They've been the best team in baseball for five weeks. But to hear people
talk about the Seattle Mariners, you would think they were the '98 Marlins or
the '93 Pirates or the post-Michael Chicago Bulls.
Uh, guess again.
"It's not like we had a fire sale here," says GM Pat Gillick.
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Triviality
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Craig Biggio just became the eighth active National League player with
2,000 career hits. Can you name the other seven?
(Answer at bottom.)
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Exactly. It's easy to look at the Mariners and think about the players
they don't have. True, A-Rod doesn't work here anymore. Junior Griffey's
hamstring isn't pulled here now. Randy Johnson wins his Cy Youngs elsewhere.
Those are facts.
But it's time to debunk the myth right now that this is some poor little
talent-less team winning without its superstars. In fact ...
This is a team that, even in a year in which it lost A-Rod, actually raised
its payroll about $17 million (from $58.9 million to $75.7 million). And that
doesn't even count the $13 million it spent for the negotiation rights to Ichiro Suzuki.
This is a team with the 11th-highest payroll in baseball -- higher than the
Orioles ($72.4 million) or Giants ($63.3 million) or Cubs ($66 million).
This is a team with 12 players making $3 million or more -- same as both the
Yankees and Dodgers -- and 14 players making $2 million or more -- same as the
Yankees, more than the Dodgers (13).
In other words, this team may have lost three of the biggest stars
around. But it didn't take the money those guys would have made and stuffed
it in Howard Lincoln's mattress. It took that money and tried to win -- just
not in a megastar-oriented fashion.
"Put it this way," Gillick said. "We'd love to have those three guys.
We'd love to have them back. But in our situation, we probably couldn't have
afforded all three of them anyway. Usually, in this kind of situation, you
can afford one guy. You can't pay all three. So we traded two (the Unit and
Griffey), and we got back five players in those deals who are playing big
roles for this club. It wasn't like those were fire-sale deals and we didn't
get anything."
Absolutely. Peel away the loss of those three marquee names and let's
piece together the reconstruction of this club:
From the Randy Johnson trade, the Mariners got their No. 1 starter (Freddy
Garcia), a left-handed starter who has never had a losing season (John Halama)
and their starting shortstop (Carlos Guillen).
From the Griffey deal, they got a starting center fielder who has scored
more runs than Ichiro (Mike Cameron), their fifth starter (Brett Tomko) and a
19-year-old shortstop prospect (Antonio Perez) "who we like a lot," Gillick
said.
With the money they didn't spend on Griffey two offseasons ago, they
brought in Kazuhiro Sasaki, Aaron Sele, John Olerud, Arthur Rhodes, Stan
Javier and Mark McLemore.
With money they didn't spend on A-Rod last winter, they added Ichiro, Jeff
Nelson and Bret Boone.
Add all that up, and the Mariners essentially got 15 frontline players for the
price of three superstars. And as grand team-building philosophies go, that's
not a bad one to trot out.
Yet here they are, 23-8 after 31 games, eight games up on May 7. And they
know most of the free world is waiting for them to wake up and start playing
like the poor, downtrodden team they aren't.
"I think the feeling (out there) is that the other shoe will drop,"
Gillick said. "What they're saying is, we're not going to maintain this pace.
But there are two things you can count on to stay consistent -- speed and
defense. And a third thing, if we stay healthy, is pitching. We think those
things will stay consistent all season. They're not going to change."
And that's true. This is a team that can steal a base (23 steals, only 5
base-stealers thrown out so far). This is a team that catches everything that
lands between the Space Needle and Vancouver (only four unearned runs all
season before allowing five this weekend). And this is a team with the best
pitching staff, one through 12, in the American League.
Are they going to stay this good offensively? Are they really going to
score virtually as many runs as the Rangers (who had outscored them by just
three through Sunday)? That's what we don't know.
Even Gillick admits the M's probably a bat short. But there's no need to
go get that bat now. And they have the pitching to trade for that bat when
they need to.
But "we've got to get the right match," Gillick says. And "the timing is
important." In short, when the time is right and the trade deadline grows
nearer, even that hole could -- and should -- get filled.
So let's all wake up and recognize this team for what it is. And what it
isn't.
It isn't the '95 Expos. It is a team that's a lot better and a lot deeper
than it's been given credit for -- by just about anybody outside the greater
Seattle metropolitan area.
