'Brandon McCarthy'에 해당되는 글 1건

  1. 2013.03.14 Brandon McCarthy talks leadership
카테고리 없음2013. 3. 14. 00:36

Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy is regarded as one of the more statistically savvy players in the major leagues, and so as you might expect, he said a lot of interesting things while speaking last week at the SABR Analytics Conference in downtown Phoenix.

But most interesting to me was what he said about the unquantifiable stuff like clubhouse chemistry and leadership. He said that if you took Jonny Gomes and Brandon Inge away from the 2012 Oakland A’s, they would have gone from a 94-win team to a 70-something win team on the basis of “what happens behind closed doors.” Similarly, he said he understood why at least one Texas Rangers beat writer gave Michael Young a first-place vote on his MVP ballot two years ago, citing Young’s ability to do such things as, say, help Elvis Andrus get out of a slump.

Anyway, I wanted a few more details about the sort of stuff he was talking about, and he was kind enough to answer a few questions this morning. Here’s how the conversation went:

You talked about the impact Gomes and Inge had, but what are examples of ways that stuff kind of manifests itself?

“It sound stupid, but if you have a rookie that comes up and rookies are filled with self-doubt, filled with worry, and now you’re in the big leagues and you come to a team where nobody makes you feel welcome. So now you’re already nervous, you’re kind of worried about your lot, and then the guys around you, you’re not comfortable and you don’t feel like you’re one of them. You don’t feel kind of free and like you can do what you do. But if you have a guy like Jonny Gomes or Brandon Inge or someone who just comes up and is just kind of (BS-ing) with you and it just sort of loosens you up and then everyone else can kind of get in the mix. I know it sounds really stupid, but it’s kind of like being an artist where the more comfortable you feel, usually your better work comes out. I think it’s guys that just put out a comfortable atmosphere and they bring guys in. It’s like that in real life, too, where you’re with a group of friends and there’s people that you wait for to get to the dinner party because after that everybody loosens up and it turns into a good time. It’s guys like that. It goes for veterans and everybody. There’s guys that make you feel more comfortable. That loosens you up, which in turn the person you interactive with — there’s a whole trickle down effect to it that’s impossible to quantify but it does exist in there.”

I know you talked about Michael Young having a conversation with Elvis Andrus to get him out of a slump, but couldn’t you also say he was bound to come out of the slump anyway because he’s good?

“It’s one of those things where you can find a logical argument against it, but I’ve literally seen it happen where I’ve had someone tell me – again, I keep using Michael Young as an example, but I’ve seen him stop a guy when he’s on the bench and isn’t playing that day, he’ll grab a pitcher from the bench and he’ll say, ‘Come here, look at this,’ and he shows you something in a hitter, like, ‘Watch this, watch his front hip and what happens here.’ And you see something different that you haven’t learned before and you take that with you. You don’t know how that manifests, maybe it (helps someone play better) the next day or maybe it’s two years down the road. But it’s those things. Again, having him do that is one of those comfort things. You know, ‘Michael Young is bringing me into the fold.’ That’s a good feeling. And it could be a young guy. Like if Wade (Miley) looks at me and says, ‘What if you put your finger here on a change-up?’ Anything like that, that’s part of a good clubhouse. It doesn’t have to be veterans at the top or guys that everybody regards as good clubhouse guys, but it’s just good people – and the more of them that are around usually the better things will kind of go. I think. It’s one of those things that I think misses in the sabermetric community, especially among the super snarky writers. But it is there. You don’t have to build a team around that, but I’m a big believer in at least having one or two of those guys on every team. Not overpaying him necessarily, but getting him in there. Guys that just have that infectious nature, they get in there – they’re good cancer, they spread everywhere – and guys are like, ‘I love that guy.’”

Posted by skip55