Month: December 2010

The following article was written by Gerry Garte

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Two unexpected visitors met at the World Series last season. The Giants and Rangers made it an amazing year. Roy Halladay and Josh Hamilton were exceptional. The pitching was no-hit strong.

It will be tough to match the excitement of the 2010 season. But add your team — Giants not included — to the top of the mix in ‘11, and the excitement doubles.

Many Major League records were set in 2010. Here are my favorites:

• Most consecutive seasons of 30 or more HRs at the start of a career, 10 seasons, Albert Pujols
• Most consecutive seasons of 100 or more RBI at the start of a career, 10 seasons, Albert Pujols
• Most consecutive  seasons with 200 or more hits at the start of a career, 10 seasons, Ichiro Suzuki
• Most pinch hit home runs in a career, 23, Matt Stairs
• Most consecutive hits in an inning, 11, 8^th inning, Colorado Rockies

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Baseball is the greatest of games, but it’s the administration of the game that’s been a work in progress. Putting dollar signs aside, here are two recommendations to improve the game:

o   Let kids enjoy more of the World Series

When I was a kid, Madie Ives Elementary School knew the importance of the World Series, particularly on a school day. The people in charge figured it’d be a good idea to turn on the two cafeteria TVs for the kids and teachers having a late lunch. We’d watch pre-game and part of the first inning before heading back to class. When the final bell rang, I was either biking or running home. I got there about the fifth or sixth inning. It was great, and the TV was all mine. The parents were at work, and my sister was out. Life was good. Series games in the daytime were outstanding. Then TV made its play, and by the late ‘80s World Series games were played exclusively at night, running well past many bedtimes.

What I’d like to see in 2011: Baseball deciding in the near future to play two of the first four World Series games during daytime. Opening game of the World Series would become a significant daytime event. When the Series shifted, either Game 3 or Game 4 would be a day game. It will bring more of the best baseball to more youngsters.

o   Raise standards for the wood in bats

I’m repeating myself, but it’s worth repeating. Shattering and splintering wood bats have been a growing health hazard to pro ballplayers the past few years. Last season, 2010, included a sobering moment on a Major League diamond. It happened when Tyler Colvin of the Cubs was impaled by a shattered bat in Miami. The wood pierced his upper chest and fell to the ground. It was not life-threatening, but he missed the last two weeks of the season. A few days later, Cliff Lee of the Rangers was nicked behind the ear by a splintered bat. It drew little blood, but it was a very close call.  I took it as another warning to baseball to establish stricter standards for the wood in bats, and the bat-making process. How many issues can be more important than player safety?

What I’d like to see in 2011: New standards to reduce shattered bats by 80% in the first year.

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My first game: July 1962, 11 years old, my parents, sister and I were in Dorchester, outside Boston, visiting my grandparents. The New York Yankees were also in town. So my Dad got tickets and took me. Funny thing, not so funny, he left one of the two tickets on top of the TV set in my grandparents’ apartment. We found this out at the Fenway Park gate. Out of my view, the issue was resolved, and my Dad smoothly took us to our seats in right field. My first look at a Major League field was majestic. There was a bright green below — spreading to the leftfield monster – and clear blue above. The baseball diamond, at any playing age, was gladly familiar. There were many home runs in the game. The one I remember was by Mickey Mantle to right center. By age 30, Mantle was a legend. The Yankees won the game, 12-4.  It was a wonderful first Big League experience.

–Gerry Garte (Dad:  Sam Garte, age 93)

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This article was written by Gerry Garte

What he did: File Watson with Jimmy Wynn, Frank Howard, and Nate Colbert as another player who might have been a Hall of Famer in a different era. Watson hit .295 with 184 home runs and a lifetime OPS+ of 129 in 19 seasons from 1966 to 1984, playing his best seasons in a time and ballpark that favored pitchers. His name came up in a Baseball Think Factory forum discussion this week on Cooperstown. Someone mentioned George Kelly, noting, “His closest BBREF cop is, as Bill James pointed out, Bob Watson, who played his prime in the Astrodome and actually out OPS+s Kelly by 20 points.”

