Tag: baseball

2013 Hall of Fame Ballot

By Blaidd Drwg

This year the Hall of Fame ballot gets crowded and interesting. Steroids argument aside, you have two guys who statistically are among the 10 best players in the history of the game and 4 guys who have a strong case that they should be in the Hall, and those are just the guys who are on the ballot for the first time this year.

If I had a vote, my ballot would have the 10 name maximum on it this year and probably for the next 4 or 5 years. Here is how it would look (keep in mind the steroid questions are a non-issue for me):

The New Guys
Barry Bonds – No brainer, only some guys named Babe Ruth and Cy Young have higher career WAR’s than Bonds
Roger Clemens – Easily the most dominating pitcher of the last 40 years, which is saying a lot.
Craig Biggio – He was overshadowed by the gaudy power numbers of his era, but this is a guy who hit, took walks, stole bases and won 4 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. Heck, he even switched to the outfield when the team asked him to. Basically he was the 1990’s version of Robin Yount.
Mike Piazza – Arguably the best hitting catcher in MLB history. Not bad for a guy who was drafted in the 62nd round of the draft as a favor by Tommy LaSorda to Piazza’s father.
Curt Schilling – Forget the bloody sock in 2004. Schilling was among the best in baseball for the better part of a decade, should have won at least one Cy Young award and is probably the best post season pitcher in the 2000’s and maybe the last 50 years.

The Returning Guys
Jeff Bagwell – He needs to be in. The guy could hit and run and field and, unfortunately, got lost in the shuffle by playing his entire career in Houston.
Alan Trammell – Larkin is in, Trammell was better.
Rafael Palmiero – Do I need to say anything more than 500 HR and 3000 hits?
Tim Raines – I think last year was “The Rock’s” last, best chance. The ballot is too crowded and I don’t think he has enough support.
Mark McGwire – The guy was a masher but he was the modern version of Ralph Kiner.

Sadly, I think that Jack Morris will get in this season, despite being less than qualified and not even being better than another guy who should not be anywhere close to getting elected – David Wells. Don’t believe me, look it up. Wells and Morris had very similar regular season numbers and Wells was a better post season pitcher than Morris.

My prediction for election – Morris is the only guy who gets in because the writers are idiots and won’t vote for anyone they suspect might have been involved with steroids, even without proof.

1969 Seattle Pilots Photos

By Blaidd Drwg

This is really cool – the Seattle PI/MOHAI uncovered some photo negatives from the Seattle Pilots 1969 spring training and some game images.  Below is my favorite photo of the bunch. It amazes me how something like this can just disappear into an archive and get discovered some 43 years later.  You can see all of the photos here.

Photo: MOHAI/Seattle Post-Intelligencer Collection / SL

Ichiro and His 2012 Batting Average

By Blaidd Drwg

Ichiro saluting Coltrane on his nearly accurate 2012 BA prediction.

Back before the season started at a get together we had, there was a discussion on Ichiro. Without much thought, a number of us placed a prediction on what we thought his batting average would be at the end of the season. We put nothing on the bet and I hadn’t really thought about posting this until I found the paper the other day that we put our predictions on. So here is what we originally guessed:

Coltrane – .282
Annie S. – .292
Blaidd Drwg – .293
Mrs. Iron Chef Leftovers – .275
PW – .352

Thanks to a great last couple of months at the end of the season when he got traded to the Yankees, Ichiro managed to post a .283 average for the season, making Coltrane the winner of absolutely nothing other than recognition in this blog (like that is worth anything).

Minor League Baseball Returns to PDX

By Blaidd Drwg

Minor league teams have a habit of coming up with some interesting names. Currently, you have the Winston-Salem Dash, the Kannapolis Intimidators, Mahonig Valley Scrappers, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (I love that name) and Lansing Lug Nuts, just to name a few.

For the 2013 season, minor league baseball is coming back to the Portland area in the form of the Hillsboro Hops. The logo?

Nothing like combining two of my favorite things; baseball and beer. I might be buying myself one of their hats when they are finally available. On an interesting side note, the Hops replace the Bears in the NW league. The humor of this – Yakima is actually the largest hops producing region in the country. Oregon, specifically the Willamette Valley (close to Hillsboro), is second.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

By Blaidd Drwg

Way back in January, after a spending binge, I wrote a scathing article and my prediction for the future of the Florida Miami Marlins. As a refresher, here is what I wrote:

My prediction is the circus in South Florida yields a .500 team this season and they are breaking the team up by June of next year.

