|
|
|
|
 |
| MLB |
|
Scores Schedules Standings Statistics Transactions Injuries Players Offseason moves Message Board Minor Leagues MLB en espaņol Clubhouses |
|
SportsMall
|
| Sport Sections |
|
|
| Sunday, April 1 | |||||
| March 2001 Archives ESPN.com | |||||
| FRIDAY, MARCH 30 In the American League West, everyone's picking the same first-place team and the same last-place team: Oakland, and Anaheim. And for good reason. The A's won the division title last year and improved themselves over the winter with the addition of Johnny Damon. He won't necessarily be more productive at the plate than the departed Ben Grieve, but he certainly will be better than Grieve in the field and on the basepaths. The Angels did win 82 games last year, but they've lost Mo Vaughn, and three or four everyday players posted career-best numbers in 2000. The Angels simply don't figure to win more than about 80 games. That leaves the Mariners and Rangers to battle for second place in the division. And of course, Alex Rodriguez figures heavily into that equation, as the Mariners lost him to the Rangers. All by himself, Rodriguez costs the Mariners about eight games, and improves the Rangers by about the same. That's a total of 16 games ... still four games short of 20, which is how far Texas trailed Seattle at the close of the 2000 season. Actually, let's combine the Pythagenport standings from last year (records based on runs scored and allowed) with the "Rodriguez standings," giving us an idea of how things would have looked last year with luck taken out of the equation, and moving A-Rod to Texas a year early: Mariners 85-77 Rangers 78-84So even after the exchange of Rodriguez, the Rangers still have seven games to make up to catch the Mariners -- and the number is higher if they actually want to earn a postseason berth. Have they done that with their other moves? Texas also added Ken Caminiti, Andres Galarraga and Randy Velarde. On a personal level, those signings made me happy, because all three players are significantly older than I. It's wonderful to think that athletes in their late 30s might still be considered so valuable. But on a professional level, those signings made me worry about Doug Melvin's sanity. If the old guys are healthy and productive, the Rangers will not only take second place, but put some pressure on the Athletics, too. Yes, the pitching is, er, a tad thin. But if the Rangers score 1,000 runs, the pitching doesn't have to be that good. There's something else to remember ... Due to the Rangers' hitter-happy Ballpark, their pitchers aren't as bad as they seem, and their hitters aren't as good. And the reverse is true of the Mariners. Safeco Field is the best pitcher's park in the American League. The Mariners finished fourth in the league in run production last season, which was a pretty phenomenal achievement. The M's scored 453 runs in their road games; nobody did better, not even the vaunted Athletics. Of course, Alex Rodriguez was responsible for a hefty percentage of that run production, and even a hitter like Ichiro Suzuki can only take up some of that slack. And Mariners GM Pat Gillick simply hasn't done enough to make up the difference, as Bret Boone is just a slight upgrade (if that) over Mark McLemore. Jay Buhner probably won't give the M's 400-plus productive plate appearances again, and Edgar Martinez figures to slow down one of these years. It could go either way, but I've got the Rangers edging the Mariners for second place by a single victory (85-84). 1. Oakland 2. Texas 3. Seattle 4. Anaheim NL West About the National League West, let's start with a couple of questions ... Why will the Giants decline in 2001? Because Barry Bonds will spend a few weeks on the DL, and when he does play, he won't come close to last season's .688 slugging percentage (his career best). Because Jeff Kent, now 33 years old, will fall well short of last year's career-best numbers. Because Robb Nen will blow seven or eight saves rather than five, and because the Giants will miss Ellis Burks unless Dusty Baker gives Armando Rios the playing time he deserves. And because maybe, just maybe, the heavy workloads placed upon the Giants' young starters will finally exact a cost. Why will the Giants improve in 2001? As Tom Tippett has pointed out, last year the Cleveland Indians actually outperformed the Chicago White Sox in all the key stats except one: victories. Of course, in the context of the 2000 season, that happened to be the only stat that mattered. But in the context of the 2001 season, those other stats are important:
Cleveland Chicago
OPS for 837 826
OPS against 775 780
Difference +62 +46
Runs Scored 950 978
Runs Allowed 816 839
Difference +134 +139
The White Sox scored 28 more runs than the Indians despite an OPS 11 points lower. And in case you're wondering, it's not because the White Sox posted a higher team on-base percentage; both clubs posted .470 slugging percentages, so the Indians' edge in OPS is due entirely to their superior OBP.
So why did the White Sox finish five games ahead of the Indians? Simple. In one-run games, the Sox went 28-18 and the Tribe went 17-24. Those numbers won't repeat themselves.
What else will be different? The Indians added Juan Gonzalez and Ellis Burks, who should help make up for the loss of Manny Ramirez.
The White Sox, meanwhile, made two big offseason moves. First, they signed Royce Clayton to play shortstop, replacing Jose Valentin, who in turn replaces Chris Singleton in center field. The problem is that Clayton is not a defensive upgrade; he makes fewer errors than Valentin, but also gets to fewer balls. And we should probably assume that Valentin is not the defensive center fielder that Singleton is. So the offense is slightly weakened by replacing Singleton with Clayton in the lineup, and the defense is slightly weakened by replacing Singleton with Valentin in the field.
Second, they traded Mike Sirotka for David Wells. Wells is a fine pitcher, of course, but his ERA last season was higher than Sirotka's. Wells is a workhorse, and there's some value in the extra innings he'll throw. But it's a small edge. Overall, the Sox have not improved themselves in any meaningful way.
One caveat: in general, the White Sox are younger than the Indians. So it's possible the Sox will continue to improve, while veterans like Burks, Gonzalez, Roberto Alomar, Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel and Travis Fryman decline significantly. Those things will happen eventually, but I'm guessing it won't be until 2002.
How to separate the Royals and Tigers? I grew up in Kansas City, so I'll pick the Royals for third place ... by the width of the "new" strike zone. And of course, that leaves Minnesota for last place. The Twins might actually sport one of the better rotations in the division, with Radke, Milton and Redman the top three. But the rest of the slots are question marks, the bullpen's shaky, and there's simply no power in the lineup. The Twins finished 13th in scoring last year, and they might do the same this year.
1. Indians2. White Sox 3. Royals 4. Tigers 5. Twins The NL Central The National League Central ranks with the American League West as the most interesting division in baseball. Why? Because entering the season, one can construct a good case for any of three teams finishing on top. Those three teams? The St. Louis Cardinals, the Cincinnati Reds, and the Houston Astros. Now, this assertion might seem at least a tad questionable, if you remember that last year the Cards finished 10 games ahead of the second-place Reds, and 22 games ahead of the fourth-place Astros. But let's look at the "Pythagenport Standings" (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus), the standings that we would expect from the teams' runs scored and allowed last year:
Scored Allowed Pythag W-L
Cards 887 771 92-70
Reds 825 765 87-75
Astros 938 944 81-81
By this method, the Reds and Astros both cut their deficit exactly in half; the Reds trail by five games, the Astros by 11.
Admittedly, five games is still significant, to say nothing of 11. But if anybody's going to catch the Cardinals, I think it will be the Astros. For the Reds to win 90 games, everything has to go right, including the unlikelihood of Barry Larkin playing 150 games (something he's done only four times in his career). But for the Astros to win 90-plus games, everything has to just not go wrong. How many victories is a healthy Craig Biggio worth? How many victories is a healthy Billy Wagner worth? If only the Astros could have secured just-average players to man shortstop and third base, I would feel comfortable picking them; as it is, they're more of a hunch pick.
