Tag Archives: MLB

HUMOR: Drawing Conclusions from Spring Training

Posted on by
Reply

As Spring Training games happen, I will have this feature, in which I humorously jump to crazy conclusions based on what has happened in the Spring Training games. These are not meant to be serious.

 

Well, it’s already one day into spring training, and we can already see that the Yankees are doomed. I mean, today they gave up three runs to Florida State, A COLLEGE TEAM. How are they going to beat MLB teams if they give up runs to a few college kids?

But the Tigers, man, they are ready. They blasted Florida Southern 12-0, just like a team of professionals should. Take note, Yankees, this is what a playoff team does- they shut out the amateurs. They didn’t give up three freaking runs. Seriously, the boss would be rolling over in his grave.

For the Super Bowl, here’s George Carlin again with “Baseball and Football”

Posted on by
Reply

This is at least the third time I’ve posted this, but it’s still funny.

$30.7 Million Dollars a year….

Posted on by
Reply

For $30.7 million dollars, you make enough money (before tax) each year to….

  • Stockpile 1697 pounds of gold a year
  • Stockpile over 52 tons of silver (short tons)
  • Make a little over three times the annual nominal GDP of the island country of Niue.
  • Finance 7.719 Gone With The Winds a year (note: not adjusted for inflation)
  • Finance 2.791 Star Wars: A New Hopes a year (again, not adjusted for inflation)
  • Actually, it would be enough to finance at least one equivalent production of any single movie ever made before 1963 before inflation. (Cleopatra was the first film that you couldn’t finance at least once with $30.7 million dollars)
  • (Also, while we’re at it, can I just say as an aside it’s amazing that the first Star Wars only cost $11 million dollars or so in the 1970s?)
  • Pay Babe Ruth‘s entire career salary (ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION) nearly twice.
  • Pay the total opening-day salary of the 2013 Houston Astros with over six-million dollars left over to spare.
  • Make about 76.75 times the average salary of the President of the United States (probably much more, given that they usually donate it to charity).
  • Be able to afford to pay one year of the contract of Clayton Kershaw under his new deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In short: Clayton Kershaw now is making a bunch of dough.

Greg Maddux as a Minor Leaguer… VIDEOS

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks Youtube! While looking up “Greg Maddux“, I found video of him as a 19-year-old in 1985 with the Peoria Chiefs. THREE VIDEOS OF IT, to be exact.

So, while I haven’t watched these yet, here are all three, for your viewing pleasure:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

My hypothetical HoF ballot: The Justifications

Posted on by
Reply

So, yesterday I had my hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot. So, here are my justifications for them:

Greg Maddux is the greatest control pitcher of the expansion era, if not any era. He was the best fielding pitcher of his time, if not all time. During the 1996 World Series, after the Braves had won game one, George Steinbrenner more or less demanded to know how Joe Torre was going to get out of this. Torre more or less told him that there was no way they were beating Maddux in Game 2 but after that things would turn around. Steinbrenner, apparently, took this as a legitimate excuse for going down 2-0 in the series. Let that sink in: losing to Greg Maddux was excusable to George Steinbrenner. Maybe I’m botching the retelling of that story a little bit, but not that much. A top-tier Hall of Famer.

Tom Glavine was the Robin to Greg Maddux’s Batman, a 10-time All-Star, 305 game winner, and two-time Cy Young winner who is underrated due to how great Maddux was.

Frank Thomas hit 521 home runs while also hitting .301. He is 14th in career OPS. He’s the Big Hurt, and he’s a Hall of Famer.

Craig Biggio played catcher, he played second, and he played in the outfield. And he was a great hitter who could get on base any way he could- he holds the record for HBP among modern players. Probably could have been a star in any era he played. Should have gone in last year.

Tim Raines may not get in on the “gut feeling” test, but he is, nonetheless, a Hall of Famer in my book. While certainly being a seven-time All-Star help, the big reason is because of how great he was as a leadoff hitter. Not only could he get on base- he was a respectable .294 hitter (and that was lower than it probably should have been because he stuck around a few years too long)- he also was a great base-stealer, 8th all-time.

