Curt Schilling knows a thing or two about baseball

It is well documented that I do not particularly like Curt Schilling. However, Schilling had a few insightful words on his blog and on the radio today.

In particular, I have to approve of this comment he made (I've taken the liberty of accentuating the sexually arousing parts):

Did you view other power hitters as a bigger threat than [J.D.] Drew?

[Schilling]: Not at all. Not at all. I’ll tell you why.

His career has been built around getting on base. You make that argument, ‘I don’t want a guy taking a walk with a runner in scoring position.’ On-base percentage is what drives … I never wanted to face the guys who were .370-plus percentage on-base guys. Generally, for the most part, those guys don’t strike out a lot. J.D. strikes out more than most. For the most part, those are the guys who, their value isn’t necessarily just getting on base every time. It’s just as much the fact that in their 0-for-2 night, they’re going to draw two walks and make the opposing pitcher throw 24 pitches, as opposed to Vladimir Guerrero, who’s going to go 0-for-4, draw no walks and make me throw five pitches. There’s a deeper value. I promise you that the depth of the statistical analysis that they do on these players to identify their dollar value is far different and far more unique and probably as off the wall as anything you’ve ever heard.

If you read the article, you nonetheless get the feeling that even when Curt Schilling is right, he's still an asshole. Maybe it's the excessive use of the phrase "I'll tell you why"...maybe it's just the fact that he's Curt Schilling.

Funny enough, Fangraphs put up an article earlier today detailing the value that J.D. Drew has provided in a Red Sox uniform. I wonder if Schilling read the article...

8 comments:

The 'Bright' One said...

Career Vlad has a .635 slugging against Schilling. OWNED!

Adam Kaplan said...

I'm not too happy that the only other person who seemingly likes JD Drew besides me is Curt Schilling

The 'Bright' One said...

I'm the original lover of JD Drew. I'm the one who pointed out that he has a career 400 obp and 500 slg which amazed DME

David "MVP" Eckstein said...

Hey hey now. It is still true that JD Drew has only eclipsed 20 HRs like 3 times in his career

Adam Kaplan said...

http://gameofinches.blogspot.com/2009/07/name-this-mlb-player.html

Here's what TBO said about Drew

He "sucks", he "seems like a decent player, but he is not", and he has "been stealing money hand over fist for his entire career"

Adam Kaplan said...

I finally found some DME hatred of Drew. Granted I thought it was worse than it was but you call him inconsistent, injury prone, and said quote "I'm not a fan of J.D. Drew". I guess the fact that never once had I heard you defend JD Drew and all the times I defended Drew on this site, I had to argue against you and TBO

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=4181606741800289669&postID=21890127248132

http://gameofinches.blogspot.com/2009/03/boston-red-sox.html

You also said that Kazmir would be better than Lester this year, Pena would be better than Youk, the Yankees didn't upgrade their team and would be bad this year, Matt Joyce is better than Drew, Jason Bartlett would not be the Rays starts SS, and defended Akanori Iwamura

David "MVP" Eckstein said...

Hey hey now.

my comment of "JD drew is old and inconsistent and an injury risk" does not say that he does not put up numbers when healthy over the course of a season. Just that I perceive him as being very streaky in boston. Look at these splits by month from 2008: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=drewj.01&year=2008&t=b#month

Check out 2007 too:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=drewj.01&year=2007&t=b

and to some extent, 2006:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=drewj.01&year=2006&t=b

Almost all of his season's numbers came in june in 2008 and the other two seasons see his OPS by month fluctuate wildly (1.000 to sub-800, etc).

I never said that, by the end of a season, JD Drew doesn't produce. Just that he's an injury risk who tends to streak

Adam Kaplan said...

Here's what I said about your hatred, "I thought it was worse than it was"

Do you even read what other people write?

But it's not like when I was praising Drew either you or TBO EVER came to his defense (see the comments in my three posts I posted). Both of you always posted criticisms