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BJOL has two intriguing remarks on the problem:
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Bill doesn't mention Yoenis Cespedes, who hit .269/.296/.423 down the stretch for Boston (but who did not con them out of a contract). Cespedes spent 2015 batting .291/.328/.542 with 35 homers during his salary drive. Boy would I love to be the team that find out whether he's a makeup problem ...
Felix Hernandez 'conned' the M's out of a contract that is now 50 cents on the dollar. He gives you the impression that he might be slightly in that category, Wanting it too much.
Nelson Cruz didn't even get paid, relatively speaking. But to remember now the fear, that he would "stop roiding," is almost incredible.
Kyle Seager got paid, a big contract but one that would have Michael Bennett growling into his coffee every day, and has single-handedly condemned every con artist in baseball. Just though the way he lives his life.
Robinson Cano has battled through some injuries, and though he plays in such an unhurried, gliding style, draws no complaints over his screen drills or clubhouse presence.
Hisashi Iwakuma ... not to get all multi-cultural on you here, but how many of these NPB players come over here with anything less than a fine-tuned sporting disposition? The other island from which the MLB gets "isolated" players gives you almost the reverse. I wonder why that is. There's a KK in there somewhere. The Island of Dharma and the Island of Dr. Moreau. First guy to explain it gets flowers from Dr. D.
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The Seahawks are probably in a different category. In football it's almost impossible to get too jacked up; you don't need the surgical precision to lay off a slider, unless maybe you're Russell Wilson. And it's easy enough just to weed out the guys who take downs off.
Maybe relief pitching, you can afford to go with the J.J. Putz heavy metal approach. Though Danny Hultzen doesn't really seem the type to benefit from a road rage mentality.
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Past M's: does it seem to anybody else that perhaps Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak coulda been in that "want it too much" category? Might Zunino be a candidate for that review?
BABVA,
Dr D
--did you see the interview with Aoki today where he said he's setting out to lead the AL in either average or steals? I wonder if that kind of motivation will help or hinder him. Either way, I just hope he stays healthy because he's going to be so entertaining to watch.
--don't you think this comparison to football (like most) falls well short of a first down? Shouldn't even a slacker be able to feign effort 16 days a year?
Ever play tackle football amigo? :- )
Anybody who has played ... maybe you can speak to this idea, that a "slacker" on (say) the USC football team might easily be able to fool the coaches that he has a high motor? And his strategy for this is to make it look, on Saturdays, like he cares when he doesn't?
Some questions are so fundamental that they actually make for the best discussion ...
One of my oldest friends was a high school coach in two states where college recruiters gathered in droves. He was state coach of the year, and knew most of the big school college coaches personally (e.g., Stoops rates very high with him, Saban not nearly so much).
Anyway, here's his assessment on this topic:
--as a high school coach, you have to make compromises. If someone is big, fast and athletic enough to help your team, you go and get that kid, even if he doesn't want to play football. If he's lazy, you put up with a lot because your team is much worse off without him--even if unmotivated.
--in college, this varies by conference. The biggest programs don't have to put up with less than 100% effort, because they are very deep. Smaller conferences sometimes have to settle.
--by the time someone is playing in the NFL, there are no slackers. if you don't put out 100%, that will be known to every team in the league, and you will never be drafted (until maybe the last round(s))
Of course, this can change once someone gets hurt, or signs the big career-ending contract. But given the contractual format of the NFL, few guys ever get that guarantee.
So that's a take from someone far more familiar with this than me.
And that makes me stick with me original point: wouldn't you like to have a job where you have to perform at peak level only 16 days a year?
And I'll throw one more grenade into the mix.
What can happen is that entire teams show up unready to play on a given Sunday. Does that sound familiar? If it were just last week, that could be a fluke. But how many games this year did the Seahhawks come out flat in the first half? Does it seem to you, like me, that this was more often the case than it was not?