Mike Piazza was the greatest power-hitting catcher of all time, and yet steroid rumors (none of which have been proven and most of which seem to be innuendo like saying he had an acne problem at one point) have kept him out. He should be in or whatever real evidence there is should be revealed.

Barry Bonds is in because, well, he was a Hall of Famer before he started using steroids in the late 1990s. The steroids merely turned him from a great player to arguably the greatest hitter of all time. Roger Clemens would also be on this list, for similar reasons, if there were more than 10 spots.

Edgar Martinez was the greatest DH-only player of his era. He won two batting titles, had a career .312 average, is 21st in career OBP and 34th in career OPS, and hit probably the most memorable hit in the history of the Seattle Mariners- the double that won the 1995 ALDS against the Yankees and arguably saved the franchise’s future in Seattle.
Should be in the Hall.

Jeff Kent was the 2000 MVP, a five-time all-star, and holds the record for HR by a 2B. Although famously prickly and a subpar fielder, he should definitely have gotten more votes than he did this year, and should one day be in the Hall.

Fred McGriff would be in the Hall of Fame right now if not for the 1994 strike. In the 113 games he had played in that year, he had 34 HRs. Had the season gone on, he would have been able to end his career with 500+ HRs, a steady hitter who never hit more than 40 HRs but constantly was hitting 30 or more. With basically no steroid cloud around him, he should be in the Hall of Fame.

 

Finally, I’d like to note that Jeff Bagwell would also be on the hypothetical ballot, but, again, 10 player limit. And Jack Morris, as great of a performer as he was at his peak, had a career ERA of 3.90, and I don’t believe in “pitching to the score”.

Roy Halladay retires, the three great managers inducted, I feel old

Posted on by
1

I swear I’m going to get up the latest Bizarre Baseball Culture soon, but today has brought two major news stories:

A) Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans’ Committee. Marvin Miller wasn’t, but that’s another story.

B) Roy Halladay, the Doctor, has announced his retirement, signing a one-day deal with Toronto to end his career as a Blue Jay.

So, for those keeping score, that means perhaps the three greatest managers of the past 30 years are now in the Hall of Fame, and perhaps the best pitcher of the last 10 or 11 years has retired.

It’s an interesting contrast when you look at it, because while almost everyone expected the three managers to get in the Hall of Fame, it’s unlikely many people expected Roy Halladay would have gone out with such a whimper. Injuries and the cruelty that comes with growing old led to his sharp decline in 2012 and 2013, while the Phillies lack of hitting and the sheer randomness of October left him without a World Series ring.

It’s a stretch to compare Halladay to Sandy Koufax, but there are some similarities, as both came to the big leagues young, with their first few years being rocky as their raw talent was often unable to make up for inexperience. But then, something clicked, and for a span (five or so years for Koufax, ten or so years for Halladay, albeit with a blip in 2004 when he was hurt) they became the best pitchers of their generations. Then, however, injuries forced them into premature retirements (Koufax at only 30, while Halladay at 36 after two years of decline that Koufax never had).

Another thing they will have in common? The Hall of Fame. Matthew Pouliot over at HardballTalk has a good summing up of why, but it essentially comes down to how good he was over that 10-year span, as well as the fact that, for his era, he was an exceptional pitcher, for example throwing almost double the amount of complete games as the next pitcher who remains active.

Yesterday was nuts

Posted on by
Reply

Well, that escalated quickly.

You know how I made that post about how crazy it could get in the winter meetings? Y’know, with the name of the Mystery Team, the free agents and traded players all redacted? Well, as yesterday went on, it became a lot less likely and a lot less intentionally funny.

