Short people got....Sox contracts?

[Savin Hillbilly]

Was just realizing that if Vazquez is back next year, the Sox could field almost an entire team of position players 5'10" or under, leaving out only the infield corners (and Sandoval barely makes it over the line):
 
Vazquez C (5'10")
Pedroia 2B (5'9" yeah right)
Holt SS (5'10")
Castillo, Betts, Bradley OF (all 5'9" or 5'10")
 
I went to Play Index to check the Sox roster against others. 65 position players 5'10" or under have gotten at least 100 PA in the majors this year. The Sox have six of them (and a seventh, Victorino, was with the team until recently). Toronto and Oakland have five. No other team has more than three. 
 
Is this the new market inefficiency? Have the Sox decided that they can win with small(guy)ball? Or is it just coincidence? If it is non-random, will it continue under Dombrowski, whose teams in Detroit, as I recall, tended to the large and lumbering side? What are the implications of a small-guy strategy in terms of how games are won (or not)?

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Short people got no reason to eat as much as Tall people (although Pablo and Machi kind of skew things), so the team saves $$ on food, uniform material, and fuel to fly the plane and move the team bus from town to town.

 

[CoRP]

Smaller strike zone = higher OBP
 

 

[smastroyin]

Don't forget Andrew Benintendi.
 
I hate the buzzword of market inefficiency but there may be something there.  For instance, if JBJ were a 6'3" guy with the same numbers I doubt he lasts until pick 40.  There is pretty good consensus that if Benintendi was he would not have lasted until 7.  Pedroia noone thought would even be a decent doubles slugger because of his size and the way he had to load up his swing.  Vaz and Betts were lower draft picks who played up into big league jobs, I'm not sure it would be fair to give any extra credit to the Sox for "finding an inefficiency."
 
So I think the way they have been exploiting the inefficiency, at least in the draft, is to not let size get in the way of other scouting.
 
As for Castillo, I think they paid market price or above for him given his age and risks.  I guess if he pans out well you can call that exploiting an inefficiency but it's not like there was only tepid interest in him from the rest of the league.

 

[Merkle's Boner]

Add in that all 6 of SoxProspects top 10 position player prospects are 6'0" are shorter, plus Anderson Espinoza. The only tall guys are pitchers like Owens, Johnson, Kopech, and Ball.

 

[threecy]

I wouldn't be surprised if the theory is that height doesn't have a strong correlation with positional player performance (yet can influence scouting assessments), but can be a factor in pitching performance (ie strain on arm, distance to the plate, frame).

 

[Hank Scorpio]

Do taller/lankier players have more of a predisposition towards injury? Do they take longer to develop as they "grow into" their larger frame?

Do shorter players have more of a tendency to "do everything well"?

I'd say it's more likely the Red Sox look for "X, Y, and Z" in a player, and those players happen to be shorter, than the Red Sox look for shorter players because they're more likely to have "X, Y, and Z".

It's probably just as likely the Red Sox have a few scouts who are also short, and don't like tall guys as much for some reason.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

 
5'11"

 

[Ted Cox 4 president]

Coax Worcester's own Tim Collins out of retirement?

 

[Al Zarilla]

Was just realizing that if Vazquez is back next year, the Sox could field almost an entire team of position players 5'10" or under, leaving out only the infield corners (and Sandoval barely makes it over the line):
 
Vazquez C (5'10")
Pedroia 2B (5'9" yeah right)
Holt SS (5'10")
Castillo, Betts, Bradley OF (all 5'9" or 5'10")
 
I went to Play Index to check the Sox roster against others. 65 position players 5'10" or under have gotten at least 100 PA in the majors this year. The Sox have six of them (and a seventh, Victorino, was with the team until recently). Toronto and Oakland have five. No other team has more than three. 
 
Is this the new market inefficiency? Have the Sox decided that they can win with small(guy)ball? Or is it just coincidence? If it is non-random, will it continue under Dombrowski, whose teams in Detroit, as I recall, tended to the large and lumbering side? What are the implications of a small-guy strategy in terms of how games are won (or not)?

Not sure Sandoval doesn't embellish his height for BBREF, etc. 5'11",  255 sounds a lot better than 5'9"", 255. 255  :rolling:  :rolling:
 

 

 

[Idabomb333]

Do shorter players have more of a tendency to "do everything well"?

I'd say it's more likely the Red Sox look for "X, Y, and Z" in a player, and those players happen to be shorter, than the Red Sox look for shorter players because they're more likely to have "X, Y, and Z".

This is a very interesting question. I wonder if there's some sort of effect like selection bias, almost... Theoretically it seems possible to me that short guys who do well in HS or college ball are disproportionately likely to carry their success to MLB. Maybe in order to be good despite being small, they have other traits that help them succeed, like increased work ethic or coordination. The flip side would be that guys who are among the biggest athletes in their state are likely to do well at the HS or college level in any sport without having to work very hard or train specifically for baseball much. If that's true, then given 2 guys with identical numbers in college, the shorter guy is the better bet to draft or sign. Anyone have numbers to group minor league or college players into groups by their college numbers and approximate draft position, and then plot ML numbers against height in those groups? I would expect there to be no correlation, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that height correlates negatively for position players.

I tend to agree with others who have said that it's probably more a willingness to overlook small size while scouting than anything else. Still, your question has me very curious.

 

[redsox3g2]

http://sportsologist.com/baseball-player-height-by-position/

I would also add that the Sox seem to target mostly up the middle talent and shift them around. Up the middle guys like ss 2b and cf are usually shorter than corner outfielders and 1b. There's a link I found that might be interesting while I was making sure I wasn't just making up that trend.