Rotoworld.com recently posted this about Preston Mattingly:
Preston Mattingly went 0-for-4 on Monday, leaving him with a .163 average for low-A Great Lakes. Mattingly, who hit just .210/.251/.297 in 404 at-bats for Great Lakes last season, is playing even worse so far this year. He’s currently sporting a 172/33 K/BB ratio in 633 at-bats as a pro, and it’s not like he makes up for it with power or defense. It looks like he was a pretty extreme overdraft when the Dodgers took him 31st overall in 2006.
Blurbs like this are precisely why I dislike fantasy and stats-driven sites. Maybe the Dodgers made a bad pick, but it’s way too soon to say. Look how bad Jason Repko looked at times in the minors (not that he’s a star now), but early experience in the minors doesn’t always predict what will happen to a players career.
Stats-driven sites like the above-mentioned fail to take into consideration the “human element” which in this case is that a Mattinly’s parents are undergoing a messy divorce and like it or not he’s involved. He’s not that far from home, but he probably feels a million miles away. He’s a young kid under 21, who still wears braces, going through leaving home, living on his own and then having the two people he loves most battle it out in court. Do you think it bothers him? Is his concentration poor? Is he depressed? All of that could affect his production. Don’t you think? He’s not a computer, you stupid stats geeks, he’s a human being, for God’s sakes. Lay off him.
