Michael Lewis has a great piece in the New York Times Magazine on Steve Stanley and Mark Teahen about how power corrupts - or rather, the idea that hitters, even those who’re recruited for their OBP and are in an environment like the Oakland farm system, get enamoured of the long ball to their detriment.
As in Moneyball, Lewis focuses on the idea that getting on base is an undervalued skill - is it really, these days? I suppose the fact is people do know that OBP is often better than BA, but the idea that OBP is worth 2-3 times slugging isn’t espoused that often.
Lewis also continues to focus on the idea that the way a player looks is often crucial to how they’re evaluated, as per the criticisms of Jeremy “We’re not selling jeans here” Brown. So even though Stanley and Teahen had very similar minor league stats, Stanley might be getting held back due to that combination of his small size (5’ 7", 155 lbs, making him possibly the only pro baseball player besides David Eckstein who’s my height) and his inability to hit in AAA no thanks to an effort to become a power hitter. (It’s a sort of confirmation bias: he didn’t hit well, must be due to his size.) Heck, even Billy Beane couldn’t help commenting:
“God, he’s a little runt! Take a deep breath and say, ‘This can work.”
Aaron Gleeman on The Boys of Moneyball, Again.