I truly hope that Bobby Bonds got to see last night’s Giants game.
If any other player was doing the kinds of things Barry Bonds is doing this year, they’d start a cable channel in his honor: ESPN 25. “651! Every Homer, Every Angle” “World’s Scariest 3-1 Pitches” “Keen Eye of the Big Guy” “Thigh-High Fastball: My Short and Painful Life”
Forget the raw stats, the RBI Baseball numbers he’s putting up for the third straight season. Forget how opposing managers handle him the way Arnold Schwarzenegger handles an issue question. Forget how he’s about the only left-handed hitter in the world who hits homers at Pac Bell Park.
Just think about last night. The Giants were tied in the 10th inning with their likely NLCS opponent, carrying a five-game losing streak. The Diamondbacks had already won, drawing to within eight games of a team that had been two laps ahead just a minute ago. Injuries had forced almost the entire starting infield to the bench.
The Braves’ front office claims the team is losing money; the Twins offense has been decidedly mediocre, and it showed last Thursday; and the Devil Rays just aren’t a patient bunch. All this and much more news from Atlanta, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay in your Wednesday Edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
The Angels grant Benji Gil his freedom, while the Orioles do the same for Rick Helling. The Cubs continue their quest to field one of the worst infields on a pennant contender in decades. The Royals make the best of a cloudy rotation situation. The Rangers’ pitching buffet’s not looking too appetizing. These and other news, notes, and Kahrlisms in this edition of Transaction Analysis.
Barry Bonds’ prolific mashing has pushed him in to a shot at the major league lead in career home runs. All this attention has neglected some other possible feats in career achievement. There are two historic baseball records under assault, and no one seems to care. When players threaten to break the single-season strikeout record, they get benched. We’ve seen it happen even if they’re having productive seasons, like with Jose Hernandez when he was with the Brewers. Andres Galarraga passed Jose Canseco on the career strikeout list this year, taking over position two on the list. Galarraga’s not a full-time whiffer, though, and we have to look further down on our list to find our next great hope: Sammy Sosa. Sluggin’ Sammy had 1,834 Ks going into this season, and he reels off 150 a year. Plus, he’s only 34, and should have a few more fine years left in him. He and Galarraga could be two-three after this season, and after that you’re looking at Jim Thome (who stands about 30th all-time right now) as the only non-Sosa candidate to challenge the long-standing reign of K King Reggie Jackson. Jackson’s 2,597 strikeouts are the Mt. McKinley of career marks to the Everest and Kilimanjaro of home runs and hits.
Among contenders this season, it was the Dodgers who most resembled Sisqo. That is, they were fleeting, not possessed of the skills necessary to persist, and ultimately inconsequential. And no hit single to make the ladies squeal and shake it either. Not so long ago, Joe Sheehan did a crackin’ good job of deconstructing the Dodgers’ flaccid offense, so I won’t belabor the point. But I will add that the Dodgers’ run-scoring problems aren’t a recent phenomenon. In fact, for much of their history, they’ve been less offensive than a Billy Graham knock-knock joke. The Dodgers haven’t finished in the top five in the NL in runs scored since 1991, and they’ve led the senior circuit in runs scored exactly twice since moving to Los Angeles prior to the 1958 season. Additionally, they’ve been one of the worst organizations in baseball in terms of identifying and developing hitters. The lineage of highly productive, homegrown Dodger hitters runs from Mike Piazza (himself a nepotistic afterthought when tapped in the 62nd round of the 1988 amateur draft) to…Pedro Guerrero? If I’m in a charitable mood I’ll throw in the merely decent Raul Mondesi and the so-far-so-good Paul Lo Duca, but you get the idea. So why is that?
The A’s usually don’t have to deal with injuries to their pitchers and as we all know, never have to deal with arm problems. In Tuesday’s game, Mark Mulder left the game with a strained right hip. It’s too early to tell yet how serious the injury will be and if he might miss a start or more. As I reported yesterday, I still think that Tim Hudson will be pushed back, despite signals from the A’s that he’ll be ready. I say this in the most respectful way, but we can’t trust the A’s completely when it comes to injuries. No one is better at keeping things close to the vest, but unlike most things the A’s try to do, this one gives them no advantage. In Tuesday’s game with the A’s, Derek Lowe was forced out just after Mulder. Lowe had a recurrence of blistering on his pitching thumb. Reports conflict on the location of the blister and whether it is the same area where Lowe had blisters in June. Again, I’ll point out that even a small injury such as this could be the difference between the Sox making the playoffs or not. I’ll be following this one closely.
