Master Index of Archived Threads


Shaq Green-Thompson

Edgy MD Jul 18 2012 07:46 AM

Profiled at Deadspin.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jul 18 2012 07:54 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Let's compare a struggling pro athlete to a parapalegic by inserting a snarky writer in between. For laughs!

Edgy MD Jul 18 2012 08:00 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Yeah, I meant to link to his baseball-reference page just so the Deadspin portrait wouldn't be definitive.

Nymr83 Jul 18 2012 11:46 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

7 walks in 39 plate appearences is nice! Predictions on how long before they cut the cord here? I'll say 115 plate appearences with 80 K's.

Ceetar Jul 18 2012 11:51 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Nymr83 wrote: 7 walks in 39 plate appearences is nice! Predictions on how long before they cut the cord here? I'll say 115 plate appearences with 80 K's. without digging, I suspect this may have been a filler signing anyway. Especially if he's a football guy primarily. Gotta have people manning the positions.. I've always thought an awesome idea for a reality show would be to get some retired players together to coach a bunch of average guys say 25-35 and then play them in some exhibition games against some professionals (I suspect 'professionals' means like the Brooklyn Cyclones, if not lower.) See what it takes to really play professional ball.

Nymr83 Jul 18 2012 09:11 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

even at the low levels the pitchers all throw 85 MPH. It might be straight as an arrow, it might be without control, and they likely have no feel for a breaking ball or changeup, but the velocity alone makes them completely untouchable for 99% of the non-baseball-playing populaton. just my opinion- you'd have a better chance taking athletic guys off the street and competing against a minor league basketball or football league team than you would in baseball.

Edgy MD Jul 18 2012 09:56 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Personally, I'd rather play baseball against pros of any level. The raw speed of a real basketball player would strip most of us of the ball as soon as we put down our first dribble. The raw power of even the worst football players... well, I don't want to be the ball carrier.

Ceetar Jul 19 2012 05:32 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Edgy DC wrote: Personally, I'd rather play baseball against pros of any level. The raw speed of a real basketball player would strip most of us of the ball as soon as we put down our first dribble. The raw power of even the worst football players... well, I don't want to be the ball carrier. There'd be something humbling about watching a handful of 30 something cocky guys (or girls) practicing and working with stars, hitting the ball against each other and then at the end of the season getting completely humiliated by 19 year old unpolished A-ballers. I think it could be a decent MLB Network Spring Training filler. It's an interesting dynamic though. Just because you're athletic doesn't mean you're an athlete. Plenty of people with good hand-eye coordination go on to be doctors, or programmers, or baristas. So if you gave them the same Spring Training the pros get, with all the reps and practice and swings, maybe some _would_ be able to put bat on ball.

Nymr83 Jul 19 2012 07:20 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Edgy DC wrote: Personally, I'd rather play baseball against pros of any level. The raw speed of a real basketball player would strip most of us of the ball as soon as we put down our first dribble. The raw power of even the worst football players... well, I don't want to be the ball carrier. I don't disagree that the injury risk, already greater in football, is even more magnified for an amateur. But I was talking purely about competitiveness. I think you are overrrating "real" basketball players relative to baseball players. I've played against Division 1 college players. Yes they destroyed me, but I scored a point or two and grabbed one or two rebounds (that didnt bounce their way.) Against a basketball player my own size I will sometimes get off a shot. its going to be an ugly hook shot to avoid him stuffing it back in my face, but its still a shot. It remains my contention that most people couldnt even make contact against professional pitching.

