Quote:
Originally Posted by Palaaemon
Bird,
You know, you talking about Joey Brown (the 41 year old veteran pitcher) that the Chicago Fire drafted in the WPK expansion draft, makes me think of Charlie Hough being drafted by the Florida Marlins in the 1992 MLB expansion draft.
The Chicago front office drafted him not necessarily with the idea of just wanting his 41 year old worn out body with an arm that has very few bullets left (although anything he can give the team they will take) but rather wanting him to bring his experience, knowledge, craftiness, poise, leadership and every other intangible that he might possess to the team. The front office expects him to lead and mentor the rotation and pen (not necessarily as the ace). To show them how to pitch rather than throw and work through adversity. What the actual result are remain to be seen.
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Yes, excellent. Thanks for this. I wasn't recalling specific instances but this did feel very familiar to me, like something that would actually happen in an expansion draft. And I love the idea of Brown being sort of the Charlie Hough of the WPK. Granted, Brown is not a knuckleballer like Hough was and certainly not as durable as Hough. Still, I think they are similar in terms of career trajectory. I was so fascinated by this idea that I decided to subject them to Bill James' similarity score tool. Comparing Brown's WPK career to Hough's MLB career for the same age period (age 31-40, which for Hough was 1979-1988), the score was 828. Not terribly similar, but not completely un-similar either. The biggest differences were because of Hough's greater durability: he just pitched a lot more during this period then Brown has. But they had very similar win-loss percentages and ERA's, they both have been used as starters and out of the bullpen, pitched a very similar number of complete games and shutouts. The biggest differences, even accounting for the disparity in innings pitched, was in terms of strikeouts and walks. Hough both struck out many more batters and walked many more. Oops, I just remembered I forgot to factor in handedness. Since Brown is a lefty and Hough was a righty the similarity score actually drops to 818.
Still, I think it's a great comparison in terms of reputation and significance in the game and as an expansion draft pick.
On another note (and I was going to say this in a separate post, but since it's mostly of interest to you and in response to you, might as well do it here), I found myself thinking a lot this early morning about WPK expansion. And I think I have come to a decision to wait on what seems the logical next step for the program- adding two more franchises before too long- and then, if the program doesn't do it for me, breaking the leagues into divisions, with 6 teams in each, as you mentioned. And then shutting down any possibility of expansion at least temporarily. Not excluding the possibility of future expansion (whether by the program or manual) but seeing how things are working out before making any decisions about that.