etc. .

Bill’s column was in yesterday’s Daily News, he made some good points and I feel he’s on the right side of the Cashman debate. If George was still George Cashman would be gone I have no doubt about that. I have zero confidence in Brian’s ability to rebuild the club and I worry that Hank and Hal are little more than gatekeepers, who may not speak to each other but have one thing in common the desire to do little more than hold the fort until George is gone and they can sell out and make a financial killing.

PLease anyone who hasn’t, read the column and read it with an open mind.
- The Honorable Congressman Mondesi
  
  Why do you link the name you post under (“Joseph M”) to the URL “http://riverave.blues?”
  - http://www.riveraveblues.com Ben K.
    
    Especially after we’ve repeatedly asked him to stop doing that.
- Steve
  
  We all remember a zillion prospects who never made it, but his dismissive tact is just an example of his lazy reporting and lack of interest in bothering to get the facts. Its his opinion, but its not an informed opinion.
  
  I’m sure he’d retort “all teams hype their prospects” as if he’s telling us anything we didn’t know when we were 12. That’s why you go to independent sources like Keith law, Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus to see where they stack up. BA ranked his #41 last year, and after his 2008 showing he should rise with the next list.
  
  http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/2008/265658.html
- Chris C.
  
  “I’m no fan of Bill Madden but he was making a point related to the Yankee minor league system and a point on Cashman. Austin Jackson is most definitely a prospect but Bill has been around for a long time. He remembers can’t miss prospects like Rusty Torres, Ricky Ledee, Otto Velez, Terry Whitfield, Charlie Spikes etc.”
  
  Oh Good Lord!!! Who could forgt the great Rusty Torres blunder of 1972?
  Give me a break. Every team has “can’t miss” prospect who miss.
  
  “If George was still George Cashman would be gone I have no doubt about that.”
  
  Oh yeah? Then what would happen? About the same thing that happened after Gabe Paul and Gene Michael were relieved of their duties……..overpaid underachievers would come aboard, the minors would be decimated, and no championships would follow. Let’s not forget…….the Yankees two champiohship ERAS over the past 35 years were built because Steinbrenner was suspended from baseball operations. And for those of you who became fans in 1996, perhaps this is a history lesson. George not being George is a good thing. Now we have to deal with Hank being Hank.
  
  “PLease anyone who hasn’t, read the column and read it with an open mind.”
  
  I read it. Bill Maddon is advocating that the Yankees return to the blueprint of the way things were run from 1982-1991. I don’t see how your “open Mind” can lead you to any other conclusion.
McCaff

Bill Madden and his brother John should go say foolish shit on some fat island together…
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cory

gotta also remember jackson’s clutch hr in the playoffs off buchollz
Chris C.

“And, please, enough about Austin Jackson. The guy hit .285 with nine homers in Double-A ball – hardly superstar-in-the-making numbers.”

Now, let’s pretend MAddon typed this same comment in 1995 for a different player:

And, please, enough about Mariano Rivera. They guy is 4-2, has an ERA through the roof, and can’t get past the 5th inning – hardly superstar-in-the-making numbers.