How to calculate a Baseball Mentor Rating

by Dex on Jan 25, 2009 5:11 PM PST Comment 2 comments

Paul DePodesta recently joked about Henry ~~Blacno's~~ Blanco's Mentor Rating. While just a joke, it's exactly the sort of thing that I find fascinating. Win Shares and OPS+ and what not is one thing. That's just requantifying numbers that are already out there. What I'm really into is quantifying qualitative attributes, which is inherently stupid, but has never stopped boxing or figure skating or polls or movie reviews or any number of things.

That being said, what measurable attributes could we identify to actually try to quantify baseball mentors? How would we find those attributes? I'm proposing a series of 12 simple questions

Are you a grizzled catcher or former catcher? +75 points (pitchers: +12)
Are you a baseball coach or manager? +65 points
Do you sometimes feel like you should've been a farmer? +57
Do you currently or did you, in the past, have a drinking problem? +23
Is your nickname "Professor", "Author", "Crash", "Shoeless", "Pop", "Yogi" or "Dad"? +19
Can you stand to be in the same room as a cocky young fireballing pitcher with no real understanding of his or her amazing talent for more than 5 minutes? +42
Are you currently deceased or soon to be deceased? +21 points
Are you currently a ghost and/or ghostly apparition dressed as an old timey time baseball player? +250 points
Are you somebody that any normal person would never in a million years actually trust to give proper advice in regards to anything outside of baseball? +25 points
Do you have a strained relationship with the owner of the baseball team you currently play or manage for? +20
Have you seen better days? +40
Did you come this close to actually being somewhat famous yourself? +37

There it is. Twelve questions. A high Mentor Rating is something every team should have to control their arrogant talent before it gets squandered away. Somebody tell Bill James.

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Comments

... how about these?

Paul DePodesta recently joked about Henry Blacno’s Mentor Rating.

Is your name occasionally spelled wrong? if yes, then -23 points
Do you sign contracts for more money than you’re worth? if yes, then -36 (if no, then +36 on the arrogant talent scale)
Are you sometimes hyped up by your front office for supposedly having unknown/misunderstood/nonexistent skill sets? +65

mission accomplished.

by zotzotpadre on Jan 25, 2009 5:50 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

umm

do you have a grizzled scruffy beard? +31
do burt bacharach songs inexplicably play when you’re walking down the rainy streets of the town you play in? +150 (you are jake taylor)
do you have a nagging injury that kept you from being a superstar? +17
are you named “michael”, “barrett,” or any combination of the two? -eleventy billion

"I suggest more bike" ~KSK

www.wellbelowthemendozaline.blogspot.com
www.drinkerswithawritingproblem.blogspot.com

by justdave on Jan 25, 2009 9:57 PM PST reply actions 0 recs