I discounted it at the time when Bartolo Colon bent over late in a start just a few weeks back, but that could have been the sign of things to come. Colon has been rocked lately, leaving pitches up, lacking velocity and command, and ceding the team ace status to Mark Buehrle. As with Derek Lowe, even the slightest injury could be the tipping point for the tight AL Central, and Colon’s next start will be pivotal.
Continuing from Part I of the discussion with Paths To Glory authors Mark Armour and Levitt…
BP: Reading about certain teams–the ’97 Marlins immediately come to mind–there seems to be a strong preference among some people for teams that build from within instead of buying a pennant. Having covered both kinds of teams in the book, is there a way that strikes you as more effective? Is one way somehow more noble than the other? Levitt: My take is that the aim of the game is to win. As long as you don’t cheat, however you do it is fine. Building through the farm system is a good way to do it because it’s cheaper. But when (Charles) Comiskey bought Eddie Collins and Joe Jackson in 1914 and 1915, he was taking advantage of the economics of the time; other teams could have done the same, and didn’t. I don’t feel that one way is the noble way and one way is the evil way. Good organizations will use any and all methods to build a winner. Armour: One reason we chose to write about the Marlins was that history has mistreated them. Some of that is because they went on a spending spree, then won. Then the team was torn apart. They deserved to be criticized for being torn apart. But the way they were built was brilliant. They were an expansion team, and they had the right approach. They built a strong farm system. Then they identified what they needed. They decided they needed a cleanup hitter and third baseman, a left fielder and a starting pitcher. So they got the best player available for each job, Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, and Alex Fernandez. It’s not that it’s not noble to spend and win, just that it’s hard. A lot of teams have gone out and tried to spend a lot of money. But it’s hard to find three good players to fill three holes, or five to fill five. The Marlins did this really well. Levitt: The problem with modern free agency and buying players that way is that great players often only become available when they’re in their 30s. People don’t realize that Bonds and Maddux are the best of the free agent signings, and that it’s hard to get a real impact player that way, let alone someone like Bonds or Maddux. There’s also a lot of thought that buying a bunch of players is a new idea, but it’s not. Tom Yawkey in the 30s did it with the Red Sox, and the Yankees also did it in the 30s. Comiskey did it, and so did the Boston Braves in the 40s. The great teams have almost always acquired a bunch of their players through purchases. If you look at a team like the Pirates in the late 40s though, after Bing Crosby bought the team, they spent a lot of money on a bunch of old players, including Hank Greenberg, and that didn’t help them at all–they still finished last every year.
The Chicago talk radio circuit was pounding Kerry Wood after a sub-par performance on Saturday. News of Wood’s back injury came out and got slammed. Some were branding him a pouter or someone looking for an excuse, but people are looking at the wrong words in that quote. The injury is a minor one, more of an annoyance than anything that truly affects Wood’s normal pitching motion. Still, Wood is following the Nolan Ryan career path, minus the no-hitters and longevity…so far.
David Wells and the Yankees will make a decision about his scheduled start on Thursday after a bullpen session on Monday. Wells had been Eckersleyesque this season with his control until his back altered his motion and forced him to do what one scout called “arming the ball” more. Wells may be the pitcher most helped by the return of Jose Contreras in a couple weeks (and perhaps Jon Lieber) if he can get some extra rest in the first half of September, then two or three starts to shake things loose for October.
Doug Mientkiewicz had something that sounds unusual on the surface–two cortisone shots in one session–but it makes more sense once you know that he has two different problem areas in the same wrist. Mientkiewicz’s wrist is so problematic at this stage of the season that even after coming off the DL, a routine play forced him out. The Twins will look to Matt LeCroy in the short term and Justin Morneau in the long term, once he’s recalled from Triple-A.
Friday’s column never happened.
Had I written a Friday column, I definitely wouldn’t have talked about how MLB hadn’t rescheduled a Diamondbacks/Royals rainout yet, because they have (September 4), travel nightmares be damned. I certainly wouldn’t have alluded to a Marlins/Braves matchup in the Division Series, which can’t occur. There’s no way I would have insinuated that the Mets and Rockies wouldn’t play Friday night, because that would have been silly.