Balancing act
After last week's discussion of the difficulties of climbing out of large
April holes, some readers wondered whether this year's unbalanced schedule
will make it easier for teams such as the A's and White Sox to come back, since
they'll be playing the teams ahead of them so much more.
Good question. So we took a look.
There were two other periods in baseball in which one or both
leagues played unbalanced schedules similar to this year's schedule. The AL
was unbalanced from 1969 through 1976 (18 games against each club within
division, 12 games outside division). The NL was unbalanced from 1969 through
1992 (also 18 within division, 12 outside). Here's what happened in those
years, courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau's Rob Tracy:
In the AL from '69-77, 18 teams made the playoffs. None of them came from
five games out or beyond after April.
In the NL from '69-92, 48 teams made the playoffs. Only four (or 8 percent)
came from five games out or beyond after April. And just one came from more
than 5½ back. Here are those four teams and where they stood on May Day:
TEAM GAMES W L Pct GB PLACE
1969 Mets 20 9-11 .450 -5.5 3rd
1972 Reds 13 5- 8 .385 -5.0 4th
1974 Pirates 18 6-12 .333 -5.0 6th
1979 Pirates 18 7-11 .389 -6.5 6th
Meanwhile, here are the results from years with a generally balanced
schedule (including recent years, when teams played only slightly more games
within their division):
Before division play, from 1901-68, when teams played every opponent
exactly the same number of times, 128 teams participated in the postseason
(which then consisted only of the World Series). Only six (4.7 percent) came
from five games back or more after April. And just three came from more than
5½ back.
From 1977-97 in the AL and 1993-97 in the NL, when teams played essentially
unbalanced schedules (usually one more game against each division opponent
than everyone else), 60 teams made it to the postseason. Exactly one (the '87
Tigers) was five games out or more after April.
And in the final post-expansion period from 1998-2000, when teams played
just a few more games inside the division than outside, 24 teams made the
playoffs. Only one (the 2000 Giants) was five out after April.
Here are all of those teams, from the balanced-schedule (or mostly
balanced) days:
TEAM GAMES W L Pct GB PLACE TYPE OF SCHEDULE
1911 Athletics 13 6- 7 .462 -6.0 5th 22 games vs. all
1914 Braves 9 2- 7 .222 -6.5 8th 22 games vs. all
1934 Cardinals 11 4- 7 .364 -5.5 6th 22 games vs. all
1935 Tigers 14 5- 9 .357 -5.0 6th 22 games vs. all
1942 Cardinals 15 7- 7 .500 -5.5 4th 22 games vs. all
1951 Giants 15 3-12 .200 -7.0 8th 22 games vs. all
1987 Tigers 21 9-12 .429 -9.0 4th 13 vs. div, 12 out
2000 Giants 23 10-13 .435 -5.0 5th slight unbalanced*
(* 12 or 13 vs. division., 9 vs. NL East & Central, 18 interleague games)
So the final results:
Balanced or essentially balanced: 8 of 212 playoff teams (3.8 percent)
were five out or more after April, and only four (1.9 percent) were more than
5½ out.
Unbalanced: 4 of 66 playoff teams (6.1 percent) were five out or more
after April, and only one (1.5 percent) was more than 5½ out.
All told, from 1900-2000, exactly 500 teams were five games out or more
after April -- and 12 of them rebounded to finish first.
If you like those odds, we'd like to invite you to Vegas to our new
casino.
Miscellaneous rumblings
Kevin Millwood's admission Sunday that his arm feels "dead" came as no
surprise to scouts who have watched him pitch this year.
"He wasn't the same guy I saw two years ago," said one AL scout.
"Something must have happened to the guy. Two years ago, he dominated. This
year, he was just another pitcher."
Texas owner Tom Hicks dropped broad hints at the Johnny Oates press
conference Friday that he expects GM Doug Melvin to trade for a pitcher. And
that won't be easy. The Rangers are reluctant to deal Ruben Mateo for a
suspect arm. So they may have to swap some of their current pitchers (Jeff
Zimmerman?) to take a change-of-scenery shot at somebody else. But the
pitchers most available (Jose Lima, Ron Villone, Paul Byrd, etc.) aren't much
different from the pitchers they already have.
Two young pitchers who could be available in the right deal are Baltimore's
Jason Johnson and the Reds' Dennys Reyes. The Orioles desperately want a
power bat. The Reds would love to add one more left-handed hitter.
