The Brewster

Steve Collins is a household name in the long history of the BBA. His Grandson Steve Collins III is on the cusp of making his debut as a permanent fixture in the BBA. Scouts are saying he should be ready to go by the start of next season. The Edmonton Jack Rabbits first round pick in 2034 has been ravaging aaa pitchers at a clip of .279. We sat down with Steve Collins III to learn what he picked up from this legend in the game.

My Father, Steve Collins II, while working in the fields outside of Baltimore, Maryland would come home to find his Father working on his swing in the offseason. He would pay the neighbors kids to throw 150 balls every day. He would often end up paying for more time spent on his kid’s own swings to help develop them along the way as well. This is where Steve Collins II picked up the skills to pass onto Steve Collins III.

By the time Steve Collins III could walk he could hit softly thrown balls at him by his father. He pillaged through tee-ball at the age of 4 and was already playing atom baseball at the tender age of 6. Scouts would come for miles around to see the grandson of one of the greats in the BBA in High School as well. He was a star there where he had an outrageous OBP above .500 every season. He also has the speed just like Steve Collins who stole 104 bags in 1983!
Edmonton fans are looking forward to a winning team being put together. This might just be what the doctor ordered for Edmonton!

I’m going to dub him... SC3. SC3 looked like he could have cooked in the minors for a little longer, but he’s going to be fun to watch

Edmonton has nothing to play for at the moment. And Collins hasn't exactly raked in AAA. Might not be a bad idea to hold off a little longer. Or not. He'll likely be fine either way.

It's an interesting case. I mean his contact rating is 8/9 depending on whose pitching. If his potential wasn't 12 we'd all be bitching that he shouldn't be in the minors still. I'd probably keep him down a bit longer to round out the other stats. But he'll probably hit well enough where it won't stunt his development.

It also should be noted that SC3 has 11 stealing and 10 speed. He could give Mons Raider a... run... for the stolen base title by the sheer amount of times he gets on base. When he hits his prime of course.

ae37jr wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 13, 2018 8:22 pm

It's an interesting case. I mean his contact rating is 8/9 depending on whose pitching. If his potential wasn't 12 we'd all be bitching that he shouldn't be in the minors still. I'd probably keep him down a bit longer to round out the other stats. But he'll probably hit well enough where it won't stunt his development.

It also should be noted that SC3 has 11 stealing and 10 speed. He could give Mons Raider a... run... for the stolen base title by the sheer amount of times he gets on base. When he hits his prime of course.

I feel I'm one of the biggest whiners about players being held back/tanking, but that just isn't the case for Collins. He's nowhere near his potentials AND isn't tearing up AAA. Anyone who bitches about him not being in the bigs is missing the point.

So much controversy! don't worry fellas he was up to fill in for a handful of injuries to my middle infield and back in aaa now Edmonton fans will have to wait for a more mature version

We do have opinions.

Ted wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 14, 2018 12:46 am

We do have opinions.

And opinions on whether we have opinions. And opinions on the opinions of whether we have opinions. And ...

welcome to the Brewster, where everyone runs your team better than you do, and they know it!!

I know Collins should be getting reps in the corner OF to increase his positional flexibility.

It couldn't hurt.

The counter argument is that he'll probably pick up LF pretty quickly either way, and why risk him losing focus on the bat for the short term? If it were me, I'd probably play him at third over this season, then invite him to ST and drop him in left field for those games. No wrong answer, though, I suppose.

1) Have you seen evidence (in OOTP, not real life) that "playing out of position" hurts a player's offensive numbers?

2) Have you seen evidence that players can go from 0 to max quickly in OOTP '19? In previous versions, I seem to recall it took something like 200 games played before a player was 'max' at a position.

At one point there was some evidence that playing out of position hurts development, but my tapes are very, very old there and I would guess Markus has changed that. So you're probably right to question my view there--which is mostly just a cautionary thing.

My view on Collins is that I would prefer to play him at 3B, because his defense will be pretty solid and that's a position of more scarcity than the corner OF (arguable, I suppose). And that yes, I do have data on defensive growth in v18 that shows it _can be_ much faster in certain cases, and I suspect a guy moving to LF will grow pretty quickly. I personally wouldn't care if he was MAX at the end of the day because I view his playing in the outfield as a safety valve for the case that I have a 3B I'd want to play. Edmonton is actually pretty rich in the outfield right now, so the need to press him into those roles are pretty slim. I would try to get him developed up at least some, though...even if it was 50-70% of his max, the effort could pay off.

I haven't duplicated it in v19, so it's possible that it's toned down some. But the idea that guys can learn a position pretty quickly has borne out in several cases in the recent past.

Yeah, he's definitely more valuable at 3B than LF, but you never know what your situation is going to be in 10 years. Maybe when you're ready to go all in on FA the best bat available is a 3B?

Yep.

The only thing we're really debating is timing and urgency. No wrong answer. Since there's time there's no big press to do it all at once unless it makes you happy.

RonCo wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 15, 2018 1:18 pm

I haven't duplicated it in v19, so it's possible that it's toned down some. But the idea that guys can learn a position pretty quickly has borne out in several cases in the recent past.

I've seen this at times since v18 as well (not before), but only when a player already very good at a position moves "down" the defensive spectrum in the IF or OF. For example, a 10 CF moves to LF (where he previously had no experience) and is 8 or 9 there after 20 games or so. This used to be treated as a completely different experience set, hence Stever's example of 200 games. I don't know if his 3B ability will help him mature in LF faster. This wouldn't make any sense, but it IS lower on the defensive spectrum (which is a big load of crap anyway). I haven't had any guys with NO experience in the OF pick up LF quickly simply because they could be good there.

Herve Billy on my team picked up Lf super quick for me this season. He was 10 in Cf, 11 in Right and I want to say somewhere 0-4 in left. After 18 games he is now a 10.

I have no data to back it up, but from my experiences, players are picking up positions much more quickly then in the past. I remember having a personal goal of trying to get Calvin Clohessy to go blue at 7 positions and it was hard as hell. He spent like a whole season at 1b and all his other positions would lump in the process. Now it's not uncommon to see those super subs.

I don;t actually know anything about the design as to why players learn at different rates, but I can say that the testing I did some time back did not indicate a guy needed to be a good defender elsewhere to learn quickly. I'm sure there is some indicator set, and I'm sure that with enough effort that indicator set could could be determined. But all I can say for sure is that some guys learn fast and some guys don't.

I loved reading through all of the suggestions here. I'm probably not moving him off third base. I don't want to do anything to stunt this guy's growth. Plus, who's going to be better at third than him? If he shows some huge progress after this offseason than maybe, but I want every single point of those pots. I also don't think I am moving him to majors next season. At least at this point. Like it's been said, he's not really shredding minor league pitching and in very limited time has not performed well in the majors. Also, if I am ever suspected of tanking, you don't know me well enough There's plenty of evidence that I will sacrifice everything for one Landis Cup