Monthly Archives: November 2012

Headlines from around the Continuum: November 30, 2012

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Headlines from around the world, courtesy of the Newseum’s website.

Story: Denard Span traded to Nationals for prospect Alex Meyer

Star Tribune (Minneapolis): SPAN DEALT TO NATS (Subhead: “Twins get pitching prospect Meyer in trade”)

Washington Times (Washington Post didn’t have any big headlines about it): Nationals fill need, acquire center fielder Denard Span.

Denard Span himself:

 

Sadly, my original plan to include reactions to David Wright’s new deal was foiled by the fact it happened after press time for most papers. Perhaps tomorrow.

A detailed look at the BBWAA HoF ballot, Part 1: The Unquestionable and the guys who may have been HoF before alleged drug use and so may make it anyway

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In a world without steroids, where all of the magic numbers of the 1990s and early 2000s were just because of superhuman ability and extremely hard work, this is how this article would start:

“Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Sosa, Biggio, and perhaps Schilling. That’s five, maybe six sure-fire HoFers coming onto the ballot this year, and Kenny Lofton, while not a Hall of Famer in my opinion, should certainly be expected to stick around the ballot for awhile. Not to mention this could be the year Jack Morris gets in. The biggest worry, really, is whether it’s possible to get more than three or four of them in this year and whether the Cooperstown Chamber of Commerce can handle the pilgrimage that will besiege the village, likely the largest group since Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn and Mark McGwire were inducted in 2007…”

Of course, steroids did and do exist, so instead of having five or six sure-fire Hall of Famers on the ballot, it’s a picture that is far less clear. Oh, and Mark McGwire? He wasn’t inducted in 2007. In fact, he’s still on the ballot right now, and likely will remain. Same goes for Rafael Palmeiro, who has even less of a chance than McGwire of one day having a plaque up in Cooperstown’s halls. Both of them would have already been inducted, probably in their first year, had it not been for steroids.

So, instead, we have many categories and shades of grey. Over the next few days, I’ll take a look at those categories.

Unquestionably Hall of Fame, Probably First Ballot:

Craig Biggio: Only three men have had 3000+ hits, 200+ home runs, and 400+ stolen bases. Two of them are Paul Molitor and Rickey Henderson. The third is Craig Biggio. Add in his defensive flexibility (he played 2B, C and OF during his career) and the fact that there isn’t a whiff of steroid scandal around him, and he’s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

Mike Piazza: Piazza has had some steroid stuff around him, but it’s generally been hearsay (he had back acne, according to some people) and general innuendo about the fact that he played during the steroid era. That’s not enough for me, and I don’t think it’ll be enough for the voters. Piazza was, quite simply, the best power-hitting catcher in history. He had more home runs than any other catcher, had a career .308 BA, and made 12 all-star teams.

(Alleged) Steroid-users that may make the Hall of Fame anyway:

Barry Bonds: Without the steroid allegations, Bonds would be so much a slam dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer that the only question would be whether his prickly reputation with the media would keep him from getting 97% or more of the vote. In fact, had he retired after the 1998 season (he allegedly began taking steroids shortly after 1998, partially because of his envy of the attention that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting), he would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. After all, he’d have retired with 411 HRs, 1216 RBIs, eight All-Star wins, three MVPs, eight Gold Gloves, seven Silver Sluggers, and an OPS of .966 that would be 15th all-time today, ahead of such immortals as Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Ty Cobb and Duke Snider. Had he kept going after 1998 without (alleged) steroid-use, he still likely would have gotten to 500 HRs, possibly even 600.

Of course, he did end up (allegedly) using steroids, and as a result he grew from being “merely” the best baseball player since Frank Robinson to being the best baseball player since Ted Williams or Babe Ruth. The question is: does the fact he would have been a HoF before his alleged use of PEDs make up for the fact that, well, he allegedly used PEDs? And… I don’t know.

Roger Clemens: Much like Bonds, the question of Clemens will depend on whether voters consider him as having been good enough of a player before his (alleged) drug use. Clemens (allegedly) began using during his time in Toronto, so let’s just question what would have happened if he had had a career-ending injury in a freak accident shortly after the 1996 season ended in. He would have ended his career with a 192-111 record, a 3.06 ERA, 2590 strikeouts and 100 complete games. He also would have three Cy Youngs to his name, as well as an MVP and five All-Star Games. He almost certainly would be elected to the Hall of Fame.

But, once again, his career didn’t stop there. He went on, and (allegedly) made some bad decisions. So the question is far more difficult.

 

Come back tomorrow for more.

Cheat Sheet: (Almost) All of the Most Recent Champions (as of Nov. 29, 2012)

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(Note: Not included are leagues still in session)

So, who’s the defending champion in the….