So how can the Cardinals lose? Mark McGwire might spend half the season on the DL, and this time Will Clark won't be around. The Cards might rue their decision to trade third baseman Fernando Tatis, as none of his respective replacements are really good enough hitters to play regularly. Jim Edmonds might drop 75 points in slugging average and 50 points in on-base, which would be in line with his career totals. Rick Ankiel's "control problems" might not go away. Matt Morris and Alan Benes might not return to their old levels. Darryl Kile might not win 20 games again and Garrett Stephenson won't win 16.
Yes, that's a lot of mights. But last year, a lot of mights went the Cardinals' way.
Bud Selig wanted his Brewers in the same division with the Cubs, and so they are ... and oh, how exciting it is! Since switching to the National League, the Brewers have finished fifth, fifth, and third. Over the same span, the Cubs have finished second, sixth, and sixth. This year, they'll engage in a spirited battle for fourth place, and I've got the Brewers edging the Cubs by a couple of games.
Because while the Cubs depend on Sammy Sosa and rotation full of injury risks, the Brewers feature a pretty solid lineup. No, they're not going to score enough runs to contend for a postseason berth. But with Burnitz, Jenkins, Hammonds and Sexson, they'll score more runs than the Cubs. And if last season is any indication, their pitching will be better, too.
A couple of years ago, Pirates management enjoyed talking about the future. Sure, times were tough, but they'd be ready to contend when the new ballpark was ready.
Well, something funny happened on the way to PNC Park. General manager Cam Bonifay spent a lot of money on a lot of players without a lot of talent, and a lot of pitchers got hurt. And in a sort of reverse piece de resistance, new manager Lloyd McClendon has shifted erstwhile shortstop Pat Meares to second base, thus sending Warren Morris, along with either Aramis Ramirez or Enrique Wilson, to the bench.
In fact, the best thing about the Pirates will be their bench, what with Morris, Ramirez or Wilson, and John Vander Wal all warming the pine. Unfortunately, those guys are all better than the players they're backing up, which is certainly a novel way of utilizing the available talent.
1. Astros2. Cardinals 3. Reds 4. Brewers 5. Cubs 6. Pirates I can see the top three mixing up, and I can see the bottom three mixing up. But never the twain shall meet. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 Trying to predict the baseball standings at the conclusion of the 2001 season is, of course, a fool's errand. I do it anyway. The New York Yankees finished with the fifth-best record in the American League last year, which strongly suggests that the Bronx Bombers aren't exactly invincible. Since then, four major events have affected the balance of power in the A.L. East: 1. The Yankees signed Mike Mussina. 2. The Yankees didn't sign David Cone. 3. The Red Sox signed Manny Ramirez. 4. The Red Sox lost Nomar Garciaparra. Nos. 1 and 2 were essentially balanced by No. 3, but at this point there's no way the Red Sox can balance No. 4. To be sure, we often overestimate the effect of one player, even a player as talented as Nomar Garciaparra. Over the course of a season, Garciaparra will have a significant impact on his team's fortunes. Total Baseball rates Nomar at approximately four-and-a-half games better than an average shortstop in each of the last two seasons (it would be closer to five, except for his occasional trips to the disabled list). That might not sound like much, but I'll add two caveats. One, Garciaparra, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Miguel Tejada combine to ratchet up the value of an "average" shortstop. However, it should be pointed out that Total Baseball revised its positional adjustments to compare players across leagues. And two, "average" (or better) shortstops don't exactly grow on trees, in New England or anywhere else (except maybe the Yankees' farm system). Dan Duquette can't just step out onto Yawkey Way and buttonhole Deivi Cruz or Enrique Wilson. So the Sox will probably go with Lou Merloni. Or Mike Lansing. Or Craig Grebeck. Merloni and Grebeck both hit enough to play shortstop (or second base), but neither has spent significant time at the position in quite a long time. Lansing's not a hitter or a shortstop. So if Garciaparra were to miss the entire season, it would cost the Red Sox in the neighborhood of six victories -- a pennant-busting proposition, to be sure. However, Nomar's not going to miss the entire season. If he does undergo surgery, he's expected to miss approximately three months. Give him another few weeks to round into shape, and Garciaparra's current injury may well cost the Red Sox four wins. Will those four games cost the Red Sox a division title? Yes, they will. When you're competing against the Team of Bottomless Pockets, you can't afford to lose one of your superstars for half the season. This is especially true because the Yankee roster should always be considered in flux, with big-time help just a few phone calls away. Look at the players each team acquired before the August 31 trade deadline last year:
Yankees Red Sox
Luis Sojo Ed Sprague
Jose Vizcaino Rico Brogna
David Justice Mike Lansing
Luis Polonia Lou Merloni
Glenallen Hill Sean Berry
Jose Canseco Bernard Gilkey
Denny Neagle Dante Bichette
Rolando Arrojo
Luis Sojo, David Justice and Glenallen Hill all played key roles for the Yankees. Only Arrojo and Bichette played well for the Red So. Therein lies another problem; the Yankees traded for David Justice on June 29, when New York trailed first-place Toronto by three games. Just a half-game behind the Yankees were the Red Sox, who didn't make their first big trade -- acquiring Lansing and Arrojo -- until nearly a month later, on July 27. That was too late. In the interim, the Yankees had already picked up Denny Neagle and Glenallen Hill, and by August 31 -- when the Sox traded for Bichette -- the pennant race was essentially over.
Now, apologists for Dan Duquette will argue that his attention was divided last summer, because the club was desperately trying to put together financing for a new ballpark. Fine, but guess what? The club is still trying to line up the financing for a new ballpark and trying to sell the franchise to a fabulously wealthy new owner. So if divided attention was a problem last season, it'll probably be a problem this season, too.
The Toronto Blue Jays spent two wonderful weeks of the 2000 season in first place, but eventually were undone by poor performances from their young starters and a lousy team on-base percentage. While much talent remains, it's essentially the same talent (minus David Wells), so unless new manager Buck Martinez can somehow convince the hitters to exercise plate discipline and the young pitchers to throw better pitches, the Jays will finish third again.