But I didn’t write a Friday column, so none of that happened.
Having played the first half of his career before the Second World War, Joe DiMaggio is not eligible to be on Albert Pujols’ PECOTA comparables list. However, there’s little doubt that the Yankee Clipper would place high atop the table if he had been born just 10 years later. The similarity scores at baseball-reference.com listed the pair as the best age-based likenesses for one another entering the season, and the events of this year are only likely to enhance the comparison.
DiMaggio won his first batting title and his first MVP award in 1939–at age 24, he was one year older than Pujols is currently listed. DiMaggio, unlike Pujols, had been heralded as a top prospect from the time he was a teenager playing in the PCL, and was coming off of a fine triplet of seasons in the big leagues. But 1939 was his coming out party, much like 2003 has been for Pujols.
Conveniently enough, DiMaggio, limited by a foot injury that he suffered in April, played in just 120 games that season, almost exactly the total that Pujols has accumulated up until now. Compare DiMaggio’s ’39 against Pujols’ current campaign, and the similarities are striking.
The White Sox need to drop their ticket prices. A closer look at the Cardinals bullpen. The Rangers have a slew of options for the outfield and first base. These and other news and notes out of Chicago, St. Louis, and Texas in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
The DiSar Awards haven’t been clinched just yet–I’ve learned better than to make an official announcement before the season is over–but they do appear to be in safe hands, at least in the American League. And no, it’s not Rocco Baldelli’s mitts holding the Golden Crutch.
I announced the contest to pick the 2003 award winners this spring a little bit late, not getting to it until a few days into the season. Because of that, the vast majority of the entrants selected Baldelli, the free-swinging Devil Rays rookie, as the eventual AL award winner. Baldelli made a nice run, reaching 60 at-bats before his first walk, but he only held the top AL mark for a few days, getting caught by Deivi Cruz soon afterwards.
Cruz didn’t hold on, either; his 70 at-bats were passed by Matt Walbeck in July, but The Walbeck couldn’t even garner this much glory. A week ago, he, too, saw his total of 75 walkless at-bats to start the season eclipsed. Walbeck was passed by a player who received no votes in the preseason balloting, although his brother was one of the most popular candidates after Baldelli.
J.P. Ricciardi doesn’t like giving away outs. Maury Wills thinks speed is underrated. Lloyd McClendon thinks he’s victim of an injustice, and that doesn’t even count having to manage the Pirates. Tom Martin just does his job, and Julian Tavarez likes ’em old, fat, rich, and dirty. All this and many more quips in this week’s edition of The Week In Quotes.
The Astros’ farm system has started to dry up. The Brewers’ future could take a while to unfold. The A’s made a puzzling move by designating Adam Piatt for assignment. These and other news and notes out of Houston, Milwaukee, and Oakland in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Terrible performance and tons of playing time has made Endy Chavez a giant drag on the Expos’ offense. The off-season’s Ortiz-for-Moss deal wasn’t as bad as you think for the Giants. Kevin Cash is the latest catcher-of-the-future for the Blue Jays. These and other news and notes out of Montreal, San Francisco, and Toronto in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
Yesterday’s Giants/Mets game almost certainly will not be made up, given that the Giants have a big lead in the NL West and the Mets won’t need to play the game to determine their draft position. The cancellation does bring to mind that one game that appears very relevant has yet to be made up. The Diamondbacks and Royals have an interleague contest that hasn’t been rescheduled yet, and share just one highly inconvenient off day for the rest of the season.
I like chaos, and the idea that the two teams might have to play on September 29 to determine who does or does not go to the playoffs–or better yet, who goes to a one-game playoff, or who’s in a three-way tie–is just a delicious notion. I’m picturing the Marlins watching the game in an airport bar, bags packed, with plans to fly to Arizona if the Snakes win, and Atlanta if they don’t.
In general, baseball won’t be affected by the power outage. The Tigers, Yankees and Blue Jays are on the road. The Indians are home facing the Devil Rays, a series that can be cancelled as a public service. The Mets face the Rockies at home. Now, the Rockies are a fringe wild-card candidate at best, and are scheduled to be in the city through Monday. It’s possible that the teams could make up cancellations tonight and tomorrow–I’d imagine powering up a ballpark is low on the priority list–with doubleheaders Sunday and Monday.