The Sixth Tool: Training Baseball Pitch Recognition - MIT Sloan Analytics Conference

If you have not stumbled upon this as a resources, and I mean both the podcast and the slide presentation from MIT Sloan, you will be better off for the experience. Dr. Fadde is a great player development resource. And if MIT Sloan doesn't impress you, there's not much more I can do to help. Enjoy!!

Subject: The Sixth Tool: Training Baseball Pitch Recognition - MIT Sloan Analytics Conference

Pitch Recognition:The Sixth Tool - Peter J. Fadde, Ph.D.

from sloansportsconference.com

 http://www.sloansportsconference.com/content/the-sixth-tool-training-baseball-pitch-recognition/

The skill of pitch recognition, measured with metrics such as 0-Swing%, Line Drive %, and BB/K ratio, is so important that it's become a virtual sixth tool in baseball. But it's generally considered to be more a talent than a learned skill … and therefore not trainable. This talk describes and demonstrates a new approach that adapts the video-occlusion method developed in sport science research laboratories in order to both test and train this elusive perceptual-cognitive skill. Running on a laptop computer, video-occlusion can be used to measure the pitch recognition ability of prospects, diagnose pitch recognition problems, and systematically develop pitch recognition skill in high-performance baseball batters.
To see presentation slides click here
Sent from my iPhone

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman speaks on a panel during the 2018 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. (Photo by Patrick Daly / ESPN Images)

It's going to be tough to walk away from this completely. Teams will present it as a net positive re: performance enhancement, while the players will be somewhat wary of the negative feedback and it's use against them. Double-edged sword. But it seems inevitable that we will see FitBit for athletes, coming soon. 

from sporttechie.com
https://www.sporttechie.com/player-tracking-data-contract-negotiations/

Player Tracking Data Presents Touchy Subject For Contract Negotiations

Joe Lemire March 1, 2018

The Denver Broncos have been using Catapult's wearable technology since 2014, but running back C.J. Anderson said he only gained access to his data this past fall — and had a career-high 1,007 rushing yards, saying, "I believe I had a better year on the football field because of the data that I have."

While speaking on a technology panel at last week's Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Anderson said that, as helpful as the tracking data was to him on the field, it might not be so beneficial when shared with team executives.

"Now if I walk into [general manager] John Elway's office and say, 'Hey Elway, A-B-C,' but he says, 'X-Y-Z,' I might not get paid as much as I would like or as much as I think I should be getting paid because he can use that data of the issues and the problems that I have. 'This is why I don't want to pay you,' or 'this is why I'm getting rid of you, this is why you're getting waived, this is why you're getting traded.'

"I think that will be the fear in our business will be the negotiation side of things. It's already cutthroat."

Even seemingly straightforward measurements, like a hockey player's skating speed, may have layers of complexity. As Don Fehr, the executive director of the National Hockey League Players Association, explained on a player advocacy panel, context matters.

"There's this big push to quantify everything without, as of yet, knowing what those quantities mean," he said. "So we can say you skated a little bit slower than you did three years ago, does that mean your play is better or worse? Are you taking time to figure out where you're going or can you not keep up any more?

"So there's a real danger in negotiations of having a lot of statistics that merely provide excuses for people to do what they want to do."

Therein remains the thorny nature of the proliferation of wearable data and how that information will be applied in professional sports. Some leagues have begun addressing the issue in their respective collective bargaining agreements, with voluntary participation a cornerstone of each policy, except the NFL that mandates players wearing the Zebra tracking chip in their shoulder pads during games. The NBA has banned the data from contract negotiations or player transactions. Major League Baseball prohibits the data from use in salary arbitration discussions. The NHL's CBA, finalized in 2013, does not explicitly address the issue, which will become more pressing given the league's stated desire to have league-wide tracking within two years. "Anything that can help grow the game," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said.

The NBA is forming a committee to further explore the issue, but National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts was clear that player privacy was paramount in their conversations.

"We caution the players about how, if at all, they should be disclosing this information," she said. "Efficacy, validation — those things are important to us. We don't know if some of this stuff is, frankly, junk. And we certainly don't want it to have it be the source of or be used in contract negotiations. Maintaining control of the data has been our primary focus."