Ah, the battle for the basement. Last year the Tampa Bay Devil Rays took those honors, but the Baltimore Orioles are coming on strong. The D-Rays don't really figure to get any better this season -- they added Ben Grieve but the bullpen's a mess -- but the Orioles figure to get a lot worse. O's, how will the standings loathe thee? Let me count the ways ... They lost Mike Mussina, the second-best starter in the American League. They lost Albert Belle, who wasn't himself last year but was better than any of his likely replacements. Their old players don't have much left, and their young players don't have much future. All in all, it could be a truly ugly season for the O's. So that makes the standings (sorry for the lack of surprise):
1. Yankees2. Red Sox 3. Blue Jays 4. Devil Rays 5. Orioles National League East In the NL East, the story will be the same as in the AL East, the same as it's been for three years running: the financial heavyweights at the top, with everyone else fighting for table scraps. Just as the Yankees and Red Sox will continue to rule, the Braves and Mets will fight for control of the NL East. Braves or Mets, Mets or Braves? Seems like we played this game a year ago. Then, I picked the Braves. And I was right ... but only by a single game. In my (weak) defense, however, the Mets did overachieve in a sense; teams that score 807 runs and allow 738 -- as the Mets did -- typically win 88 games rather than 94. Yes, I know that a lot of those runs allowed were courtesy of a few horrible relief pitchers, but I still say they played a little bit over their heads. And they're unlikely to do it again. And while I like Glendon Rusch (curse Herk Robinson for trading him for nothing), he's no Mike Hampton. And where else might the Mets have improved themselves? Timo Perez is better than Derek Bell -- almost anybody would be -- but elsewhere, there's little room for optimism. Meanwhile, the Braves should benefit from at least a partial season from John Smoltz, a healthy Javy Lopez, and a bounce-back season from Kevin Millwood. Not to mention a couple of guys named Maddux and Glavine. A year ago, the Braves won 95 games, the Mets won 94, and the third-place Florida Marlins won 79. Those Marlins are, at least in some quarters, a trendy pick to challenge for the wild card. Don't you believe it. The Marlins' surprising season was due, in large part, to their 32-20 record in one-run games. Before you attribute that mark -- second-best in the National League -- to a great bullpen or the ever-popular "knowing how to win," here are two facts for your consideration: The Braves, who seem to have a pretty good grip on winning (at least in the regular season), went 18-18 in one-run games. The Giants, who featured the league's best bullpen, went 18-22 in one-run games. The Marlins got lucky last year. On the other hand, they do have some good, young players, and a young pitching staff that might get impressive in a hurry. Plus, Alex Gonzalez can't possibly be as horrible this season as he was last season. Then again, one of the best ways to go broke is betting on young pitchers. The Marlins will sneak into third place, but not by a lot. So the Marlins play the role of the Blue Jays, leaving the Phillies and Expos for the fourth and fifth spots. Both clubs feature a trio of excellent players. The Phillies have Bob Abreu, Scott Rolen and Mike Lieberthal. The Expos have Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Vidro and Fernando Tatis. But if the Expos can keep young pitchers Carl Pavano (out until May), Javier Vazquez, and Tony Armas healthy, they should have the upper hand, leaving the standings like this: 1. Braves 2. Mets 3. Marlins 4. Expos 5. Phillies Unless they're not. TUESDAY, MARCH 27 The Oakland Athletics and Jason Giambi are oh-so close. They've agreed on six years. They've agreed on $90 million. The only thing they haven't agreed on is the no-trade clause. Giambi wants one. The A's don't want to give him one. In fact, A's GM Billy Beane now says that the issue is "non-negotiable." Grown men with defensible positions? Or a pair of overgrown kids, fighting just because they're stubborn, competitive cusses? A little of both, I guess, but don't fault either Giambi or Beane for holding firm. Can you imagine what it's like to be traded? Suddenly removed from your teammates-slash-friends, told to move yourself and your possessions to a new city. And oh yeah, your new team wants you in the lineup tomorrow. Yes, there are many wonderful things about playing major-league baseball. My point is that if you could avoid getting traded against your will, you would. As for Beane, he's smart to hold out. While it's true that no-trade clauses are often voided, it's rarely easy. Typically, a player will waive his no-trade clause for a hefty price, which of course makes the entire proposition a bit more difficult to swing. And as Beane has noted, a franchise operating under severe financial limitations must do everything possible to keep its options open. So what if they can't work things out? Would losing Giambi, the American League's reigning MVP, signal the premature decline of the apparently ascendant Athletics? It was pretty clear to me that Alex Rodriguez or Pedro Martinez should have been the MVP last year, but Jason Giambi certainly wasn't a bad choice, and it was wholly consistent with the history of the award (i.e., big RBI man with pennant-winning club). He's a great player, and the A's would miss him. But is Jason Giambi a future Hall of Famer? The evidence would, I think, suggest that he's not. Statistically, the five most-similar players to Giambi through age 29 were Ryan Klesko (942 Similarity Score), Tim Salmon (935), Bill "Swish" Nicholson (935), Larry Walker (928), and Pedro Guerrero (925). All fine players, but none Hall of Famers or likely future Hall of Famers. (Similarity Scores courtesy of baseball-reference.com.) Is Jason Giambi going to get better? The evidence would, I think, suggest that he will not. As a group, baseball players are less valuable after they turn 30 than before they turn 30. That's not to say that Giambi's going into the tank now that he's hit the big three-oh. But another MVP award? Probably not. Is Jason Giambi irreplaceable? Well, he's more irreplaceable than a dishwasher in a Manhattan restaurant is ... but not by much. The A's are practically swimming in big, strong hitters who can play first base, or who could be taught to play first base. Below are three of Oakland's more accomplished minor-league hitters. In the chart below, "Age" refers to each player's age as of July 1, 2001, and "MLE OPS" lists the Major League Equivalency for their OPS's last season (when they were in the high minors):
Age MLE OPS
Jason Hart 22 811
Eric Byrnes 24 782
Mario Valdez 25 850
Hart and Valdez are both first basemen, while Byrnes is a pretty good defensive outfielder. The A's have another kid, outfielder Ryan Ludwick, who hit 29 homers in a tough Class A league last year. No, these guys aren't all first basemen, but in the Athletics' system, it really doesn't matter. The A's have got six distinct positions to fill:
CatcherSecond Base Shortstop Third Base Center Field Hitter From the "Hitter" position, the A's draw their DH, their first baseman, their left fielder, and their right fielder. (This year they've got Johnny Damon, who is something more than "just" a hitter. But he's a luxury that the club won't be able to afford after this season.) Hart, Byrnes and Valdez give them three hitters. Jeremy Giambi -- who should still develop -- and Adam Piatt give them two more. That's five guys, all in their early or mid-20s, each of them likely to become productive major-league players. And that's the key word: become. The Athletics and Giambi tentatively agreed on a six-year contract. In six years, Giambi will be 36 while those other guys will still be in their prime years. I'd bet decent money that at least one of those five will, in four years, be more productive than Jason Giambi. And you know what? There are more where they came from. As I've been arguing recently, there's plenty of major-league talent if you know where to look ... and if there's anyone who knows where to look, it's Billy Beane. He stole Jeremy Giambi from the Royals, and he stole Valdez from the Twins. If he loses Giambi, he'll go out and steal somebody else. So why does Beane even bother with Giambi? Because (1) Giambi's an excellent player, and (2) the A's would take a public-relations hit if he left. The first of those is true, of course. But the second is not as important as most people probably think. The A's aren't going to draw well, no matter who's playing first base. A year ago, though they played an exciting brand of ball and won a division title, the Athletics finished 23rd among the 30 major-league teams in attendance. They'll get a boost this year from last year's success, but that points to a simple equation: if they win they'll draw, and if they don't they won't. There's only one first baseman on this planet who can bring fans to the ballpark all by himself, and he's not Jason Giambi. MONDAY, MARCH 26 After last week's columns, my e-mailbox was flooded with queries about Roberto Petagine. OK, maybe not flooded, but it was certainly more than a trickle. I've been writing this column for five years, and Petagine was a frequent subject for the first three of those years. But two years ago, the Cincinnati Reds sold his contract to the Yakult Swallows, and since then Petagine has appeared in these pages just once or twice. And now he's back. No, not in America. Petagine's still in Japan. But he's back in the minds of readers, due to my contention last week that major-league talent is out there, if only general managers knew where to look. Here's what Roberto Petagine has done the last two seasons, playing first base for the Yakult Swallows in Japan's Central League.
OBP Slug OPS
1999 .469 .677 1146
2000 .432 .601 1033
Lest you think that Petagine somehow "found his stroke" upon arriving on those distant shores, look at these numbers:
Age OBP Slug OPS
1996 25 .390 .490 880
1997 26 .399 .551 950
1998 27 .417 .579 996
Those are his Major League Equivalencies (MLE's), an approximation of what he might have done in the majors those years.
Ah, but he wasn't in the majors, was he? He spent most of those seasons in Triple-A. And now he's in Japan, and who trusts the stats there? Well, the Seattle Mariners do, otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time and money on Ichiro Suzuki. And the Milwaukee Brewers must place some faith in stats from Japan, because they brought Tony Fernandez back to play third base this spring. Here's how Petagine, Fernandez and Suzuki fared last season in Japan:
Petagine Fernandez Suzuki
OBP .432 .418 .460
Slug .601 .486 .539
OPS 1033 904 999
No, I'm not going to suggest that Roberto Petagine is better than Ichiro Suzuki. The latter is better in the field, better on the basepaths, nearly as good at the plate, and he's younger. My point isn't that Petagine's just as good as Suzuki; rather, my point is that if Suzuki's worth the many millions of dollars the Mariners are paying him, isn't it quite possible that Petagine could help a major-league team?