I know Carroll walks on water in these parts. But I'm not a fan. I think he fails in fundamental ways.
Just my two cents...
Actually I kinda been through this mini-debate with a family member of mine. She reasons that in a 5K run, she is putting out every bit of energy that a 100M sprinter is, except longer, on the basis that she couldn't possibly better her time. This seems odd to me, but okay.
Here too the definition of "peak performance" will come down to semantics, I guess. 16 games is the NFL. To characterize all the Seahawk practices as less than peak seems odd to me; most NFL players say they'd play the games for free and it's the practices you have to pay them for.
I have more respect for football practice than the average bear, perhaps. :- )
I didn't mean to say that NFL players aren't ACTIVE the other days of the week. And probably every one of those days they're expending more energy than a major leaguer does playing a game.
But this also raises a question I don't have any answer to--how much of NFL practice consists of full pads and full contact? That seems to invite injury...but on the other hand, how else do you prepare guys for game conditions?
Feigning effort for 16 days a year; I think that what you are talking about is the difference between the Legion of Boom and Colin Kaepernick. Football has about three or four major skills that are not closely related. 1. Physical conditioning, 2. Pattern recognition, 3. Play execution. 4. Grit.
A person might be highly motivated in one aspect of football skills but not motivated in others. Kaepernick might pump enough iron to keep his biceps kissable, but while he was out smoking weed with his entourage, the L.O.B. was bunkered down watching film in their home theaters. The difference between levels of preparation show over a period of years. Richard Sherman looks faster because he predicts what is going to happen more quickly than other players. This is because he's a serious student who has seen everything before. From the all 22 cam, natch. Study of the science of football is necessary for play execution and pattern recognition. Conditioning is necessary for play execution.
I don't think that any football player ever makes it to the modern NFL with poor conditioning, but many do who are mentally lazy and are not interested in learning the finer points of football. Players need to be both athlete and scientist to reach their full potential.
And it makes me think about which plositions require it most. D backs, quarterbacks--obviously. Because they need to make those preliminary reads before the ball is snapped.
On the other hand, a running back may know where a play is designed to go...but every cut is decided in real time, right? You can't tell in advance if blocks are going to be made.
On your other point my coaching friend would disagree. He says that the 'mentally lazy' are identified before the draft, either by watching film, or conversations with the right people. There are no surprises on this score. Obviously a dominant talent may be drafted even if his motor and dedication are in question...but those are all taken into account before a pick is made.
Baseball is not so much a punishing sport. You can play it for years and never get seriously hurt, never feel like the game is taking it out of you forever.
Football...HURTS.
I played exactly 17 downs of tackle football as an offensive lineman. It was not in any way a league setting...just a pick-up game of tackle football on the schoolyard as a middle-schooler. I did pretty well for nine downs because I was wide and pretty strong for a kid my age and I started my opponent on the D-line (he thought I would be easy pickings because I was fat...alas, I'm still fat).
On the tenth play, I got socked in the jaw..."by accident". On the eleventh play, I answered with a brutal takedown, thank you very much. Shoved him after he was down...I was mad.
On the eleventh play, he decided no more mister nice guy. My experience of that play was "Sky. Ground. Stars." The same on down number 12. Then down number 13. On the 14th down, I realized I was not going to be able to answer back now that he was good and mad, so I got real low and side blocked him, so he spun right past me and fell. On the 15th down, he caught me trying to do that and flipped me onto my back. And stepped on me. On down 16, I let him through and he collapsed the play instantly. On the 17th down, the center was about to snap the ball and I bolted from the field.
I tell this rather embarrassing story to make one point. Football sucks. It hurts you every single play. No one...NO ONE...can play that game and not want to be there for very long. The ones who don't want to be there are the ones who get hurt.
Baseball just involves so little physical hustle compared to football. It's not like the coaches make you sprint station-to-station for drills. Of course everybody gives max effort for the 3 seconds a ball is on its way to them. Such a different animal.