That echoes the refrain of NFL Players Inc. president Ahmad Nassar who, when speaking at SportTechie's State of the Industry event last month, said player ownership of data was the "central bedrock starting point" of his group's partnership conversation with Whoop.

Recently retired MLB pitcher Chris Capuano shared the prevailing opinion of his peers, when he explained, "I guess their fear is, 'How is this data going to be used against me?'" Baseball already has an external radar- and camera-based tracking system, Statcast, that measures players' movements on the field.

Generally, such external tracking information and other movement data is seen as less circumspect as the biometric wearables that glean heart rate and other such metrics.

"The way I look at it is two different buckets of wearable technology," said longtime NBA agent Jim Tanner, whose client list has included Tim Duncan, Grant Hill and Ray Allen. "The first is the movement tracking — acceleration, deceleration, load, things like that. That doesn't concern me as much as the biometric stuff where they're analyzing the oxygen in your blood or the recovery rates or things like that where, to me, that's very personal to the player."

Indeed, that is about the only consensus on the issue: players, agents and unions all believe the athletes should own and control their own data. What shape tracking technology takes in the years to come — whether it's personally worn or externally collected — will steer the direction of the conversation, along with the implications that can be definitively drawn.

"Obviously this is the new hot fad, and it's going to be out there," Fehr said. "Whether it'll be around in any meaningful fashion five or 10 years from now, I think, is anybody's guess."

Sent from my iPhone

Watch for these sports analytics developments in 2018 | MIT Sloan Sports Analytics

This is another destination on the bucket list. It's a little distant, but for a couple of days, a stat-geek, baseball fans nirvana. I'll see if the wife is up to it after we take in the SABR junket in Pittsburgh this year.  Mrs. TheSlav is a good soldier for wanting to hang out amongst such a nerdy crowd.

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/articles/watch-for-these-sports-analytics-developments-in-2018/

Watch for these sports analytics developments in 2018

Integrated data sources, an emphasis on communication, and new fan experiences.

By Brian Eastwood  |  December 28, 2017

Why It Matters

For 15 years, sports teams have led the way in using analytics for competitive advantage. Three experts tell us about the discipline's next frontiers.

When most people hear the term "sports analytics," the first thing that comes to mind is "Moneyball" — the 2003 book and 2011 film that detailed use of predictive analytics to evaluate on-field talent and find players with skills or other talents that competitors have overlooked.

Personnel decisions are still important, but increasingly sports analytics is driving business decisions such as improving the fan experience, streamlining concession operations, and increasing revenue. And not all of the work is glamorous enough to make it into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Brad Pitt.

We asked three MIT Sloan alumni to share their thoughts about emerging trends in sports analytics in the upcoming year, as well as the untold stories that don't often make headlines.

Integrate data sources to advance competition
The biggest story in basketball analytics on the horizon will be the integration of disparate data sources to uncover unique and powerful insights.

Right now, teams and the league office collect and analyze many different data sets — game events, game and player tracking, practice and training, wearables, and injury and medical, just to name a few. Each data set is relevant for one or more set of stakeholders, from general managers to coaches to medical personnel to analytics staffs. But the ability for these data sets to fully speak to each other is still relatively limited, and the opportunity exists to combine them in potentially game-changing ways.

This opportunity will rely on technologies like machine learning and computer vision, as well as the ability of analysts to create insightful yet simple data visualizations to influence key decision makers at the teams and league. If successful, this next data revolution will serve to advance basketball competition through player performance improvement, injury prevention and recovery management, and even enhanced teamwork and quality of play.

– Evan Wasch, MBA '11, Senior Vice President, Basketball Strategy and Analytics, NBA

Communicate why data is useful
The biggest story in sports analytics over the next year will be the continued focus on applying data analysis to improving athlete performance and injury prevention. This will be a battle in the NBA as long as wearables are banned in-game, but the increase in data collected during practices and with more robust player tracking cameras will challenge NBA analytics departments with the perpetual question: What do we do with this?

Utilizing wearable technology will of course be most crucial for the NFL, as injury prevention [and] minimization will be the most important factor in keeping the league afloat down the road. Hopefully the significant increase in data collected by NFL teams, and the importance of this data, will encourage franchises to invest more in their analytics departments in the next couple of seasons.