By the way, in case you're wondering, Petagine did receive a few chances in the majors. Five seasons and a total of 307 at-bats. Granted, he struggled over the course of those 307 at-bats, hitting just .225 and posting a 719 OPS. The sample size, of course, while something more than meaningless, is somewhat less than meaningful. In Paul Konerko's first 304 at-bats in the majors, he batted .214 with a 593 OPS.
In a perfect system, the top baseball talent would flow from franchise to franchise, so that every player in the major leagues was better than every player in the minor leagues (or Japan, in the case of ex-major leaguers). But as we all know, Major League Baseball is far from a perfect system. Some players are tagged as "major leaguer" not because they're great ballplayers, but simply because they've been in the major leagues, whether by luck or by pluck. Meanwhile, others are tagged as "minor leaguer" or "4-A player" for no particularly good reason.
Look, I'm not suggesting that the Angels could just go out and pick up an All-Star first baseman if they knew what they were doing. That sort of talent is truly rare. But the rest of the talent isn't quite so rare. Here's what I mean ...
At the upper end of the talent spectrum, you've got your future Hall of Famers: Alex Rodriguez, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, etc.
After them, you've got your All-Stars, guys like Jim Thome, Mike Sweeney, Carl Everett, Moises Alou and Jim Edmonds; great players, but unlikely to attain Hall of Fame status.
After those guys, you've got your Average players, but that description is more complimentary than it sounds. An "average" major-league regular is a fine player indeed, and many pennants have been lost because a star-studded team couldn't find enough "average" players for the other positions (cf. Seattle Mariners, 1996, and Boston Red Sox, 2000). Sometimes "average" players even occasionally find themselves on All-Star teams, whether because they played over their heads for a few months or because the manager had to pick somebody from the [insert lousy team here]. Matt Lawton comes to mind, as does David Segui.
There are other major leaguers kicking around, too. Some are just a bit short of Matt Lawton and David Segui, but frankly, some aren't really very good, and could just as easily be stuck in Triple-A, or playing over in Japan. I haven't come up with catchy labels for these players, so let's just call them Class 4 and Class 5. It's these last two levels that leave room for argument. We might suspect that Roberto Petagine isn't a future Hall of Famer, an All-Star, or even an Average player. But is he a Class 4? A Class 5? Or a Class 6; that is, clearly not good enough to play regularly in the majors?
I suspect that Petagine's a Class 4, but perhaps a Class 5. And while I'll admit that not many Class 4 players are freely available to any general manager using more than three percent of his brain, I'll also argue that there are many Class 5 players available. Which is why it's frustrating to see players like Larry Barnes and Todd Dunwoody -- Class 6 players, based on the available evidence -- get serious consideration for big-league jobs. Even worse, some Class 5 players win regular jobs and "earn" millions of dollars. Ron Coomer. Marquis Grissom. Derek Bell. Pat Meares. Darren Lewis. There will always be Class 5 guys in the major leagues, because that's the way the talent is distributed. But just because you've got them, doesn't mean you have to pay them more than the major-league minimum. And that's something too many teams don't understand.
Does it make sense to pay good money to Ron Coomer (an expensive Class 5 player) and send Julio Zuleta (a cheap Class 5 player) to Des Moines? No, but the Cubs are going to do it anyway. Does it make sense for Mike Kinkade to spend the better part of three years in Triple-A? No, it doesn't. Does it make sense for the Angels to sign Wally Joyner and consider playing Larry Barnes, when Roberto Petagine is terrorizing talented pitchers on the other side of the Pacific? No, but Petagine -- once an "Average" major leaguer (or better), and still a legitimate Class 4 player (or better) -- will be doing just that for a third straight summer.
Rob Neyer is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com. His column runs Monday through Thursday. You can e-mail Rob at rob.neyer@dig.com.
THURSDAY, MARCH 22Thursday morning, which means a brief glimpse into my e-mailbox ...
Age OBP (MLE) Slug (MLE)
1998 23 .273 .335
1999 24 .313 .444
2000 25 .296 .356
Anybody see even a tiny glimmer of promise there? If so, your eyesight's better than mine. Those 1999 MLE's would look pretty good for a shortstop, but Barnes is a first baseman. And 1999 was his best year, by far, of the three.
Meanwhile, there are players stuck in the minor leagues who could give the Angels more than Barnes would. Frankly, it's not my job to locate ballplayers for the Anaheim Angels, it's Bill Stoneman's job. But just for the sake of argument, here are the MLE's for Cliff Brumbaugh, mired in the Rangers system:
Age OBP (MLE) Slug (MLE)
1998 24 .336 .464
1999 25 .298 .380
2000 26 .367 .384
Actually, this guy's not really major-league material ... yet by almost any measure, he's more deserving of a shot than Barnes.
Or what about Brian Lesher?
Age OBP (MLE) Slug (MLE)
1998 27 .337 .417
1999 28 .343 .450
2000 29 .352 .468
The right-handed-hitting Lesher would be a great platoon partner for Spiezio (a switch-hitter who fares better against righties) or Wally Joyner.
Here's Jeff Liefer, another guy who nobody seems to notice:
Age OBP (MLE) Slug (MLE)
1998 23 .313 .428
1999 24 (in majors)
2000 25 .332 .508
Liefer doesn't have any MLE's for 1999 because he spent much of that season in the majors, but in 46 Triple-A games he posted a .412 OBP and slugged .608. He hit poorly in 113 at-bats with the White Sox, however, and has been buried since. He just needs a chance, needs some club like Anaheim to give White Sox GM Ken Williams a phone call. Because guys like Jeff Liefer -- and, a few years ago, Mario Valdez and Olmedo Saenz and Morgan Burkhart -- can be had for a song.
What would I do if I were running the Angels?
One, I wouldn't even fool around with the idea of giving Larry Barnes a job. I'd say to him, "Great job this spring, Barnesy. Do it again this summer in the Pacific Coast League, and we'll talk in September."
Two, I wouldn't have signed Wally Joyner, since (a) he can't hit left-handers, and (b) my best candidate to replace Mo Vaughn, Spiezio, can't hit left-handers, either.