I think I was harsher than most people on the future of the Marlins; most people predicted them to be a contender for the playoffs. Now that the season is over, I find myself thinking I was overly optimistic – the Marlins managed a stellar 69-93 record, traded Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez and ultimately fired Ozzie Guillen. They then kicked-off the hot stove league by dealing Heath Bell to Arizona. I wasn’t as far off as I could have been.

I also wrote this nugget of wisdom:

It gets really ugly in 2014 for the Marlins. On top of the salaries above, their 2 best pitchers, Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco, are both free agents in 2014, Hanley Ramirez is scheduled to make 16 million and their stud first baseman, Mike Stanton, is eligible for arbitration. Just counting Reyes, Buehrle, Bell and Ramirez, the team is on the hook for 59 million in payroll. Heck, for 2013, the Marlins are projected to be somewhere between 125 and 145 million for payroll, which I don’t think is going to happen. I think we are going to see a repeat of a disturbing trend that has been there since the beginning in South Florida – owner bumps up the payroll to a long term unsustainable level to make a World Series run, sells off the players returning the team to mediocrity and then sell the team.

Flash forward to Wednesday and you have this come across the wire:

The Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays have agreed to a multiple-player trade that would send shortstop Jose Reyes and pitcher Josh Johnson to Toronto, sources told ESPN. Also going to Toronto would be pitcher Mark Buehrle, catcher John Buck and infielder-outfielder Emilio Bonifacio.

So, the Marlins have just basically reduced their payroll from about 125 million in 2013 to about 35 million. Sure as hell sounds like history repeating itself. The Marlins are receiving a bunch of prospects (most of whom are at least 2-3 years from having a shot at making the big club), noted bigot SS Yunel Escobar and spare part catcher in Jeff Mathis back from the Jays, and, as far as I can tell, the Jays are assuming all of the salaries they are acquiring. You think Albert Pujols is glad he didn’t sign with the Marlins now?

Lost in all of this is Giancarlo Stanton, the lone remaining Marlins player with any real talent. He is a little put out by this move:

“Alright, I’m pissed off!!! Plain & Simple,” Stanton tweeted.

I have a feeling that Stanton will not be sticking around beyond 2013 since he is then arbitration eligible and will be in line for a big payday.

My favorite quote to come out of this was from douchebag Marlins GM Larry Beinfest:

“We’ve kind of lost our Marlins way,” president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said less than two weeks ago. “The real Marlins way was we always outperformed our challenges. Whatever our challenges were, whether it was playing in a football stadium or weather or a lack of fans, or lack of revenue for that matter, we always found a way to outperform our challenges.”

What he really means is: “The Marlins way is to be as cheap as possible and not actually care about the team or the city, despite the good folks of Miami giving us a shiny 400 million dollar ballpark on their dime.”

Actually, this isn’t so much the Marlins way as the Beinfest/Loria way. In case you are unaware, Jeff Loria was the owner of the Montreal Expos who basically ran the team into the ground so that he could get a huge payout from MLB, oh and a shiny new team in Miami.

The Greatest Play Ever?

By Blaidd Drwg

I was never a huge Buck Martinez fan, but I do remember those 1985 Blue Jays – they were a great team and it was really the start of the era in their team history which lead to a couple of World Series appearances. Jim Schoenfeld on espn.com called a play he made in 1985 against the Mariners the greatest play he has ever seen.

The video of it exists, it is pretty bad quality and the editing is terrible (for some reason they felt the need to intersperse shots of a guy in a green shirt with the replay), but you get to see Buck Martinez record 2 putouts, get a broken leg and a dislocated ankle, all on the same play.

For your viewing pleasure:

The Mariners and the Second Half of the Season

By Blaidd Drwg

Remember a couple of months ago when there was all the excitement about the Mariners having one of the best records in baseball since the all-star break? Well, I am here to tell you my friends that the record was completely built on smoke and mirrors. The Mariners managed to build their momentum against possibly the 4 worst teams in the AL – Toronto (who lost 4/5 ths of their pitching staff to injury along with their best hitter), KC (who has no pitching anyway), Cleveland (ditto) and Minnesota (the worst team in the AL, period). If you toss in the Red Sox, the only other team they played with a losing record, they have a stellar 23-4 record. The problem is you eventually have to face teams with a winning record – The Mariners managed to go just 16-33 against those teams, capped off by ending the season with 18 straight games against Baltimore, Texas, LAA and Oakland. The gritty details:

Team July August Sep/Oct W-L
Texas 1-2 3-3 4-5
KC 7-1 7-1
TB 2-1 2-1 4-2
NYY 1-2 1-2 2-4
Toronto 2-0 1-0 2-1 5-1
Baltimore 0-3 1-5 1-8
LAA 2-2 3-3 5-5
Minnesota 6-1 6-1
Cleveland 3-0 3-0
CWS 0-3 0-3
Boston 2-1 2-1
Oakland 0-6 0-6
Total 13-6 15-12 11-19