So, for those of you who missed it, this happened yesterday:

  • The Orioles traded the ever hot-and-cold Jim Johnson to the Athletics for Jemile Weeks, a prospect, and perhaps some magic beans. This was late Monday, but I really didn’t hear about it until I woke up on Tuesday.
  • The Red Sox signed AJ Pierzynski.
  • The Tigers signed Joe Nathan.
  • The Rays, Reds and Diamondbacks had a three-way trade that ended with Tampa getting Ryan Hanigan and Heath Bell.
  • It came out that that Mariners apparently are in on Robinson Cano.
  • The Padres traded Luke Gregerson to the A’s for Seth Smith.
  • The Astros got Dexter Fowler from the Rockies.
  • The Marlins signed Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a three-year deal.
  • The Yankees signed Jacoby Ellsbury to a seven-year deal, $153 million dollar deal that is absolutely absurd given his injury history and the fact that he’s 30 years old.
  • The Rockies signed Justin Morneau to a two-year deal.
  • Oh, and we found out this morning that Paul Konerko will return for the White Sox this year, after speculation he would retire, and that Brandon Phillips will likely be back with the Reds, after speculation he would be traded.

Got all of that?

The Phil Hughes deal isn’t as crazy as you think

Posted on by
2

As you no doubt have found out by now, Phil Hughes has signed with the Minnesota Twins. On one hand, you likely thought this was a crazy and reckless move by the Twins, throwing 24 million dollars at a pitcher who has been wildly inconsistent and who was 4-14 last year with an abominable 5.19 ERA. At least Ricky Nolasco, the other big signing for the Twins in their attempt to make their rotation better, was good last season, after all.

But, get this: this could actually end up being a good move. Maybe.

For one, keep in mind the type of pitcher Hughes is. He’s a fly ball pitcher. Last year, 46.5% of balls hit off Hughes ended up as fly balls, according to FanGraphs. That’s a lot, and it is especially dangerous in stadiums like the new Yankee Stadium, which is a hitters park that at times seems to turn routine fly balls into unexpected home runs. Compare that to Target Field, however, where the opposite seems to happen: if I had a quarter for every time it looked like Joe Mauer had just hit one over the wall only for it to fall short (either turning into a double or a fly-out, depending on the outfielder and the part of the stadium he hit it to), I’d have many quarters.

It’s entirely possible that, with more of his games in a more spacious stadium, Hughes will be able to cut down on the gopher-balls and deflate his ERA quite a bit. Although it’s admittedly a small sample size (and he was facing Twins hitters), Hughes’ regular-season numbers in his three games and 21.1 innings at Target Field seem to back this assessment up. He is a career 2.53 ERA pitcher in those three games, and gave up just one HR (That’s one HR every 21.1 innings, compared to one HR every 5.015 innings in the current Yankee Stadium). If Hughes can replicate anything close to that performance when he pitches in Minnesota wearing a Twins’ jersey, he could prove to be a reliable two or three starter for the Twins, and certainly an improvement over the revolving door they had last season.

And, what’s more, there is also the fact that at times, Phil Hughes’ roller-coaster career has climbed very high. Back in 2010, for example, he was an All-Star who went 18-8 (more on that next sentence). As recently as 2012, he won 16 games, although, as Brian Kenny would tell you, that more-or-less tells you nothing (and, what’s more, he also lost 13 games). Could Hughes be heading for another upward trend? Well, that has yet to be seen, and the answer may well make the Twins look like geniuses (or fools).

The only post about the Braves’ move to reference “Back to the Future”, Doctor Who and Joe Mauer in the first two paragraphs

Posted on by
1

I need a time machine. Now. Or, well, I guess later would work as well. That’s the thing with time machines, after all. Still, I need a time machine. And when I have it, I intend on going back to Las Vegas in 2010, and tell them that I wanted to place a bet that by Opening Day of 2014 the Atlanta Braves would have announced plans to move from Turner Field and Joe Mauer would become a full-time first baseman.

I then would have hopped into my DeLorean and/or TARDIS, travel to today, and cash in enough money where I could buy a small nation, because that’s what happening. And, while many could read the tea leaves about Mauer, nobody saw the death of Turner Field coming, and for a very good reason:

It goes against almost every single thing we know about stadium movement. Most teams move towards the center of their cities, the Braves are moving away from it. Most teams flee old stadiums, and while Turner Field isn’t young anymore, it’s less than two decades old. Most teams don’t keep their moving plans total secrets… but the Braves did.