Ceetar Jul 19 2012 07:33 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

I have no doubt, given a month to practice, that I could "make contact" with a straight 95mph fastball that I knew was coming and was down the center of the plate. as in, I could put the bat in front of it, maybe even flick it into left field. Roughly anyone can do this though, you just swing earlier and earlier, until your swing coincides with the pitch crossing the plate. Then you do this a bazillion times until you've got the timing down. That's the 'easy' part. Now if the pitcher stops throwing on the same plane, and starts using a random part of the strike zone, you're probably doomed. Maybe you've got above average reaction time, and can adjust if the pitch is in your hot zone. i.e., you can hit the ball if he moves it from the center of the plate to inside and down. So maybe you can hit it in 2 of the 9 zones. real hitters, even bad ones, can at least 'hit' the ball in all 9. (otherwise they won't last past the first scouting report) The next step is of course different pitches. You might get really good at timing that 95 mph fastball. Then suddenly the pitcher throws a 85 mph changeup and you swing so hard and so early that you fall over. This is the part that I think would fool 99% of the random guys off the street. This is the part that takes years of progression through the minors and repetition to really recognize pitches and learning NOT to swing. I still think it'd be fascinating to watch people try to do it.

Vic Sage Jul 19 2012 08:56 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Roughly anyone can do this though, you just swing earlier and earlier, until your swing coincides with the pitch crossing the plate. Then you do this a bazillion times until you've got the timing down. yeah, that's just not true. i remember in college, taking batting practice with a friend on the baseball team, just for laughs. But it wasn't funny. And i've tried hitting fastballs in batting cages, where it came in at 70mph. couldn't touch it. Knew where and when it was coming, put in alot of tokens, never even fouled it off. You may be a better player than i (i have no doubt of it), but i did grow up playing little league ball and played HS intramural softball, so i know which end of the bat to use. and i was completely overmatched. I could practice for the rest of my life and not hit a professional fastball. Maybe you could, but i doubt "roughly anyone" could. The hand/eye coordination and reflexes necessary are of a particularly high order, and the best hitters on the planet still fail the vast majority of the time. As far as i'm concerned, its the single hardest thing to do in sports.

Ceetar Jul 19 2012 09:33 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Vic Sage wrote: Roughly anyone can do this though, you just swing earlier and earlier, until your swing coincides with the pitch crossing the plate. Then you do this a bazillion times until you've got the timing down. yeah, that's just not true. i remember in college, taking batting practice with a friend on the baseball team, just for laughs. But it wasn't funny. And i've tried hitting fastballs in batting cages, where it came in at 70mph. couldn't touch it. Knew where and when it was coming, put in alot of tokens, never even fouled it off. You may be a better player than i (i have no doubt of it), but i did grow up playing little league ball and played HS intramural softball, so i know which end of the bat to use. and i was completely overmatched. I could practice for the rest of my life and not hit a professional fastball. Maybe you could, but i doubt "roughly anyone" could. The hand/eye coordination and reflexes necessary are of a particularly high order, and the best hitters on the planet still fail the vast majority of the time. As far as i'm concerned, its the single hardest thing to do in sports. I think you COULD hit those fastballs, with a month of regular BP. Maybe not well. But eventually you'd time it. It's not reflexes, it's simply starting a split second earlier until you train yourself to swing at the right time. You might not do much more than foul them off, but I think you'd get there. As for me..I dunno, I've barely done anything athletic in years. went to the Batting cage a couple of months ago for fun, and I could hit the 60mph ones..but that's not much. I've always been felt I had decent athletic ability with perhaps a low ceiling, but who knows. It'd be fun to try though. I miss sports. I should find an adult baseball league or something.

Frayed Knot Jul 19 2012 09:17 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

I've always thought that part of the reason baseball fans always seemed to get more pissed off at high salaries and/or work actions of their players than those of other sports is that baseball fans tended to view the gap between themselves and the guys they were watching on TV as much smaller than did the fans of pro football or basketball. It's most likely the size thing. It's easy to say that just because you're not 6'10" or not 319 lbs that there's no way you could be in the NBA or NFL, but seeing a David Eckstein have a decent career or some other normal sized player and the mental leap to thinking that the only reason you're on your couch watching him rather than the other way around is because he was the winner of some sort of lottery that you forgot to enter. It's totally untrue, of course --Orel Hershiser, hardly known as a braggart, once said that the average fan would be hard pressed to catch a pitch from a ML pitcher much less hit one-- but it's definitely a trend I've noticed over the years. There was once a thread started on a previous forum to this one about who thought they could hit ML pitching better than Rey Ordonez. Not sure if the questioner was serious or not but the first several answers were definitely so and they were all variations on the theme of: "Oh I easily could" - and Rey, for all his faults, had gotten two knocks off of Kerry Wood the night before.