Playing his prime seasons in an inversely stronger era for hitters, Kelly put up roughly the same offensive stats as Watson. Kelly’s .297 career batting average, 109 OPS+ and 24.3 career WAR rank him as one of the weakest players in Cooperstown, and were it not for Frankie Frisch lobbying to get several of his teammates into the Hall of Fame while he served as head of the Veterans Committee, it seems unlikely Kelly would have a plaque. So, I must ask: what if Watson got the same opportunities as Kelly?

Era he might have thrived in: Kelly played 16 seasons between 1915 and 1932. Were Watson to play these years, his numbers might compare to Charlie Gehringer or Earl Averill: batting average about .320, 200 home runs, and an OPS+ around 130. Not every 1920s and ’30s player with these general stats is enshrined, but many are. Watson, a two-time All Star who got 0.7 percent of the Hall of Fame vote his only year on the ballot, would probably have received at least far greater consideration had his career occurred fifty years earlier.

Why: The past 40 years has seen a revolution in baseball research led by James. We know now that a .330 batting average from 1932 when hitters ruled is far different than the same clip from 1968 when pitchers dominated. But for all the research advances, voting for Cooperstown is only slightly more enlightened. It’s better with the writers than with the Veterans Committee which recently favored Dave Concepcion over statistically-superior candidate Ted Simmons, but voting still generally lacks context. The Hall of Fame doesn’t deal in hypotheticals, in what might have been had circumstances been fairer.

What still remains the greatest Hall of Fame determinants are traditional stats, and Watson would rack them up playing in the greatest offensive period in baseball history short of the steroid era. He’d clean up playing on a Giants team packed with future Hall of Famers like Bill Terry, Mel Ott, and Frisch, not to mention all the men Frisch later enshrined. I also doubt the cavernous Polo Grounds would be anything Watson hadn’t already encountered playing in the Astrodome, which I assume is now being used to park jets in the absence of baseball.

To give an example of what Watson missed with his era, his 1976 season with the Astros would convert to 1925 with the Giants here. His stats from each of those years are listed below as well as Kelly’s 1925 numbers:

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
Watson ’76 Astros	157	585	76	183	31	3	16	102	3	62	64	.313	.377	.458
Watson ’25 Giants	149	593	97	211	36	3	18	129	3	71	61	.356	.423	.518
Kelly ’25 Giants	147	586	87	181	29	3	20	99	5	35	54	.309	.350	.471

Basically, if in some baseball version of “Freaky Friday” these men got to switch places, Watson would have a few more seasons like these, buttressed with most of his other ones above .300 and be later toasted by Frisch at a Hall of Fame dinner. Kelly would get to follow his nondescript career with a stint as general manager for George Steinbrenner and the Yankees, if he was lucky. And if Kelly was simply acting out the film version of “Freaky Friday,” he’d be Lindsay Lohan and preparing to ring in the new year at the Betty Ford Center. Some men have all the luck.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Dom DiMaggio, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Home Run Baker, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Nate Colbert, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays

In February, Humm-Baby will turn 81. I don’t want 2010, the year of the San Francisco Giants, to end without a tribute to Roger Craig who piloted the team from 1986 to 1992.

Under Craig’s direction and propelled by Will Clark (.333, 23 HRs and 111 RBIs) and Kevin Mitchell (.291, 47, 125), the 1989 Giants won the National League pennant.

But despite his managerial achievements, Craig is best remembered as a pitcher—particularly a pitcher for the early, pathetic New York Mets.

In the original expansion draft held on October 10 1961, Craig was a first pool, $75,000 pick. Despite being called “first pool,” the best players available were actually the “premium” level which cost the new franchises $125,000.

But since Craig had posted two decent seasons with Los Angeles in 1959 and 1960 (11-5, 2.06; 8-3, 3.27) by relying on the pitch he developed, the split fingered fastball, the Mets’ felt he was worth a shot.

In a sense, the Mets’ gamble paid off. During the Mets’ first two seasons Craig, as the staff’s “ace,” gave his team plenty of innings. In 1962 and 1963, Craig started 64 games and relieved in another 24 for a total of 469 innings pitched.