But three, I'd cut Joyner, who doesn't have a guaranteed contract. And then I'd go get Brian Lesher, or somebody like him. They're out there, if you just bother looking.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21Ran across the following note yesterday ... A three-hour ball game is almost ordinary now ... Pitchers can't get the ball over the plate, and they walk everybody. Managers keep changing pitchers. When they do, the manager, second baseman and the incoming pitcher hold a board of directors' meeting on the mound before the new fellow even throws a warm-up pitch. Managers or coaches come in from the coaching lines to whisper in the batter's ear. An outfielder holds up the game to run into the bench to change his sunglasses. Naturally, we are to blame for it. All we hear is: "Why don't those umpires hurry up the games?"That quote appeared in a wonderful book I just finished reading, James M. Kahn's "The Umpire Story." Published in 1953. It's a wonderful book, probably better than any new baseball book published this spring. Sad to say, the book is quite scarce, quite expensive if you can find one, and has yet to be reprinted, as so many classic old baseball books have been. Fortunately, you can find the latest edition of Total Baseball in your favorite bookstore. Yes, it costs $60 if you actually buy it at your favorite bookstore, but you can find TB priced around $48 at various Internet booksellers. At 60 bucks, Total Baseball is a bargain; at 48, it's a steal. New in the latest, seventh edition of Total Baseball: The other day, Wally Joyner said of Larry Barnes, one of the competitors for Mo Vaughn's old job in Anaheim, "If they go with Barnes, I'm sure he's earned it.: Barnes, you see, hit his team-leading fourth homer on Sunday, and doubled in the winning runs for good measure. After that game, Angels manager Mike Scioscia commented, "These guys are getting after it, and that's the way you want it. You don't want easy decisions. It's going to come down to what the best fit for the club is ... [Barnes] can drive the ball. He's definitely stepping up." And that's the problem in a nutshell. Players "step up" in March, and people get fooled. Of that same Larry Barnes, all 26 years of him, John Sickels writes, "Old for a prospect with a 10 percent chance to hit like Lee Stevens." Baseball Prospectus says, "He's not a prospect. Larry Barnes doesn't hit anywhere near as well as a first baseman must, and there's little evidence that he can. He was sent to the Arizona Fall League for no reason and didn't make himself a prospect there." In The Scouting Notebook 2001, the authors list a dozen of Anaheim's minor-league prospects. Barnes is not among them. In the Baseball America 2001 Prospect Handbook, the authors list 30 of Anaheim's minor-league prospects. Barnes is not among them. Yes, they could all be wrong. But what are you going to trust? All those experts and 2,454 minor-league at-bats that say Larry Barnes can't hit major-league pitching? Or the 47 spring-training at-bats that say he can? Look, I don't take any pleasure in stomping on anybody's dreams ... "Kid comes out of nowhere, wins job in spring training, leads team to World Series!" ... and truth be told, I would be thrilled if Larry Barnes won the American League's Rookie of the Year award. But professional sports teams aren't in business to make dreams come true. They're in business to win games, and if the Angels hand Larry Barnes a job, he'll cost them a game or two before they realize what an awful mistake they made and send him back to Triple-A. Of course, Mike Scioscia isn't the only manager who's close to making a lousy roster decision because of a tiny sample. Down in Arizona, there's talk that the Cubs might actually give Todd Dunwoody a semi-regular job, platooning in center field with Damon Buford. Before I rip them for that, however, let me laud them for not forcing top prospect Corey Patterson into a job for which he's not yet suited. The Chicago Sun-Time quoted one Cub as saying, "He's not ready, and there's no need to risk ruining him by rushing him. He has never taken a swing at Triple-A, so why not let him?" I'm not saying that every player needs to spend time in Triple-A, but Patterson simply doesn't have any working knowledge of the strike zone yet. Stick him in the majors this spring, and he'd post a .320 on-base percentage. (Plus, there's no point in starting the clock on his free agency any sooner than necessary.) Unfortunately, if Patterson doesn't make the club, then Dunwoody's actually the best option on hand. And that's the problem with bringing a guy like Todd Dunwoody to camp. He gets hot in March, and all of a sudden you're supposed to find a roster spot for him. That's what happened to the Royals last year, who wound up letting Dunwoody absolute waste 178 at-bats: .238 on-base percentage, .275 slugging percentage. Dunwoody, by the way, is an object lesson in the unpredictability of young ballplayers. Coming up with the Marlins, he was regarded as a solid (or better) prospect. He never did develop control of the strike zone, however, and so he never has developed as a baseball player. Great athlete? Yes. Great baseball player? No. (And yes, there is Brady Anderson, who didn't become a quality major leaguer until he was 28. But I also know that for every Brady Anderson, there are 50 guys who don't make it.) Dunwoody bats lefty, which means that in a strict platoon, he'd play about two-thirds of the time. That's one problem, the other being that Buford doesn't hit right-handed pitchers at all. So unless a lefty's on the mound, the Cubs will have a huge hole in their lineup. In fact, they'd be significantly better off with a Patterson/Buford platoon than with the proposed Dunwoody/Buford platoon. Barring that, there are many, many players available, at bargain-basement prices, who could give the Cubs more production than Dunwoody will. And the fact that he's hitting ... actually, now that I look at the stats, I see that Dunwoody's not hitting this spring: 32 at-bats and seven hits, zero homers. So how to explain Don Baylor's apparent fascination with Dunwoody? Well, my mom always told me that if I couldn't say anything nice about Don Baylor ... MONDAY, MARCH 19 The New York Yankees desperately want Chuck Knoblauch in their 2001 lineup. Unfortunately, four months of winter don't seem to have solved Knoblauch's fielding woes, so now the club is reportedly considering shifting him to left field. So what kind of left fielder would Chuck Knoblauch be? Cobbling together three projections printed by reputable analysts, we can expect Knoblauch to post in the neighborhood of a .365 on-base percentage and a .410 slugging average -- a 775 OPS. Not bad for a second baseman. In fact, a 775 OPS might well rank Knoblauch in the upper third of American League second basemen ... but if he doesn't play second base, that really doesn't do the Yankees any good, does it? Because a 775 OPS might rank as the very worst figure for an everyday American League left fielder. Sure, we can cut Knoblauch a little slack. His strength is on-base percentage, and that's somewhat more valuable than slugging. So let's bump his OPS to 800. Shoot, let's make it 825! But remember, these are the Yankees. It's hard for me to believe that the New York Yankees can't find a left fielder likely to do better than an 825 OPS. In fact, once the Yankees get Shane Spencer in action -- and he's supposed to be ready sometime in May -- the club will have three viable options in left field: Spencer, Henry Rodriguez and Glenallen Hill. Here are OPS for all three of them, for both 2000 and the last five seasons combined:
Rodriguez Spencer Hill
2000 OPS 809 790 936
1996-2000 OPS 856 819 860
None of these guys are world-beaters; better hitters than Knoblauch, perhaps, but hardly worth shaking up the lineup for.
Ah, but those numbers came against all kinds of pitchers. What if we take the left-handed-hitting Rodriguez, and platoon him with Hill and/or Spencer? Here's how they all fared against their "opposites":
Rodriguez Spencer Hill
2000 OPS 820 772 963
1996-2000 OPS 895 977 921
Those are some fairly impressive numbers. Of course, even with a strict platoon, Rodriguez will face some lefties, and Spencer/Hill will face some righties. But it doesn't seem like a stretch to suggest that a left-field platoon of two Yankees already on the roster would provide significantly greater production than Knoblauch would.
And defense? None of these guys are even average, but could they be much worse than Knoblauch? Except for a single game in 1993, Knoblauch hasn't played the outfield since 1987, when he was an 18-year-old freshman at Texas A&M. While it's never smart to underestimate the ability of a world-class athlete to make adjustments, can Knoblauch make the adjustment from scatter-armed second baseman to adequate left fielder in the next month or three?
Maybe. But if adequate's as good as it gets, then the Yankees are probably better off with the other guys anyway.
Ah, but it's not that simple. As every Yankees fan knows (and can't wait to tell me), "Knoblauch is the leadoff hitter, and the lineup works well with him at the top of the order followed by Derek Jeter."
And of course, you're never going to see Henry Rodriguez or Glenallen Hill batting leadoff. Jeter, a superb baserunner who's likely to post a .400-plus OBP, is an obvious candidate. But then who bats No. 2?
Jorge Posada posted an outstanding .417 OBP last year, but he also struck out 151 times, and managers don't like No. 2 hitters who strike out.