From my perspective, the most important untold story in sports analytics is the communication aspect of the job. You can create any statistic you want — but if you're not able to clearly explain what it is and how it can be utilized to improve the team, then the statistic is inconsequential. A lot of my focus is on ensuring our front office and coaching staff fully understand all of the information we're providing them so they can act appropriately on that information. I've read a lot of excellent research on basketball on free websites like Nylon Calculus and at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, but sometimes these researchers need to take a step back and think about how their work could be communicated to people who think Random Forest is a national park in California. The most successful analytics minds throughout sports are all excellent communicators, and that part of the gig never gets its proper shake.

– Jake Loos, MBA '14, Director of Basketball Analytics and Technology, Phoenix Suns (NBA)

Create a different fan experience

The fan experience is something we're constantly revaluating, especially as we see fan preferences change. Before the 2017 season, we did an $18 million renovation to center field [at Minute Maid Park]. Tal's Hill went away, and we had to make sure we put in something really cool.

We put in a field-facing area that offered a different in-park experience. It's open and it's more social. Fans can stand or lean against the bar and watch the game, rather than sitting in an assigned seat. That area was hugely successful, and part of the success was bringing in a popular local brand, Torchy's Tacos. That area became a focal point for people to eat and drink and watch baseball. Now we are thinking, "What are the other opportunities to create a different experience and appeal to food and beverage preferences of our fans?"

One thing that surprises people is that sports teams are basically small and medium-sized businesses. People think about MLB and NFL as huge leagues, but on the team level, we're run as SMBs. One of my projects is working on our mobile technology, and I'm doing everything from analyzing data to standing at [fan entrance] gates and troubleshooting problems, because there's only so many people in the organization. I'm implementing the strategies that we are putting into place. We're like any other company trying to maximize the use of its resources. It's not all sitting in an office writing pretty algorithms or writing analyses. It's boots on the ground.

– Jay Verrill, MBA '12, Director of Business Strategy and Analytics, Houston Astros (MLB)

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Glenn Flesig On Tommy John Incidence | MLB Trade Rumors

When looking for the magic bullet in the correlation / causation argument, a key phrase from the article sticks out in my mind.

 "since the recovery rate is so high, teams are willing to project a return to normality for prospects". 

Looking back to the 70's - 80's and even the early 90's, having Tommy John surgery was considered a Hail Mary pass for aging veterans. Since 1994-95, due to the miracle of modern medicine and advances in rehabilitation, the surgery has gone from pariah to panacea for pitchers of all ages. 

It used to be considered like a major overhaul to the pitching arm and now it's looked on as more akin to a tune-up. It has become almost an enhancement to a prospects career more than a detriment. All in one generation. 

Oh, The Times They Are A-Changin'.......... Thanks Bob.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
Keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

Don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'

For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they, they are a-changin'

Read more: Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-changin' Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

from MLB Trade Rumors:
Glenn Flesig On Tommy John Incidence – MLB Trade Rumors:

Injury expert Glenn Flesig discussed the latest Tommy John surgery epidemic at the annual Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, writes Matthew Leach of MLB.com. Flesig, who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering, is the partner of Dr. James Andrews at the American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI). The institute aims to “improve the understanding, prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries through research and education.”

Flesig presented data on both professional and youth pitchers. At the professional level, 16% of pitchers have had Tommy  John surgery. Flesig found that once pitchers have recovered from the procedure, “they have the typical flexibility and typical mechanics. So they’re back to normal.” Of course, lost time and the potential for complications means that it’s best to avoid the issue in the first place.

Of course, UCL replacement can often impact free agency and the trade market. The increased incidence of the injury last season had some teams reaching for outside help. The Braves were able to call upon Ervin Santana on a one-year deal when Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy both required a second procedure. Atlanta forfeited a draft pick when they signed Santana. We saw both Medlen and Beachy sign short-term, incentive-laden contracts this winter.

Since the recovery rate is so high, teams are willing to project a return to normality for prospects. Last June, the Blue Jays drafted Jeff Hoffman ninth overall. The Nationals took Erik Fedde with the 18th pick. Both pitchers had Tommy John surgery shortly before the draft.