Now, to be fair, the Braves do have some good points: most of their season-ticket base is from the suburbs, and their new Cobb County facility will be closer to them. That, in turn, would likely increase in-stadium attendance, a  And, yes, they are getting a good deal from Cobb County, essentially letting them get a whole new stadium for the same price (as far as the team’s own funds) as what they would have spent if they renovated Turner Field entirely out of their own fund. And, at least in theory, the new stadium would be better located logistically, near two major interstate highways.

But, well, it still goes against most conventional wisdom, especially when one takes into account various caveats about the Braves’ good points. For example, the traffic in the areas north of Atlanta is infamously bad, and I myself remember being stuck in traffic during a family trip down there back in 2008. There is no mass-transit to Cobb County, for various reasons (some of them ugly), which would presumably have helped alleviate that traffic problem.

But, most of all, there is the general bad taste that is left in people’s mouths as a post-Camden Yards stadium is replaced for the first time, even as the Athletics and Rays are stuck in fields from a bygone era. And, perhaps even more worrying: virtually every stadium opened since Camden Yards changed the landscape of baseball stadium design was built with platitudes about them being able to carry their franchises “well into the 21st century”.

And yet, come 2017, not even a fifth of the way through the century, one of them will be replaced.

While Turner Field has always been something of an oddball amongst the post-Camden Yards boom (more brought about by the 1996 Olympics than any type of real plan), one worries about what sort of precedent that might set.

The Silver Slugger, the Forgotten Award (and why I think they are)

Posted on by
Reply

The Silver Sluggers were announced tonight, and so I guess now is as good a time as any to note that, to me at least, the Silver Slugger awards always seem to be the odd-man-out of the awards. I mean, everybody knows of the MVP, the Cy Young, the Gold Gloves, the Rookie of the Year, and even the Manager of the Year, but the Silver Sluggers, it seems, are always forgotten about. You never hear about how so-and-so was snubbed in the Silver Slugger vote, or how such-and-such only won the Silver Slugger two times but would have won it many more if they hadn’t been playing the same position as an all-time great.

And here’s the two reasons I think that is the case:

1) It’s young.

The Silver Slugger was first awarded in 1980. By contrast, MVPs have been awarded in some form since 1911 and in it’s current form since 1931. The Rookie of the Year Award has been given out since 1947. The Cy Young Award (named that not because of any claim that Cy Young was the greatest pitcher of all time- although he most definitely is in the discussion- so much as because Young pitched in both leagues) was first given out in 1956. The Gold Glove awards were first given out in 1957.  Only the Manager of the Year Award is younger amongst the most notable MLB awards, and even that had some precursors in various magazines and newspapers. So, basically, the Silver Slugger hasn’t had enough time to build up any sort of tradition around it, in contrast.

2) Hitting isn’t that different by position, unlike fielding.

No matter what position, ultimately a hitter is a hitter, and they all need the same qualification: being able to hit the ball. Contrast this to fielding, where a Gold Glove shortstop is vastly different from a Gold Glove catcher, who is different from a Gold Glove outfielder. Each position requires at least somewhat of a different tool-set, unlike hitting, where a great hitter is a great hitter, no matter what position it is.

Let’s take Adam Jones as an example. He won (rather controversially- by the statistics he probably didn’t deserve it as much as some others) the Gold Glove this year, and also won the Silver Slugger. Now, if Buck Showalter received a knock on the head and suddenly decided Adam Jones should play second base, it’s highly unlikely that Jones would be able to win the Gold Glove there, since he has always been an OFer and thus lacks the instincts and training to be a good 2B, at least right now. However, Adam Jones would remain a viable Silver Slugger candidate there. See what I mean?

So, in essence, the fact that the Silver Slugger doesn’t really tell you anything other than that that player is one of the best hitters and that he plays at a certain position keeps it from being as big a deal as some others.

 

So, that’s why I think the Silver Slugger Award isn’t as big a deal as other awards… what do you think?