The Top Leagues:

…MLB? San Francisco Giants

…NPB? Yomiuri Giants

…KBO? Samsung Lions

…CPBL? Lamigo Monkeys

…Mexican League? Rojos del Aguila de Veracruz

The Affiliated Minors:

…International League? Pawtucket Red Sox

…Pacific Coast League? Reno Aces

…Eastern League? Akron Aeros

…Southern League? Mobile BayBears

…Texas League? San Antonio Missions

…California League? Lancaster JetHawks

…Carolina League? Lynchburg Hillcats

…Florida State League? Lakeland Flying Tigers

…Midwest League? Wisconsin Timber Rattlers

…South Atlantic League? Asheville Tourists

…NY-Penn League? Hudson Valley Renegades

…Northwest League? Vancouver Canadians

…Appalachian League? Elizabethton Twins

…Pioneer League? Missoula Osprey

…Gulf Coast League? Gulf Coast Pirates

…Arizona League? Arizona Rangers

…Dominican Summer League? DSL Pirates Team 1

…Venezuelan Summer League? VSL Pirates

(Want more? Go below the jump!)

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Random video of the undetermined amount of time: Ichiro is awesome, sells wine doing so

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Is this real or fake? Does it matter? Click the link below if it doesn’t show up correctly for you.

#sato #yunker #ichiro suzuki #health and beauty… by JPCMHD

A few statistics that show Marvin Miller’s impact on baseball

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Marvin Miller, the man behind the Major League Baseball Players Association’s rise from an ineffective organization to the most powerful labor organization in the history of the country, has passed away at the age of 95. There are many people who have written big in-depth looks at Miller’s impact, and you should check those out. Here, however, I’ll just let the numbers speak for themselves:

$6,000: The minimum salary of a MLB player when Marvin Miller took over the union in 1966.

$19,000: The average salary of a MLB player when Marvin Miller took over the union in 1966.

$241,000: The average salary of a MLB player when Marvin Miller retired in the early 1980s.

$480,000: The minimum salary of an MLB player in 2012.

$3.4 million: The average salary of an MLB player at the beginning of the 2012 season.

Whatever your opinion of Miller, the union or money in baseball, you cannot deny that he, and the union he built, has left a permanent mark upon the way the business of baseball is operated.

2013 WBC Team USA projections Version 2.011

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(EDITED IN ON DEC. 31: As of this writing, the most recent projection for the United States can be found here.)

With more stuff coming out about what players might or might not be taking part in the WBC, here’s another update of how Team USA looks. As we get closer to the tournament and some players start to drop out (Chris Sale, for example, has said he will probably won’t take part), it becomes clear that America’s best strength is it’s depth. Other countries have a line of superstars, but not much below that, but Team USA has a player pool that lets it take a licking but keep on ticking. Sale is out, you say? Well, there’s still plenty of good lefty starters like Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley, Matt Harrison, C.J. Wilson, Madison Bumgarner, Cliff Lee, Derek Holland….

You get the idea.

This version, VERSION 2.011, includes the official coaching staff of Team USA, as confirmed by MLB’s official website.

A refresher on my selection rules/assumptions:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

Now, go after the jump for the full look:

Continue reading →

Long-Term Deals: The Way to the Future

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Two things caught my eye this morning, and while on first glance you would think they aren’t related, in fact they may be tied together.

The first is an article by Jeff Passan on how the money involved with regional sports network deals, such as the one the Dodgers are expected to take that will be between $6 and $7 billion dollars, are going to widen the gap between the rich and poor in baseball.

The second is the news that Evan Longoria has signed a $100 million dollar extension with Tampa that will keep him with the team until as late as 2023, depending on options.
How are these connected? Well, in a word, the events of the first article will probably lead to us seeing more deals like the Longoria deal of the second article.

Consider: the bubble of money that Regional Sports Networks will bring the big market teams- amounts of money that not even revenue sharing will dent all of that much- will make it extremely hard for teams to keep top free agents from leaving. A team like Tampa will just simply be unable to outbid, even on a good day, one of the top markets. While of course there will be some exceptions such as “hometown discounts” and big markets botching negotiations, the fact is that the best way for a smaller market to keep talent will be to make sure that they never leave in the first place. The way to do that? Sign them up early, and sign them up often.

Longoria, for example, had already been signed to a contract extension early in his career, before he became his MVP self. That was a deal extremely kind to the Rays. This second deal is more in line with Longoria’s value, but is also good for the Rays (at least in the short-term), since it means that he won’t be leaving.

Longoria’s deal is just the latest in what has become a trend… but expect it to become the norm as time goes on.