A study of youth pitchers could reveal the way to decrease the incidence of elbow injury. Flesig offered a few convincing correlations. Youth pitchers who threw over 80 pitches in a game were four times more likely to require surgery. Those who pitched for more than eight months a year were five times more likely.

Pitching when fatigued was the biggest risk indicator. Youth who self-identified as having “often pitched” when fatigued were 36 times more likely to go under the knife. For the parents in the audience, don’t let your kid pitch too often or when fatigued.

'via Blog this'

I like that the stats community is getting interested in this and disseminating some of the knowledge down to where it belongs, at the youth level. The professionals are just that, professionals. They can do what they want and they have the best of the best out there helping them make informed decisions.

It seems like there are still organizations scattered out there that are thirsting for this type of direction and information. It appears that MLB has to get a grip on issues like this and that may require a bit of centralization. Colleges, high schools and youth leagues are going to have to be willing to give up some autonomy in exchange for some of this information. We'll see at that point who really cares about kids and who cares more about pocketbooks and bottom lines.

New commissioner Rob Manfred has made some noises about a USA Baseball type of umbrella,

Get the right information into the right hands and let's see what happens.

from Irvine Youth Sports Parents Blog:
http://irvineyouthsportsparents.com/

Our Mission

The mission of the Irvine Youth Sports Parents Network is to provide a forum for parents to exchange ideas and information on youth sports while promoting  the ideals of student-athlete citizenship.

Irvine is a city known for its cultural diversity, academic excellence and love of athletics. Our children are citizens first, students second and athletes third.

We believe in “sport as metaphor” – that 99.9% of our children will not go on to become professional athletes but take what they learn from athletics and pursue excellence and competition in other endeavors.

It is our hope that this organization can support the early nurturing of those dreams.

The Professionalization of Youth Sports

14. October 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: clubs, money, youth sports

Youth sports is a serious business.

Take a look at this piece in the Boston Globe on a proposed $150 MILLION Youth Sports Facility backed by Red Sox executive Dan Duquette and slated for construction on Cape Cod.  The growing money trend in youth sports is incredible. It’s estimated that the Travel Ball world of tournaments ALONE represents $7 billion per year and is projected to grow at 4% per year.Not only are athletic fields being constructed all over the country but so are the hotels for housing players and their families.

The benefits of youth sports have morphed from fun and development into trophies and cash.  The payoff has shifted from kids to adults.

When kids are polled about why they play sports their top three answers are:

1. To have fun

2. Be with friends

3. Do something I’m good at.

Nothing there about cash or hardware.

Clubs that get paid money to coach kids need to remember that sports doesn’t last forever.

But the values they impose do.

And the best values of sport are based on character…not cash.

Travel Ball, Tournaments and Tommy John Surgery

14. October 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: clubs, youth baseball, youth sports

“We mathematically, statistically, scientifically have proven that the kids who play baseball year-round are three times more likely to end up on a surgery table by their 20th birthday that those who don’t,”

Glenn Fleisig, of the American Sports Medicine Institute, citing a 10-year study targeting teenagers who pitch more than 100 innings in a calendar year.

A lot of youth baseball parents have lost their minds.

That is the only conclusion any rational human being can come to when they are faced with the reality of this chart below indicating the exponential rise of Tommy John Surgeries for baseball pitchers.

What is it going to take before we parents realize that not only are we wasting too much of our time and money on travel ball and tournaments but we are also wasting the physical health of our children.

Isn’t that ironic?

Here we are putting our boys in a situation to enjoy their physicality and fun with friends and twisting it all up in a perfect mess of ego gratification and delusions of grandeur.

“Major League Baseball gets the blame for pitchers getting injured,” says Fleisig, “But the fact is these pitchers definitely have some damage in their arm when they get them.”

Consider the case of Jameson Taillon.  His elbow gave out recently at the age of 22 and after just 382 professional innings, all of them monitored with extreme caution by the team that handed him $6.5 million out of high school, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Taillon had been throwing more than 90 miles per hour since he was 16 and a sophomore in high school. He threw as hard as 99 mph as a senior.