But I thought James' remarks on it were interesting. That makes one of us, anyway...
I didn't take James' comments of players not wanting to earn it as necessarily speaking to what they did on the field. Being the last player to the park, first to leave and not spending more than mandatory time on drills and in cages would show a team the same things. He isn't specific as to what actions seemed to him to be lazy or lackadaisical but my guess is that he was probably talking more about in between the games. Slacking on the repetition that prepares you to do your best when it counts seems the most obvious way to give that perception to people with the team. I'm having trouble thinking of anyone who seemed to not care by their play alone.
And captures things such as "am I okay with hitting .270." Erasmo Ramirez and Felix Hernandez might be at the same ERA, but one of them be content and the other be frustrated. One goes home and enjoys the TV show; the other pores over the videos in a desperate plight for changes.
Either state of mind can be helpful or harmful, depending on the situation -
...as they apply to baseball.
But as you say, football is a different animal in almost every way.
I think fans tend to think "desire" can be read on every loose ball(basketball), every bloop that drops (baseball) and every fumble recovery you don't get (football). Mostly, however, we're reading too much into things like position, momentum and bounce. Somethings can't be controlled, no matter how much you "want" it. The ball bounces three inches the other way, the other guy gets it, and fans (coaches, too) cry out for the lack of hustle. But there's an element of chance in all games,an element that often transcends hustle. Also an element of "smarts" (positioning) that the average fan can't evaluate very well.
James points out that three guys came in and basically dogged it on rich contracts. Three. How many players have BoSox fans accused of dogging it? Way more than three, I bet.
Even as a high school coach I tried to refrain from making the accusation that "the other guys wants it more." There are too many variables during the couse of play that make such a point too cliche. If the point was true, then the coach is largely at fault for putting guys out there who don't "want it enough."
Wishhiker is dead on when he talks about the difference between lackadaisical play and lackadaisical preparation. The first is often misdiagnosed. The 2nd is often unseen by the casual fan.
Did Yuni Betancourt dog it? I don't know, but he did have a remarkably consistent career with the bat for his first six seasons: 80. 86, 93, 85. 66, 88, 75, 75, 61 That's OPS+, of course..
It's pretty easy to assume he was just an 85 OPS+ guy who aged a bit prematurely. I don't know about his work ethic in the offseason or practice.
But to say he dogged it his entire career is to say that he should have hit north of .300 as an M. Hey, he hit .289, .289 and .279 in his first 3 full seasons in Seattle.
If Marte hits .289 next year, would any of us say he was dogging it?
It is a frequently used accusation, especially by fans. But I think James points to the critical element in that he's pretty sure it is much more rare than one would think.
If somebody paid me a smooth $1M to teach, would I dog it every day? I think not. The reverse is far more likely to be true.
Why shouldn't we assume most ballplayers follow such an ethic?
Moe
Moe
98% of the time, I think sportswriters and fans are taking the easy way out by --- > always going to this "Desire" factor. Couldn't agree more.
Yes. And James' essential point (here and previously) is that if MLB players have a problem, it's that they overtrain and are overcoached. Pro sports in the 21st century simply amaze me. The consistency of the training has come light years from where I was a kid.
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Betancourt, as many Cuban athletes, drew suspicious glares. True he put on some weight and his UZRs went way down, and the M's initial projections for him were to improve with the bat off his rookie year.
But I wouldn't be surprised in the least to find out that he wanted it as much as any Chris Snelling or Jamie Moyer ever did, and that his talent was simply overrated.
:: daps ::
Funny you raise this--I was just talking about this with my daughters as we watched the games over the weekend.
One of the most frustrating things I"ve ever experienced in sports is having a fumble fall right under my feet...but having someone else recover it.
The reason has nothing to do with desire. It's just a fact that someone standing NEXT to the fumble can dig in and dive at an accellerated rate...while someone standing over it can only wait for gravity to do its thing. So maddening--and so misunderstood--science!