Bernie Williams? Too much power.David Justice? Ditto. Paul O'Neill or Tino Martinez? At this point, you want both of them as close to the bottom of the lineup as possible. Scott Brosius? Dude, that idea is so 20th century. That leaves us with one choice: Alfonso Soriano, who's supposedly in line for Knoblauch's job. And finally, we find the American Horse Fly in the Yankees' ointment. Because if Soriano does earn a regular job with the club, he'll eventually earn a slot at or near the bottom of the batting order. You see, there's very little evidence that Soriano can be a productive major-league hitter in 2001. STATS projects him for a .302 on-base percentage, .412 slugging. Baseball Prospectus predicts a .294 OBP, .418 slugging. In other words, another Scott Brosius. And when you've already got one Scott Brosius in the lineup -- not to mention a Paul O'Neill and a Tino Martinez -- you can ill-afford another. Of course, the Yankee camp is all abuzz with tales of Soriano's spring hitting feats ... he's batting .375 and slugging .625! On the other hand, Soriano has drawn the grand total of one walk. More to the point, that .375 batting average and .625 slugging average have been compiled in 56 at-bats, which is nothing but an eye blink, something like a century in geological time. Teams that award jobs to players based on spring-training stats generally wind up regretting it. D'Angelo Jimenez, who missed most of last year after breaking his neck in a car accident, is a better player than Soriano. He's always been a better player than Soriano, although he doesn't the scouts like Soriano does. He hasn't hit particularly well this spring, but if he's healthy, he should be the Yankees' second baseman rather than Soriano or Knoblauch. That's not going to happen, though, because even intelligent franchises occasionally worship at the altar of numbers that don't count. So barring the unlikely elevation of Jimenez, what should the Yankees do? On a purely statistical level, they might be better off leaving Knoblauch at second base, and living with the errors. But you can't really fault them for doing otherwise; it's just a hard thing to watch, day in and day out. Frankly, the Yankees should probably just cut their losses, by (1) cutting Knoblauch; (2) trading for a one-year solution at second base; and (3) sending Jimenez to Columbus to work on his double-play pivot. Of course, they're not going to jettison Knoblauch. He's been a big part of their success, and the Yankees have been loyal to players like him. That loyalty, too, has been a big part of their success ... but in the end, loyalty just might drag them down. THURSDAY, MARCH 15 How good will the Expos be? A lot depends on the health of their starting pitchers. Javier Vazquez, Carl Pavano and Tony Armas all have big-time talent, but only Vazquez avoided the disabled list last year. If those three can total 90-some starts, the Expos have a shot at 82-85 wins. There's plenty of big-time talent in the lineup, too, with Fernando Tatis, Jose Vidro and Vladimir Guerrero all among the top players at their positions. The trick is going to be finding decent production from other spots. Will Michael Barrett settle in behind the plate? Will Milton Bradley and/or Peter Bergeron establish themselves in the outfield? Is Felipe Alou smart enough to get production from both Lee Stevens and Fernando Seguignol? The Expos play in a tough division, but the raw material is impressive. AB Walks HR OBP Slug 1026 129 46 .301 .397Rivera's walk rate isn't horrible and he's got pretty good power, especially when you consider that he gives you Gold Glove-quality defense in center field. The problem is that Rivera hasn't made any sort of consistent contact since 1995, when he still toiled for the Yankees. That year, Rivera batted .293 in 256 at-bats with New York's Double-A affiliate, and .270 in 174 at-bats with their Triple-A club. Since then, however, he's batted .212 at all levels. Eddie Epstein points out that over his last five major-league seasons, Rivera has posted an 812 OPS before the All-Star break, but a 611 OPS after the break. The former figure is acceptable for a major-league center fielder, the latter barely acceptable for a Gold Glove shortstop. Somebody will sign Rivera, because he does have some skills and he's still only 27. But it's unlikely that he'll ever be more than a fourth or fifth outfielder. My friend Jason Brannon passed along the following, from yesterday's Chicago Tribune, regarding the Chicago Cubs: Reliever Will Ohman didn't win any points with pitching coach Oscar Acosta by complaining of left shoulder stiffness Thursday. "He had a setback, I guess," Acosta said. "If you're a young guy trying to make the ballclub and you go ahead and see a doctor, that's not a good sign. You either want to play or you don't. "I think it's the young man's mistake that he had two [poor] outings and now he's going to try something to cover up his mistakes."Maybe Oscar Acosta was misquoted. Or maybe Acosta knows something we don't. Maybe Will Ohman is a crybaby, a shirker, a malingerer of the worst sort. Maybe a kick in the pants is exactly what Ohman needs; thus fortified, maybe he'll get the fire in his eyes, and come out of nowhere to win a job with the big club. On the other hand, Will Ohman is 23 years old. Is it likely that, at his age, somebody's going to teach him toughness? Ohman's certainly not a great prospect, but he throws a low-90s sinker, posted a 1.89 ERA last year in Double-A ... and he's a lefty. Is his potential value -- in the millions of dollars, obviously -- outweighed by the possible benefits of asking him to pitch through pain in spring training, and then castigating him for not doing so? Let me be very clear here ... I am not agitating against high pitch counts. I am not taking Acosta and his boss, Don Baylor, to task for behaving recklessly last season with Ruben Quevedo and, even more incredibly, Kerry Wood (11 starts with 120-plus pitches, after missing the entire 1999 season). Shoot, let them all throw 150 pitches per game. But if a guy tells you that his arm hurts, don't let him pitch again unless you damn well know that he's not hurt. Acosta seems to be discouraging pitchers from telling someone when their arm hurts, when Acosta -- and everybody else associated with the game -- should be encouraging pitchers to speak up. As a friend recently wrote, "The culture of sport dictates that a player should hurt his team by trying to play when he's physically incapable, and any player that pulls himself from competition because he feels he is doing his team a disservice is selfish." Last year, Billy Wagner spent the first two-and-a-half months of the season pitching with a sore elbow. He posted a 6.16 ERA, and lost four games before finally admitting to the pain and shutting down for the season. In whose best interests was that, aside from every team the Astros faced? Should Wagner have gutted it out for the entire season, and blown 20 saves rather than nine? Look, there's a place for this macho crap. It's called "the NFL playoffs." The rest of the time, it's just stupid and counterproductive, resulting in more losses than wins. TUESDAY, MARCH 13
Clemens Mussina
Starts 32 34
Innings 204 238
Record 13-8 11-15
ERA 3.70 3.79
Clemens finished second in the American League in ERA, Mussina third.
What about the last two years? Mussina has a big edge.
Clemens Mussina
Starts 62 65
Innings 392 441
Record 27-18 29-22
ERA 4.13 3.65
Mussina had three more starts than Clemens, 49 more innings, two more victories, and an ERA nearly half a run better.
And of course, Mussina's two-year win-loss record could be far, far better. Last year he went 11-15 despite posting the third-lowest ERA in the American League. And by the way, this is a great argument against all those half-wits who talk about pitchers who "don't know how to win." Entering the 2000 season, Mike Mussina's career winning percentage was .673, the sixth highest in history. Did he somehow forget how to win last year? Of course not. His teammates forgot how to score runs when Mussina was pitching.
I'm kidding, of course. Actually, they just didn't happen to score when he was pitching. A pretty poor-hitting club -- the O's averaged 4.9 runs per game, 11th in the AL -- did even worse when Mussina was on the hook, scoring 3.71 runs per nine innings. No AL starter got worse support (meanwhile, Tim Hudson benefited from 7.34 runs per nine innings in his starts).
Almost any sort of objective analysis would conclude that Mussina is likely to finish with better numbers than Clemens in 2001.
Actually, the point of my comment in last week's chat, as I remember it, is that it really doesn't make any difference who the Yankees' "No. 1 starter" is. Yes, the No. 1 starter will face the opposition's No. 1 starter ... for the first week or two. And yes, the No. 1 starter will start one more game than the No. 2 starter ... 20 percent of the time, assuming neither of them gets hurt. There's no real difference between a No. 1 and No. 2 starter, and frankly there's virtually no difference between a No. 1 and No. 4 starter, either.