According to Sports Illustrated…

“Beginning in July 2008, when he was 16 years old, Taillon threw at six events sponsored by Perfect Game, one of the country’s top youth baseball services, in a 13-month period. Those events occurred in the summer, fall and winter. (In the spring, he was busy pitching for his high school team in The Woodlands, Texas.) His top velocities were meticulously recorded: 92, 93, 95, 96, 96 and 97. Every high school pitcher is known by the top velocity he “hits,” even if he gets there once, as much as his very name.

As a high school senior, Taillon hit 99. In June of that year, 2010, the Pirates selected him with the second pick of the draft, in between Washington selecting Bryce Harper and Baltimore taking Manny Machado. He was labeled as another “can’t miss” in the long line of Texas schoolboy power pitchers, including Josh Beckett and Roger Clemens.

Now he joins another long line: First-round high school pitchers who are blowing out their arms before they even accrue any major league mileage — a line that hardly existed as recently as five years ago.”

The problem is that parents and coaches are seeing results in all the private training, tools and techniques they are using to capture “increased velocity”, the buzzphrase of the moment in baseball.  The combination of year round travel ball and too many tournaments is putting a strain on young arms while the average speed of major league pitchers has increased from 90 MPH to 92 MPH.

But forget for a moment that you’re a parent of a prodigy because, like me, you’re not.

But you still have to suffer in this system and so does your boy.

The suffering comes whether he is an average player or shows a bit of promise.

If he’s average he’s going to be relegated to the worst positions on the field and he’s going to stop playing with some of his friends who are moving up to more competitive divisions.  If he’s got a little something extra, welcome to increased batting practice, throwing lessons and all kinds of private training just to keep up.

It can become stressful on everyone.

The difficulty is that you can see differences, measurable differences, in kids that put in extra time and those that don’t.  You CAN get results and that’s what gets everyone in a lather.  The reality is your really don’t know what you have until post puberty.

My wife and I struggle with this and try to remind ourselves…they’re kids.  And they deserve not be burdened with our unfulfilled ambitions but to simply experience the short-lived joy of being a kid.

 

10,000 Hours vs. The Sports Gene - MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

I wish I could have attended this event. I'm not sure I had the requisite IQ to get in the door, but this breakout features a comparison of the recent book The Sports Gene by David Epstein (highly recommended) versus the arguments presented in The Talent Code. 

Once again, much like the Moneyball debate of "stats vs. scouts"  I think the nature vs. nurture, genetics vs. hard work is a false argument. It's not one or the other, but an elegant interplay of both sides of the argument. Enjoy. 

10,000 Hours vs. The Sports Gene | MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

			10,000 Hours vs. The Sports Gene | MIT Sloan Sports Anal... Annual conference on sports analytics organized by the MIT Sloan School of Management.
			View on www.sloansportscon...	Preview by Yahoo

Many impactful innovations in sport and beyond were created by visionaries that dared to think differently. Finding a new and radical way of approaching a traditional task – one that may even run counter to conventional wisdom – is risky but potentially "game changing" too. This panel will bring together the pioneers who have found success by challenging the status quo in their field. The discussion will focus on questions such as: What seeded the initial idea for change? Who inspired them? How did they overcome obstacles and gain buy-in to their vision? Once established, how does one continue to innovate in the face of new imitators? And, what is the next great opportunity for innovation? 

David Epstein - The Sports Gene

Achievement Metrics sells sound of success in NFL draft prospects

The career passer ratings of several NFL quarterbacks show how their performance has matched up against Achievement Metrics' assessment of their speech while the players were in college. The chart places the players according to their scores for "positive power,” or their belief in the ability to influence outcomes, and “in-group affiliation,” or how well they interact with a group. The firm cautions that the report "is designed for informational purposes only" and "should not be construed to guarantee a player’s future performance or behavior and is not a comprehensive statement, evaluation, or judgment of any player’s character or future performance."

Here are a couple of interesting articles and graphics presented at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference http://www.sloansportsconference.com/ by a firm by the name of Achievement Metrics.

They may have some potential to replace the Wonderlic test to help NFL teams better assess the intangibles they are looking for in QB's and other leadership positions.