The Red Sox continue to grumble about Jimy Williams. The talk shows want
him gone. Yet how could anyone not step back, look at where this team is and
not say it has overachieved, not underachieved?
"I don't care what anyone says," says one AL front-office man. "The guy's a
good manager. The thing I like most about him is, he never lets a game get
away. The thing I hate most in baseball is managers who say, 'You're my
closer, no matter what. Even though you've blown six in a row, you're still
the closer.' That's ridiculous. How about: Win the game? Jimy does things
different than a lot of guys, but the way he's handled that bullpen is one of
the biggest reasons they are where they are."
All teams need a sense of order. And if there's one criticism of Williams,
it's that his players don't feel he has established one. But let's also face
this: The Red Sox are tough to manage. They have a lot of veteran players who
think of themselves as everyday guys -- but aren't anymore. So Williams has
juggled -- but maybe not as much as his troops think.
The Red Sox have just three players with 100 at-bats. But so do the
Indians. And as the Boston Globe's Gordon Edes reports, going into the
weekend, 18 teams had used as many lineups as the Red Sox.
Sometimes the least-heralded deals become the most significant. Back before
the trade deadline last summer, nobody paid much attention to the Rockies
swapping Tom Goodwin for Todd Hollandsworth. But Hollandsworth (.366, 6 HR,
17 RBI) has been terrific so far. And
he's hit over .340 on the road since joining the Rockies.
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List of the week
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When Sammy Sosa bombed his 200th homer at Wrigley Field last week, he became
the only active player with 200 homers at one park. But the Sultan of Swat
Stats, SABR'S David Vincent, reports that the list of previous players who
hit 200 or more in one stadium is quite a group:
Mel Ott, Polo Grounds V, 323
Ernie Banks, Wrigley Field, 290
Mickey Mantle, Yankee Stadium, 266
Mike Schmidt, Veterans Stadium, 265
Babe Ruth, Yankee Stadium, 259
Stan Musial, Sportsman's Park III, 252
Lou Gehrig, Yankee Stadium, 251
Ted Williams, Fenway Park, 248
Harmon Killebrew, Metropolitan Stadium, 246
Carl Yastrzemski, Fenway Park, 237
Willie McCovey, Candlestick Park, 236
Billy Williams, Wrigley Field, 231
Al Kaline, Tiger Stadium, 226
Norm Cash, Tiger Stadium, 212
Ron Santo, Wrigley Field, 212
Eddie Mathews, County Stadium, 211
Yogi Berra, Yankee Stadium, 210
Jim Rice, Fenway Park, 208
Dale Murphy, Fulton County Stadium, 205
Willie Mays, Candlestick Park, 203
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"When we got him," says manager Buddy Bell, "I don't think we looked at him
as a guy who'd hit .380. But this guy is a talented player. He's probably the
strongest guy on the club except for Ron Gant. He runs the bases well. He can
steal a base. He's an excellent outfielder. He can do a lot of things. And I
think he really likes it here. The change of scenery was a great thing for
him."
We'll say this again: It's way too easy to attribute the drop in offensive
numbers to the new strike zone. One NL scout says: "If you didn't tell me we
had a new rule in effect, I wouldn't even know it. That's how few pitches a
game we're talking about."
Useless information dept.
Now that Todd Pratt has ended his 0-for-the-season streak at 0-for-19, the
always-dramatic Last Guy To Get A Hit competition is down to two. Florida's
Lyle Mouton is 0-for-9. Seattle's Charles Gipson is 0-for-8. They've still
managed to combine for five runs scored, though. And we repeat: Junior
Griffey is now ineligible, because the LGTGAH award goes only to players who
stay on the active roster continuously from Opening Day until their first
hit.
Before their 20-1 loss at Wrigley Field on Saturday, the Dodgers hadn't
given up 20 runs in a game since May 20, 1967. But believe it or not, of the
four teams left that somehow have gone a quarter-century without giving up 20
runs in a game, three of them haven't done it since the '50s.
The five teams that have gone the longest, courtesy of the Elias Sports
Bureau's Sal D'Agostino:
Pirates (May 25, 1954)
Reds (Aug. 8, 1954)
Giants (Aug. 13, 1959)
No one is left who last did it in the '60s. The Twins haven't allowed 20
since 1974. The Padres haven't done it since 1977. But 12 teams now have done
it just since 1999.