Links of the undetermined amount of time: Grantland and Sports On Earth

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When I am asked- and I am never asked- where to find the best sportswriting on the internet, I point (well, I would point if I was ever asked) to one of two websites.
The first, and the older of the two, is Grantland. Part of the ESPN empire and run by “Boston Sports Guy” Bill Simmons, it sports a large roster of writers writing about not only sports, but also popular culture. While it can sometimes be hit and miss, and Simmons’ himself is decidedly a mixed bag, it is still a daily destination, especially during big-time sports events.

The second, newer but more focused on sports, is Sports on Earth, a joint-venture between USA Today and Major League Baseball Advanced Media that is like Grantland, only without the pop culture. One of the biggest drawing cards for SoE is the fact that it features Joe Posnanski, one of the best sports columnists on the internet, period.

Check them out.

If Indiana Jones looked for baseball things…

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If Indiana Jones looked for baseball things, what would he be looking for? I have a few ideas. This is similar to my post in May about the great mysteries of baseball, but is a bit more in-depth.

The Bobby Thomson Ball

Possibly the Holy Grail of Baseball Artifacts, the ball from the 1951 “Shot Heard Round the World” would be potentially worth millions of dollars. However, back then very few people would have thought of that, unlike today, where the ball would have likely been immediately been authenticated and then be handed to either Thomson, the Hall of Fame, or sold at auction.

However, there’s no way of knowing what could have happened to it now. Right? Well, some people have tried. There is a book out there about one man’s search for it, which I should really get out of the library one of these days. But given the fact that there were no big news items about how the ball had been found, I’m guessing the search turned out without the ball in hand.

The Source of Lena Blackburne’s Mud

The mud that is put on baseballs to remove the weird new-ball sheen all comes from a single source somewhere in New Jersey. The source of the mud is a closely guarded secret, hidden through the years.

I, for one, once tried to figure out where it was located, at which point I would reveal the location here on this blog, solving the mystery and bringing me miniscule amounts of fame and even less amount of fortune.

I decided against it, however, for three reasons:

A) I felt that revealing a trade secret held by a single family for generations would be in poor taste.

B) If I somehow was right I might’ve gotten sued, or led to some type of strange tourism that would have messed with the ecology of New Jersey’s creeks and rivers, or something.

C) I wasn’t able to narrow it down very much anyway. Seriously, here’s what I was able to extrapolate from the various news articles and other writings about the source of the Rubbing Mud:

That’s a big area, and I wasn’t able to narrow it down any more than that (although I will admit I drew that circle too big). I quit trying when I realized points A and B.

Babe Ruth’s Piano

Tommy Holmes, a sportswriter in New York from the 1920s to 1950s, once said that he had to stop telling Babe Ruth stories because eventually nobody believed him. Such a man was Babe Ruth.

One of the legends around him is that, during a drunken 1918 party, Ruth somehow had a piano fall into a pond in Sudbury, Massachusetts. For years, some people wondered if perhaps this was the true cause of the Curse of the Bambino (it wasn’t). Still, the piano has never been found, and most doubted it even existed in the first place… but then a piece of piano veneer was found in 2010. So could Babe Ruth’s piano still be in Willis Pond? Maybe.

The Earliest TV Recordings

In the earliest days of television, things usually weren’t saved, instead being taped over. As a result, some of the earliest treasures in television either don’t exist anymore or only exist in incomplete forms. While occasionally a recording is found in a private collection (Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, for example, was found in Bing Crosby’s old wine cellar), most of them are probably lost forever. Early episodes of The Honeymooners and The Tonight Show? Gone. Super Bowl II (and, for a long time, Super Bowl I)? Gone. Art Fleming’s time on Jeopardy? Gone.

But, most importantly for this blog, this includes most of the early World Series that were on television. As mentioned before, some do exist, such as Game 7 of the ’60 series and Don Larsen’s perfect game, but the vast majority of World Series games from the late 40s to the mid-60s are probably gone forever.

 

Things to be thankful for this year in Baseball

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Happy Thanksgiving! Here are some things to be thankful for this year:

  • Be thankful for Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, extraordinarily talented young players who we should be seeing for years to come.
  • Be thankful for Justin Verlander’s ability to throw a fastball into triple digits in the 9th inning. I mean, wow.
  • Be thankful that baseball is in a golden age of labor peace.
  • Be thankful that teams like the Orioles and Athletics have returned to contention, and that the Blue Jays may be well on their way to it.
  • Be thankful that we live in an age where we can watch almost any game through the internet or through Extra Innings packages, so long as you don’t live in Vegas, Charlotte, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, or parts of New Mexico.
  • Be thankful for MLB Network, which is awesome.
  • Be thankful you aren’t a Marlins fan. If you are a Marlins fan, I suggest you binge on eggnog tonight. And then some.
  • Above all else, be thankful that there’s only about 82 days until pitchers and catchers report!