(By the way, a few years ago I tried to figure out the optimal rotation; that is, it probably doesn't make sense to pitch your best starter first, your second-best starter second, and so on. It would be easier to regulate bullpen workloads if you mixed it up a bit. I don't actually remember the conclusion, but it was something like: 1 4 3 2 5. Sounds crazy, I know, but spreading out the quality of your starters should result in more consistent work for your relievers.)
It's funny how these things change. I distinctly remember just a year ago, when Orlando Hernandez, fresh off his amazing performance the previous October, was the trendy pick as "second-best starter in the American League."
Well, nobody's talking up Orlando Hernandez anymore, not after he posted a 12-13 record last season, along with a 4.51 ERA that ranked 22nd in the league.
You know, I keep reading that the current Yankee dynasty was "built on pitching," but that's not really true. Keeping in mind that the Yankees play in a pretty good pitcher's park, here's where they've ranked in runs scored and runs allowed in the last five seasons:
Scored Allowed
1996 9 3
1997 2 2
1998 1 1
1999 3 2
2000 6 4
With the exception of 1996 -- and again, remember that Yankee Stadium favors the pitchers -- the evidence suggests that the Yankees have relied just as much on their hitters as they have on their pitchers. That said, as they continue to rely on aging veterans like O'Neill, Martinez, Brosius and Justice, the Yankees may indeed rely on their pitchers this season.
And their pitchers should be plenty good enough. We all know that Pedro Martinez is the greatest pitcher in the AL. And No. 2 behind Martinez? Mussina has a good case, and so does Clemens. Hernandez isn't a bad candidate, either. Andy Pettitte finished last season with a better ERA than Hernandez. Top to bottom, the Yankees should have the best rotation in the game, with their only real competition being the Braves, if John Smoltz comes back strong.
Note to Readers: Yes, I know that yesterday's "analysis" of Coors and Enron Fields was both incorrect and imcomplete. I knew it was wrong when I wrote it, but I forgot to go back and make sense of my nonsense. As STATS notes in their "Baseball Scoreboard," there were actually more home runs hit at Enron Field than at Coors Field last season, but there were significantly more 450-foot-plus homers at Coors. What does this mean? Simple. Enron's homers come because of cozy dimensions, and Coors' homers come because of the lofty altitude.
MONDAY, MARCH 12Another March, another edition of STATS, Inc.'s "Baseball Scoreboard." That means 47 sabermetric essays, from which I've drawn just a few nuggets to whet your appetite, with hopes that you'll rush out and buy a copy for yourself ... I already wrote about Albert Belle, so let's revisit Tuesday's Hall of Fame announcements ...
Seems like it's been forever since I responded to my e-mail in this space, so let's to spend a day or two this week doing so.
Mazzie Ozzie
Games 2163 2573
SlugPct .367 .328
Homers 138 28
RBI 853 793
Mazzie Ozzie
Games 2163 2573
On-Base .299 .337
Runs 769 1257
Steals 27 580
Hmmm ... Ozzie's got a 38-point edge in on-base percentage -- almost exactly the same as Mazeroski's edge in slugging percentage. So that's a wash. And of course, Ozzie ran the bases considerably faster, if not necessarily better, than Mazeroski. We all know that stolen bases are often overrated, but Ozzie stole nearly 600, and at a brilliant 80 percent success rate. Throw in the occasional runs that his speed added otherwise, and I don't see how anyone could argue that he wasn't at least as productive as Mazeroski.
(And by the way, I do know that Forbes Field killed Mazeroski's home-run totals: he hit 93 career homers on the road, but only 45 at home. But while I don't have Maz's complete home/road splits, I do know that Forbes Field actually played as a hitter's park, and I also know that Roberto Clemente -- like Mazeroski, a right-handed hitter who spent many years in Forbes -- benefited greatly from his home park.)
As for the Ozzie vs. Maz defensive comparisons, they're pretty close there, too. Mazeroski led the National League nine times in assists by a second baseman; Ozzie led the NL eight times in assists. Mazeroski led the National League eight times in total chances; Ozzie led the NL eight times in total chances. Mazeroski led the National League eight times in double plays; Ozzie led the NL five times.
It's that last category, double plays, that truly sets Mazeroski apart from everybody, including Ozzie Smith. In 1966, Mazeroski participated in 161 double plays; the No. 2 man in the National League was involved in 89 double plays. That 72-DP gap is easily the largest in major league history. And as Craig Wright points out, Maz is the only second baseman to lead his league in DP's by more than 30 more than once ... and Maz did it five times.
He was so fast on the double-play pivot that they called him ?No Hands.?
And to all those people who will now argue -- and are arguing, even as I write this -- that if Mazeroski's a Hall of Famer, then by God how can they leave out Lou Whitaker, I refer them to Mazeroski's spellbinding defensive stats. And if you're going to argue that every second baseman with Mazeroski's hitting stats should go into the Hall of Fame, then you have to argue that every shortstop with Ozzie Smith's hitting stats should go in, too. Which is, of course, more than a little ridiculous.
Lou Whitaker's got a case, but it's got nothing whatsoever to do with Bill Mazeroski.
TUESDAY, MARCH 6Ah, another year, another meeting of the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee, which of course has been responsible for the great majority of the questionable -- and virtually all of the ridiculous -- selections over the years. When the results of this year's elections are announced today, we can only hope that the old gents haven't picked, say, an outfielder with fewer than 1,700 hits to his credit. Of course, the Veterans Committee has its place. After all, the problem isn't that all of the worthy eligibles have already been elected to the Hall of Fame. The problem is that there are only a few worthy eligibles who haven't been elected, and if history is any sort of reliable guide, the Veterans Committee won't have much luck separating the wheat from the chaff. That said, there are apparently three candidates under consideration today for their careers as players. Let's start with Dominic DiMaggio ... Dom DiMaggio:
DiMaggio Butler
Hits 2201 2375
On-Base .382 .377
Slugging .422 .376
Yes, DiMaggio's slugging percentage is significantly higher than Butler's.
But again, you have to remember that Fenway Park was, relative to the other
American League ballparks, a great place for hitters. I don't have
DiMaggio's complete home/road stats, but I do know that of his 87 career
homers, 51 came at Fenway. And I don't think I'm going out on a limb by
suggesting that DiMaggio took advantage of the Green Monster for a few extra
doubles, too.
DiMaggio's chances might have been helped by his heart surgery last year,
but his chances were almost certainly hurt by Ted Williams' heart surgery
last year. A member of the Veterans Committee, Williams has been a vocal
proponent of DiMaggio in recent years. Williams, however, remains too ill to
attend the meeting this year.
As for the late Gil Hodges, I know that I've run this chart, or something
close to it, before. But in the interest of perspective ...
Hodges Colavito Powell
HR 370 374 339
RBI 1274 1159 1187
On-Base .361 .362 .364
Slugging .487 .489 .462
These guys are at least roughly comparable. Hodges and Boog Powell played
for better teams than did Rocky Colavito. Hodges was regarded as an
excellent defensive first baseman, Powell was actually a very good first
baseman until he got fat late in his career, and Colavito had one of the
great arms in right field.
Like I said, they're comparable. Ah, but Hodges had the intangibles, right?
Everybody knows that he was one of the leaders on the great Dodgers teams of
the 1950s. His value simply doesn't show up in the numbers.
Unfortunately, there's very little evidence that Hodges' contemporaries
really thought of him like that. Shortstop (and team captain) Pee Wee Reese
was universally regarded as the spiritual leader of that club, and of course
Jackie Robinson had some leadership qualities, too.
What did the writers think about Hodges? He never finished higher than
eighth in the MVP voting. By contrast, Colavito finished third, fourth and
fifth in various years, and Powell finished first (in 1970), second and
third.
