Rosenthal: Brewers and Hart working on an extension (11/9: Or are they?)

[Nottso]

People keep talking about Hart having lost his speed, but does anyone know where to find actual numbers? Braun said in his statement after the positive test fiasco that these things are measured yearly and records are kept. I'd like to see Hart's numbers. Has he really lost a lot of speed or is this loss more of a perceived thing due to his never having really looked fast?

[TooLiveBrew]

I swear I remember that Hart himself said he's lost speed, but I couldn't find it in a quick search. Iirc he made the comment(s) just this past season.

[brwrsfan]

The MLB network preview from last season, they interviewed him and made a reference to him as a speed guy or something like that and Hart himself said he wouldn't say that. That he's not as fast as he used to be. I don't think you need any numbers to back this up. Just watch him play compared to 5 years ago and it's quite apparent he's slowed down significantly.

[Jim Goulart]

Interesting FanGraphs piece on the Hart situation

[Nottso]

Hart has always looked slow. I can remember when people were calling him lazy and uncaring because his long, loping stride just didn't look like the typical guy's max-effort sprint. I also remember him saying he isn't as fast as he used to be, but I'd like to know just how "slow" he's become. He might still be faster than most ball players, but it's hard to tell because of the aforementioned perceptions.

[ORBrewerFan]

Another thing that made him look slower that he actually was, was the fact he isn't a natural outfielder and didn't have great outfielder instincts. He would get poor jumps and take bad lines to fly balls.

[igor67]

That Fangraphs data is about of a clear cut of an argument as possible against extending Hart. It's painful, but given where his K rate is already adding 2-3% over the next two years pretty much completely wipes out his value. The magnitude to which tall players suffer more contact problems than other players is quite astounding.