If they do a decent job in sorting out the leader for a couple of drafts, the NFL will beat a quick path to their door and as always, it helps if the QB or MLB can make plays. Interesting stuff in that it seems like it attempts to quantify that which has historically been a "gut-feel" thing among scouts. The interviews at the combine are supposedly where teams either hit or miss big on some of these guys and anything that can be objectively quantified is going to give GM's and owners more of a "warm and fuzzy" feeling before they invest big dollars in a guy. It might even help finding that later round, smaller school guy who has better potential to succeed a similar prospect from a larger, more visible school.

from AchievmentMetrics.com
Achievement Metrics sells sound of success in NFL draft prospects « News « Achievement Metrics:

How an individual speaks, he said, is a gauge as to how they think, and the company thinks NFL franchises could find that valuable when they analyze how to spend millions of dollars on player contracts.

The career passer ratings of several NFL quarterbacks show how their performance has matched up against Achievement Metrics' assessment of their speech while the players were in college. The chart places the players according to their scores for "positive power,” or their belief in the ability to influence outcomes, and “in-group affiliation,” or how well they interact with a group. The firm cautions that the report "is designed for informational purposes only" and "should not be construed to guarantee a player’s future performance or behavior and is not a comprehensive statement, evaluation, or judgment of any player’s character or future performance."

Online magazine Slate.com has a more detailed breakdown of the science, but Hall said the brief pitch is this – it creates psychological profiles of player prospects based on words used in spontaneous speech.

It isn’t a grammar test. An algorithm analyzes speech to determine traits such as “conceptual complexity,” or whether a prospect views the world in shades of gray or clearly pall mall cigarettes delineates it in black and white; “positive power,” or belief in the ability to influence outcomes; and “in-group affiliation,” or how a prospect associates – well or poorly – with a group.

'via Blog this'

USE YOUR WORDS

from AchievmentMetrics.com
http://www.achievementmetrics.com/archives/319

It’s notoriously difficult to figure out which top collegiate quarterbacks will succeed in the NFL. Pro teams give prospects an SAT-type test called the Wonderlic test, which doesn’t parliament cigarettes predict all that accurately.  A company called Achievement Metrics, on the other hand, studies the words college athletes use in media interviews. Some use words that signal high degrees of confidence, conceptual complexity and team orientation. Others use words that signal self-centeredness and distrust.

The results of their work were recently written up by Machael Agger in Slate. The most arresting example concerns a choice the San Francisco 49ers faced in 2005, whether to draft Alex Smith or Aaron Rodgers as their future quarterback. Both were college stars and Smith had a phenomenal score on the Wonderlic test. But Smith didn’t use common leadership words in his interviews, while Rodgers had leadership words spewing out of his mouth.

The method assumes that the words we blurt out in a quick interview are a window into our soul. I don’t know if that’s true, but they might be as good an indicator of football performance as an IQ test.

David Brooks
Source: New York Times

from slate.com
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2011/04/will_cam_newton_be_a_bust.single.html

As you can see, Cam Newton is in what I've termed the "quadrant of doom." He talks like other first-round draft picks—Matt Leinart, Alex Smith, Brady Quinn—who have bombed in the NFL. Does this mean Newton is destined for a disastrous career? Absolutely not. This year's No. 1 pick could defy the probabilities and become a success in the NFL, just the way that Carson Palmer has done.

More jarring, perhaps, is the presence of Tim Tebow in the quadrant of doom. Though his on-field readiness for the NFL has been debated endlessly, nobody disputes his skill as a leader and orator. The pledge he made after a 2008 loss to Ole Miss—"You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season"—is even inscribed on a plaque at his alma mater. Although this sounds uplifting to our ears, the algorithm heard something different. It detected a guy who had a little less love for the team and a little less belief in himself than his peers did.

The big surprise in the first round was the Minnesota Vikings' pick of Christian Ponder, a quarterback whom many had projected to go in the third round. On the NFL network, the assembled pundits couldn't stop repeating "there's something about this guy." He's in the "Julius Caesar" quadrant, along with his fellow first-round draft picks Jake Locker and Blaine Gabbert. The other highly regarded quarterbacks in the draft, Andy Dalton (taken by the Bengals as the 35^th pick) and Ryan Mallett (taken by the Patriots in the 3^rd round) also talk (at least) like winners.