Hodges simply doesn't have much of a case, especially if you remember that
first basemen are already quite well-represented in the Hall ...
unless you consider his managerial career. As Rule 6 (C) states, "Those
whose careers involved stints as both players and managers/executives/
umpires may be considered for their overall contributions to the game ..."
Toss in Hodges' nine years as manager of the Senators and Mets -- .467
winning percentage and all -- and I suppose that he does have a pretty good
case for Cooperstown.
That leaves Mazeroski. I've written about him, at some length, before.
Suffice to say, there's much evidence to suggest that, defensively, he was
essentially the Ozzie Smith of second base. However, Maz wasn't quite the
hitter that Ozzie was, and didn't have quite the career length. While I
certainly wouldn't lead the Hall of Fame parade for Mazeroski, neither would
I begrudge him his plaque.
The problem isn't with the candidates, it's with the system that chooses
among them. Due to past abuses perpetrated by the Veterans Committee, it now
draws from a small group of players. To be eligible for consideration, you
have to have either started your career before 1945, or drawn a significant
amount of support in the BBWAA elections.
Among the pre-1945 players, DiMaggio is virtually the only viable candidate,
which is essentially because nearly every pre-1945 ballplayer with any kind
of career has already been elected. That leaves DiMaggio, and guys like Mel
Harder and Wally Berger and Wilbur Cooper. All good players, none of them
legitimate Hall of Famers. Frankly, It's time to shut the door on pre-World
War II players, because any benefit gained from the possible inclusion of
those deserving (Wes Ferrell and Stan Hack, anyone?) will be far outweighed
by the likely inclusion of those undeserving.
Aside from electing an ex-player, the Committee is also allowed to select
from a group including managers, executives, and umpires. Dick Williams and
Marvin Miller have been mentioned as possibilities this year. Sometimes the
Committee doesn't pick anybody, but Williams wouldn't be a bad selection.
And then there's the Veterans Committee's "mandate" to select a 19th-century
player and a Negro Leagues player this year. Back in 1994, somebody realized
that the guys on the Veterans Committee were too busy voting for their old
cronies to even think about selecting any more Negro Leaguers, or anybody
who played in the previous century. So the Hall created two "special
elections" for players in those categories. Those mandates began in 1995 and
expired in 1999, but -- bowing to political pressure, methinks -- the Hall
extended the mandates through this year. And the special election for Negro
Leaguers will probably be extended again, to forestall the inevitable
charges of foul play.
It's significantly easier to get elected from one of these two categories,
because the voters don't really bring anything to the table. Most of them
know very little, if anything, about ballplayers from the 19th century. And
with the obvious exception of Buck O'Neil, most of them know very little, if
anything, about ballplayers who never got a chance in the American or
National League.
The way it works is, a Screening Committee, with help from the Society of
American Baseball Research, puts together a ballot for each category, each
ballot consisting of 10 candidates. And I promise you that if Buck O'Neil
argues for a particular Negro Leaguer, that's who makes it. And while there
remain a few good candidates from that category, if you work through the
math you'll see that the one-per-year quota simply shouldn't be allowed to
continue past this year. And the same goes for the 19th-century players.
MONDAY, MARCH 5In America, only two sorts of people have public middle names: Infamous murderers and actors who (presumably) share first and last names with older colleagues. In the first group, you've got wonderful characters like John Wayne Gacy, Mark David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray. In the second, you've got talented folks like Anthony Michael Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Hyde Pierce, and James Earl Jones. Now, baseball players are often compared to movie stars -- they're entertainers who play before millions of people, and some of them even make movie-star money -- and not so often to murderers. But after a week of perusing the baseball-related headlines (not to mention "my" message board, I'm starting to wonder if baseball writers and fans shouldn't start using three names for all the ballplayers in the news these days. How do these strike you? Frank Edward Thomas Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez Gary Antonian Sheffield George Kenneth Griffey Jr. David Christopher Justice Barry Lamar Bonds Unfortunately, Pat Burrell doesn't have a middle name, but for the sake of my fellow scribes, he can be Pat Thebat Burrell. Wouldn't want to forget him when the party invitations are being mailed out. Without going into detail, nearly all of the hullabaloo surrounding these three-named unfortunates strikes me as more than a tad silly. Mountains that should be molehills, and tempests in tiny teapots. But then, that's what spring training's all about, right? Since sometime in December, correspondents have been ending their e-mail messages to me with notes like "53 days 'til pitchers and catchers!" I certainly don't begrudge that sort of enthusiasm ... but I don't share it, either. It's not that I don't enjoy spring-training baseball. I do. But I have to actually be there to enjoy it. Because it seems like if you're thousands of miles away from Florida or Arizona, the only news from down south is bad news. But then, that's what happens when you turn a few score sportswriters loose, with nary a good story to be told. During the regular season, baseball news is about good things. In April, if Mark McGwire hits a homer in the bottom of the ninth off Greg Maddux, the headline will read: Big Mac's HR lifts Cards It won't read: Maddux blows lead! Regular-season baseball games are about winners, and so the winners are the stories. But spring-training baseball games are about ... well, they're about guys getting their work in, and aside from the occasional psychotic owner, nobody cares who wins. And when nobody cares who wins, what do you write about? That's the question baseball writers face each March. And this year, they're writing about Frank Edward Thomas's petulance, Gary Antonian Sheffield's peevishness, David Christopher Justice's denials, Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez's supposed misquotedness, etc. They're writing about Rick Ankiel's five-in-the-morning workouts, which are necessary because writers don't like to get up at five in the morning. They're writing about Chuck Knoblauch's every throw as if they were actual errors that meant something, because by God if you make one error in March, how many will you make in April? It's getting so when I wake up in the morning, fire up the ol' computer and log onto ESPN.com, the only question is, which baseball superstar today will be exposed as being emotionally maladjusted? I know, I know ... I shouldn't be so hard on my colleagues. After all, they're just writing what their editors tell them to write, and their editors are just telling them to write what they think we all want to read. Fair enough. My point is that baseball doesn't really get interesting until sometime around the middle of March, when players actually start winning (and losing) jobs. And baseball doesn't get really interesting until April, when everything that happens actually counts. And the ballplayers only have two names. FRIDAY, MARCH 2 The Mariners had it all figured out. After years of Lou Piniella cavalierly allowing his young pitchers to pile up too many pitches, prior to the 2000 season the club hired Bryan Price as Piniella's pitching coach. To Piniella's everlasting credit, he didn't dig his heels in, didn't throw a tantrum like a three-year-old who wants candy before supper. He didn't just go along with the program; he embraced it like a long-lost twin brother. Fact: In 1999, rookie Freddy Garcia threw at least 120 pitches in nine of his 33 starts. Fact: In 2000, Mariners starters threw at least 120 pitches in one of their 162 starts. And coincidentally or not, the Mariners posted a 4.49 ERA, second-lowest in the American League. OK, so the M's got a little, or maybe a lot of, help from Safeco Field. Still, it was a pretty impressive performance. And it led Jeff Bower to write in the latest "Baseball Prospectus," The Mariners can expect even bigger payoffs in the near future ... Prospects Ryan Anderson and Joel Pineiro will likely join Garcia and Gil Meche as the under-25 crowd in Seattle at some juncture this season. Twelve months ago, those pitchers would have needed a cadre of psychologists and surgeons, but the Safeco Field mound is a much safer place than it used to be. Piniella's willingness to adapt was and will continue to be a critical factor in the success of the pitching staff.Jeff's a friend of mine, but that particular prediction takes the early lead in the Worst Prediction of 2001 contest. Because Anderson won't be joining anybody, and nobody will be joining Meche. Or as Homer supposedly wrote, "Zeus does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment." |  | ||||