 

July August Sep/Oct
Record Vs Winning 4-5 5-11 7-17
Record Vs Losing 9-1 10-1 4-2

 

While their record against losing teams in encouraging, this team is still way of from being a contending team. There are still a ton of holes in the lineup and questions surrounding the future of Felix Hernandez. The addition of the Astros to the AL West next season means the Mariners won’t be the worst team in the division, but if the A’s turn out to be for real, the M’s would be a longshot to make the playoffs as they would still only be the 4th best team in the division.

It was Willie, Linus and the Chuck

By Blaidd Drwg

With apologize to the great Terry Chapman.

They called him “Stretch”, he is a hall of famer and he was only the second best Willie on his team. He also had the distinction of almost bringing a World Series title to the Bay Area in 1962. Fifty years later, the Giants are back in the series, so it seems like a good time to post this.

Wilie McCovey almost made a place for himself in baseball lore in the 9th inning of game 7 of the 1962 series. Here is what happened (from Wikipedia):

The only run of this classic game came in the fifth inning when Tony Kubek grounded into a double play, Bill Skowron scoring from third. Ralph Terry, pitching the seventh game instead of Jim Bouton because of the rain delays, had given up Bill Mazeroski’s Series-winning walk-off home run two years earlier in Pittsburgh, but in his third start stifled the Giants’ power hitters. In the bottom of the ninth, pinch-hitter Matty Alou, batting for reliever Billy O’Dell, led off the inning with a bunt hit after first having a foul ball dropped, but Terry struck out the next two batters, Felipe Alou and Hiller. Mays hit a double into the right-field corner, but Maris played the carom well, then hit cut-off man Richardson with a throw that was quickly relayed home. Alou, aware of Maris’ strong arm, stopped at third. Facing Willie McCovey with two outs, Terry elected to pitch to him rather than walk the bases loaded, which would have brought up slugger Orlando Cepeda. Terry’s inside fastball on the second pitch handcuffed McCovey, who nonetheless adjusted his bat in mid-swing to extend his arms and hit what he later claimed was the hardest ball he had ever struck. The line drive appeared at first to be going over the head of a well-positioned Richardson, but was in fact sinking from topspin and Richardson made the catch without leaping to end the game. Terry was named the World Series MVP.

McCovey had a chance have one of the most dramatic series ending hits in history, but instead, he will have to be immortalized in the only two Peanuts baseball strips that mention an actual baseball game:

There is also a great interview with McCovey here.

Predicting the MLB Award Winners – the NL Edition

By Blaidd Drwg

The National League Awards picture is much muddier than the AL – in the NL, every award has multiple legitimate candidates, so picking the winner is going to be much harder.

MVP – My Pick = Ryan Braun/ Predicted Winner = Buster Posey
There are 4 legitimate candidates – Ryan Braun, Buster Posey, Yadier Molina and Andrew McCutchen. In terms of overall WAR, the NL Leaders went Posey (7.2), McCutchen (7.0), Braun (6.8), Molina (6.7), so not a ton of separation between them. It was actually the same order of finish in the NL batting race, with Posey taking the award thanks to Melky Cabrera DQing himself. Here is how the contenders ranked in some offensive categories:

  WAR BA HR RBI OPS OPS+ RC
Posey 1 1   6 4 1 4
Braun 3 3 1 2 1 3 1
Molina 4 4       7  
McCutchen 2 2 8   5 2 2

A blank in the chart means they were not in the top 10 in the category. Molina had a fine season offensively, was stellar defensively and gets credit for his team making the playoffs, but I don’t think that is enough compared to the other candidates, so he is out. McCutchen hit the hell out of the ball in the first half of the season to the tune of a 1.039 OPS, but followed that up with a fine, but not MVP like .860 in the second half as the Pirates fell apart again at the end of the season, so he is out as a contender. That leaves Posey and Braun. Posey lit it up in the second half with a 1.102 OPS, carried the Giants offensively, especially after Melky Cabrera was suspended and his team made the playoffs, all major plusses. Braun was just about as good in 2012 as he was in 2011 (when he won the MVP), survived the loss of Prince Fielder’s protection in the lineup (Braun had 2 IBB’s in 2011, 15 in 2012), and was remarkably consistent hitting .990 OPS in the first half and .983 in the second. The knock on him is his team failed to make the playoffs, but they were in the race until the last week of the season. I think that the consistency and higher finish in several statistical categories gets Braun my vote. He won’t win because some voters will hold the failed steroid test last season over his head.