Box-score lines from the last game before this one in which the Dodgers
gave up 20 runs, back in '67: Starter Claude Osteen gave up seven runs in 2
1/3 innings. He was followed by Joe Mueller (2/3 IP, 1 R), Dick Egan (2 IP, 4
R) and Bob Lee (3 IP, 8 R).
Here's an example of how much saner games have been this season than last:
When the Twins lost that 12-10 game to the Royals on Saturday, it was only
the second time all year a team had scored 10 runs or more and lost. It
happened 40 times last year.
When the Astros erupted for five homers after the seventh inning against
the Mets' bullpen Wednesday, little did they know they were doing something
no team had done in almost 40 years.
The Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR'S David Vincent, reports that only three
other teams have ever hit five homers after the seventh inning of any game --
the Twins, on May 2, 1964 (one in the ninth, four in the 11th); the Giants,
on Aug. 23, 1961 (five in the ninth), and the Phillies, on June 2, 1949 (five
in the eighth).
OK, quick now. Name the only team in baseball with no errors by its
shortstops. Of course, it's those Nomar-less Red Sox. Who else?
· Those slugging Orioles finally got someone to three homers over the
weekend, when Jeff Conine hit No. 3. At the time, the Astros had eight
hitters with three or more.
It isn't every year you get to see the Dodgers and Cubs meet with both in
first place. Last time that happened before this weekend, according to Elias'
Ken Hirdt: May 7, 1985. Starting pitchers: Dick Ruthven (Cubs) and Tom Brennan
(Dodgers).
Pedro Martinez note of the week: Sunday's game in Oakland pushed the great
Pedro's ERA under 2.00 for the last 88 times he's gone to the mound in the
regular season, dating all the way back to June 16, 1998.
For that matter, he has a 2.10 ERA since Sept. 3, 1996 -- which takes in
his last 136 trips to the mound.
Throw in his three postseason appearances, and that dips to 2.08 over his
last 139 games. It isn't fair. Is it?
The craziest minor-league game of the week occurred last Tuesday in
Colorado Springs (where else?). Memphis took a 15-0 lead into the eighth
inning -- and won, 15-14
Memphis, which had lost six in a row, hit five home runs -- after having
hit 15 all season (none in over a week). And Memphis' Keith McDonald became
the first Pacific Coast League player in 68 years to hit five doubles in one
game.
Then, however, the game changed slightly. After going 5-for-26 over the
first seven innings (.192), Colorado Springs went 11 for its next 16 (.688),
scoring 10 runs in the eighth and four in the ninth.
With two outs in the ninth and the lead down to one, Memphis actually
walked the Sky Sox' Kevin Nicholson (who had driven in five runs in the
eighth inning) with the bases empty, because Colorado Springs was out of
players and pitcher Scott Watkins was on deck.
So pitcher Jason Jennings (a two-way star in college) pinch-hit. And Memphis reliever Jerry Spradlin
finally ended it by striking out Jennings for the last out of a wild, wild
night.
By the way, score the next night: Colorado Springs 11, Memphis 10.
The minor-league wild-man-of-the-week award goes to Rockies prospect Ryan
Price, of Salem in the Carolina League. He threw seven wild pitches in one
game at Wilmington last week. And that was the most wild pitches by any
minor-league pitcher in a game over the last seven years.
Price, who led professional baseball with 38 wild pitches last season,
wild-pitched in four runs in the second inning alone. His action-packed line
for the night: 5 IP, 7 H, 11 R, 9 ER, 5 BB, 2 K, 7 WP, 1 HR.
In case you were wondering, ESPN research genius Jeff Bennett reports that
Sammy Sosa hit 197 home runs in between Deion Sanders home runs.
The best news the Mariners have heard all week is that they'll miss Pedro
Martinez in Boston this week. They've faced Pedro eight times now. They've
never beaten him. And they've never led at any point in any game against him.
All these players coming back from oblivion can really mess up the stats,
if nothing else. The East Valley Tribune's Ed Price reports that when last
season ended, Arizona's Steve Finley led all active players in triples, with
90. By opening day, he was down to third place, through no fault of his own --
because Tim Raines and Tony Fernandez both came back and passed him.
Just when you think nobody can pitch anymore, the Cubs and Brewers head
into a four-game series at Miller Park this week. And Brewers PR whiz Jon
Greenberg reports that all of the eight starting pitchers have ERAs under
4.00.
Trivia answer
Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds, Mark Grace, Tim Raines, Tony Fernandez and Barry Larkin.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Rumblings and Grumblings appears each Monday.
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