Now that steroids are being filtered out of baseball, will chicks no longer dig the longball? Highly doubtful. But GMs and scouts are focusing a lot more on speed and overall athleticism. Makes sense to me. While I am not a loyal student of sabermetrics, I do value stats like OBP (on-base percentage) and OPS (on-base plus slugging). On-base percentage, a factor in both stats, is highly affected by a player’s speed. And defense is almost all athleticism and speed. Will the future of baseball be composed of more Jacoby Ellsburys than David Ortizs?
As an agent, you must also be a good scout of talent, or at least employ a separate scout that will help judge who your agency should be recruiting. You should always keep in mind what scouts and GMs are looking for. If there is a trend away from the slower, bulkier power hitter toward a smaller, more agile player, your recruiting strategy may need to deviate from what it has been in the past.
One reply on “Speed/Athleticism > Power”
You bring up good points, but I don’t know if I agree that OBP is “highly” affected by speed. There may be a few guys in the league who are a legitimate threat to get an infield hit every time they’re up to bat, but even then, an infield hit is still a hit and so speed in this case is more directly correlated to BA and only partially correlated to OBP. It takes a special kind of talent to get an OBP up into the .380 to .420 range. Maybe, I’m missing something. Please enlighten me.