Cy Young – My Pick = Clayton Kershaw/ Predicted Winner = Johnny Cueto
Another award with 4 legitimate candidates – Kershaw, Cueto, RA Dickey and Gio Gonzalez. Here is a breakdown of the 4:

  WAR ERA W SO ERA+ WHIP
Kershaw 1 1   2 2 1
Cueto 2 3 3   1  
Dickey 3 2 2 1 3 3
Gonzalez 4 6 1 4 4 8

Gonzalez’s folio lies mostly in his 21 wins (leading the league) and the Gnats making the playoffs; the other 3 pitchers had better seasons than he did, so he is out. Dickey, it could be argued, statistically had the best season out of the group, but the Mets were terrible and that is going to cost him votes, so he is out. Kershaw had a better season statistically than Cueto, but there are 2 things working against him: his team did not make the playoffs and he only won 14 games. Yes there is precedent for picking the guy with the low win total, but not in a season where there was a 19, 20 and 21 game winner. That is what is going to prevent Kershaw from winning the award. Cueto is a fine pick; he had a stellar season, his team made the playoffs and he did it in one of the toughest parks in the NL to pitch in, so he does deserver the award should he win it.

ROY – My Pick = Bryce Harper / Predicted Winner = Bryce Harper
If you asked anyone for a prediction on who would win this award in June, they would have said Bryce Harper. Now, it is a three horse race with Harper, Wade Miley and Todd Frazier. Harper had a great season considering he is just 19 years old – .270 BA, 22 HR, 119 OPS+, 5.0 WAR, he made the AS team and his team made the playoffs. The knock on him is he faded at the end of the season. Miley went 16-11 with a 3.33 ERA, 125 ERA+ and 3.2 WAR, pitching in the tough confines of the BOB in Arizona and he also made an all-star team. His team did not make the playoffs though. Todd Frazier’s team, the Reds did make the playoffs and Frazier put up a .273 BA with 19 HR, 115 OPS+ but only a 1.9 WAR, hitting in the Great American bandbox. Given that, I don’t think that either Miley or Frazier, despite fine seasons, can match Harper’s output.

Mariners Shortstops, Through the Years

By Blaidd Drwg

At a Mariners game recently, I overheard a conversation about Alex Rodriguez and it got me thinking. Shortstop has been a black hole essentially since he left and I was wondering just how truly bad the Mariners shortstops over the last 11 seasons have been in light of Brendan Ryan’s sub 200 BA. The below chart, taken from the data on baseball-reference.com, contains the composite batting and fielding stats for all Mariners SS since 2000. The primary SS is the player who started the most games in a given season and DWAR is the fielding wins above replacement total (0 being replacement level, higher is better). I didn’t run the exact numbers, but the average season from the shortstop position for the Mariners since Arod’s departure is something like .254 BA, 6 HR and an OPS of .656. That is fine if you SS is batting in the Yankees, Red Sox or Rangers lineups, but not acceptable when you are in the Punch and Judy lineup the Mariners have trucked out there for the better part of the decade.

YEAR Primary SS BA HR OPS OPS+ DWAR
2012 Brendan Ryan .194 3 .555 61 3.6
2011 Brendan Ryan .250 5 .659 90 2.5
2010 Josh Wilson .230 5 .570 65 1.0
2009 Yuniesky Betancourt .231 10 .597 65 -0.4
2008 Yuniesky Betancourt .274 7 .680 89 -0.5
2007 Yuniesky Betancourt .284 9 .713 92 0.3
2006 Yuniesky Betancourt .286 8 .708 91 0.7
2005 Yuniesky Betancourt .265 4 .684 91 0.4
2004 Rich Aurilia .239 9 .630 73 0.5
2003 Carlos Guillen .269 4 .680 91 0.5
2002 Carlos Guillen .262 11 .719 100 0.2
2001 Carlos Guillen .265 5 .698 94 1.7
2000 Alex Rodriguez .318 42 1.011 172 2.3

Let’s put it this way – the last time the Mariners had a league average hitter at SS was when Carlos Guillen was still young and playing almost every day. The Mariners have a ton of holes in their lineup right now, so SS is probably the least of their concern. There may be some help in the farm system if Nick Franklin can stay healthy, although I am not sure he is going to stay at SS long term, and if Carlos Triunfel can regain some of the promise he had a the Mariners top prospect a couple of seasons ago (both Franklin and Triunfel are under the age of 23, so there is a chance they might improve). Until then, I would love to see the Mariners get someone into the SS position who might be able to hit, just a little.