Q. Who is Craig Wright?

A. Wright is a sabermetrician who has been employed by MLB franchises, including the Mariners, for >20 years.

Wright goes back far enough that he was fighting for Mike Piazza's advancement through the Dodger minor leagues, and Wright was one of the driving forces that pushed the Dodgers past the "tipping point" to actually give the unorthodox young Piazza a shot behind the plate.

In the 2009 Hardball Times Annual, Wright publishes a lengthy account of his debates with Fred Claire (Dodger GM at the time) on Piazza. You can order the HBT book here. The Wright article alone is worth the price of admission, and BTW it was also this book that published the original article pointing out Adam Dunn's >400 foot, non-homer bad luck in 2008.

It's funny stuff.  Wright publishes letter after letter to Claire which runs, "Absolutely my #1 recommendation is that we get rid of Mike Scioscia / fill in the blank so as to remove pressure from Mike Piazza and to encourage the field staff to use him, because our crying need is for power, especially from catcher, and I would be doing you a grave disservice if I didn't fight and fight hard for this kid...."

Great article, great book.

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Q. Why in the world did anybody have to "push" to get Mike Piazza promoted?

A. As Wright explains, "visual scouts" -- as he calls them -- place far too much emphasis on the physical gifts of quick feet and strong throwing arm, for catchers.

Piazza never had and never developed either of these things, and according to Wright, many times an ML organization looks at practically nothing else in a young catcher. "You have to play defense first," is the paradigm, and "without the feet and the arm you can't play defense," is the reasoning. So scouts viewed Piazza as absolutely not a realistic choice from catcher, all the way up through his rookie year.

They still look at it that way. Most people think of Piazza as a guy who hit a ton, but who gave a lot of it back on defense.

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Q. Isn't that true? Wasn't Piazza a lousy defensive catcher?

A. Wright argues -- and he knows a lot more about it than you and I do -- that Piazza was a plus defensive catcher.

Before you reject that, I suggest you go make yourself aware of what his arguments are. ;- )

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Okay, I'll give you a hint. Piazza's pitching staffs actually performed better-than-expected, because Piazza used his intelligence and work ethic to make up for his lack of physical gifts. He learned how to call a game, as Wright demonstrates. He learned how to do everything *other* than throw.

This is typical, according to Wright. Many times a catcher without physical gifts -- coughjeffclementcough -- works much harder than gifted catchers in developing his defensive game.

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Q. Piazza was drafted in the 62nd round, correct?

A. Yeah, and drafts are only 50 rounds long now. 13 teams had simply stopped drafting, out of lack of interest so to speak, before Piazza was taken.

Wright points out that catchers are mis-judged more often than any position player. In other words, if you analyze amateur drafts, and then you check later whether the best catchers were taken first, then you find that MLB orgs have a worse record in trying to predict catchers than in trying to predict any other position.

In other words, something ain't workin'. Visual scouts ain't getting the catcher predictions right.

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Q. So this applies to Clement in what way?

A. Tune in next week ... same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel. :- )

Cheers,

Dr D

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images: http://www.hollywoodcollectibles.com/autographed/memorabilia/ sports/collectibles/authentic/Baseball/8x10%20Photos/Mike_Piazza_BB8x10.jpg