Nymr83 Jul 19 2012 10:05 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Frayed Knot wrote: I've always thought that part of the reason baseball fans always seemed to get more pissed off at high salaries and/or work actions of their players than those of other sports is that baseball fans tended to view the gap between themselves and the guys they were watching on TV as much smaller than did the fans of pro football or basketball. It's most likely the size thing. It's easy to say that just because you're not 6'10" or not 319 lbs that there's no way you could be in the NBA or NFL, but seeing a David Eckstein have a decent career or some other normal sized player and the mental leap to thinking that the only reason you're on your couch watching him rather than the other way around is because he was the winner of some sort of lottery that you forgot to enter. I've always felt the opposite. I can hit the same shot using the same ball with the same size basket that a pro NBAer hits (what seperates us is that he can create that shot against an NBA defender), I can't hit an 85 mph fastball over the fence, no matter how many shots you give me. i also dont get that "he hit the lotto" feeling at all about baseball players. Eckstein made it through multiple levels of minor leagues where players are paid to weed bad players out. there is no minor-league screening process in NBA/NFL and guys definitely make those teams who arent ready to play but they are there based on POTENTIAL alone because the team has no minors to stash them away (and weed the bad ones out.) There have been #1 overall picks that never played in the majors!! but even jamarcus russell had his chance for the Raiders.

Edgy MD Jul 19 2012 11:23 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

I've always thought that part of the reason baseball fans always seemed to get more pissed off at high salaries and/or work actions of their players than those of other sports is that baseball fans tended to view the gap between themselves and the guys they were watching on TV as much smaller than did the fans of pro football or basketball. It's most likely the size thing. It's easy to say that just because you're not 6'10" or not 319 lbs that there's no way you could be in the NBA or NFL, but seeing a David Eckstein have a decent career or some other normal sized player and the mental leap to thinking that the only reason you're on your couch watching him rather than the other way around is because he was the winner of some sort of lottery that you forgot to enter. It's totally untrue, of course --Orel Hershiser, hardly known as a braggart, once said that the average fan would be hard pressed to catch a pitch from a ML pitcher much less hit one-- but it's definitely a trend I've noticed over the years. There was once a thread started on a previous forum to this one about who thought they could hit ML pitching better than Rey Ordonez. Not sure if the questioner was serious or not but the first several answers were definitely so and they were all variations on the theme of: "Oh I easily could" - and Rey, for all his faults, had gotten two knocks off of Kerry Wood the night before. Oh, I remember that chick. Dianne something.

Edgy MD Jul 19 2012 11:39 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Up to 37 at-bats, 36 strikeouts. Five whiffs today. Got his eighth walk, though, and came around and scored his third run!

Frayed Knot Jul 20 2012 04:13 AM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Nymr83 wrote: i also dont get that "he hit the lotto" feeling at all about baseball players. Eckstein made it through multiple levels of minor leagues where players are paid to weed bad players out. there is no minor-league screening process in NBA/NFL and guys definitely make those teams who arent ready to play but they are there based on POTENTIAL alone because the team has no minors to stash them away (and weed the bad ones out.) There have been #1 overall picks that never played in the majors!! but even jamarcus russell had his chance for the Raiders. That was part of the fun/frustration of that whole thread. One of the guys who kept insisting he could out-hit Rey finally conceded that while he probably couldn't do so at that moment it would be a different story once he had his Single A, Double A, and Triple A training. IIRC, my response to him was that was like saying that I could run back kickoffs in the NFL once they agreed to spot me that pesky first 98-1/2 yards. Then of course there's the whole question about who the fuck is going to invite you to play Rookie ball in the first place?

Edgy MD Jul 23 2012 12:49 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

Shaq paqs it in after hitting a lineout to right. Finishes 0-39 with 37 strikeouts.

Vic Sage Jul 23 2012 02:20 PM Re: Shaq Green-Thompson

http://deadspin.com/5928281/shaq-thomps ... imaginable back to football.