Unfortunately, since Craig toiled for the Mets’, he also racked up back to back seasons of 10-24 and 5-22. Craig became the first National League pitcher to lose 20 games in back to back seasons since Paul Derringer in 1933 and 1934 and the first New York hurler to have the same misfortune since Brooklyn’s Harry McIntyre in 1905 and 1906.

In 1963, Craig lost 22 consecutive games. On April 29, Craig beat the Dodgers for his second win of the young season. Craig didn’t win again until August 9 against the Chicago Cubs.

Sadly, despite trying everything including changing his uniform number from 38 to 13, Craig couldn’t catch a break. Of Craig’s 22 losses, five came by 1-0 scores. Finally, Craig got lucky. With the Cubs game tied at 3-3, a bottom of the ninth grand slam home run by Mets’ third baseman Jim Hickman took Craig out of his misery and put his record at 3-20.

Immediately, Craig’s sour luck returned. To put his season total at 22 losses, Craig was out dueled in his next two starts by the Houston Colt .45s’ Don Nottebart and the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax by scores of—you guessed it—1-0.

When last heard from, Craig had retired to his horses at the Humm Baby Ranch in the Laguna Mountains northeast of San Diego. If you’re looking for Craig, just drive to the intersection of Humm Baby Way and Roger and Carolyn Place. Who knows? When you find him, maybe Craig will show you how to throw a split fingered fast ball.

I’m pleased to present another first guest post, this time from Brendan Bingham, a regular reader and fellow member of the Society for American Baseball Research. Brendan recently offered to write something here, and I had no idea his approach would be so analytical, research-driven, or thorough. Enjoy.

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Trades in baseball are made looking forward but judged looking backward.  The MLB Network recently broadcast a program listing the 40 most memorable trades in major league history. Brock-for-Broglio, Robinson-for-Pappas, and the multi-player deal that sent Joe Morgan to Cincinnati were among the famous trades profiled. Absent from the top-40 list was a transaction that has always fascinated me, the February 1972 trade between the Cardinals and Phillies that sent Steve Carlton to Philadelphia in exchange for Rick Wise. That deal featured two solid starting pitchers at a time when both were involved in contract negotiations. The trade greatly affected the fortunes of both men and both teams.

Career stats through 1971
Player	Age	W	L	ERA			WAR
Steve Carlton	28	77	62	3.10			22.6
Rick Wise	27	75	76	3.57			13.6

Carlton had better career numbers at the time. As a result, perhaps the deal looked a bit one-sided, although not nearly as one-sided as it turned out to be. Carlton, having posted one 20-win campaign in his five full seasons with St. Louis, was a very good pitcher, but did not have the look of someone on the fast track to Cooperstown. Everything changed when he got to Philly, where he thrived, earned the nickname Lefty, and anchored the pitching staff of the team that became frequent NL East winners in the late 70s and early 80s and World Series champions in 1980.

Evaluating this trade from Philadelphia’s point of view is simple. Carlton accumulated 63.5 WAR with Philadelphia from 1972 to 1986 before a late-career shuffle among four teams for which he mostly underperformed. Meanwhile, Wise accumulated 21.5 WAR after being traded for Carlton. Not bad career numbers when coupled with Wise’s pre-1972 WAR, but as far as the trade goes, it’s big advantage to Philly at +42 WAR. Viewing the trade from the Cardinals’ side of the fence, the picture is more complicated. The numbers are not merely reversed. No, they’re much worse than that; the post-trade WAR discrepancy between Carlton and Wise greatly underestimates just how badly things turned out for St. Louis.

The Cards saw a limited benefit from Wise (8.4 WAR), as he spent only two seasons in St. Louis before being packaged with Bernie Carbo in a trade with the Boston Red Sox for Ken Tatum and Reggie Smith. Tatum did not play for St. Louis before being traded early in the ’74 season, and Smith played only three years in St. Louis, contributing 8.1 WAR to the team, before being traded to the LA Dodgers for Joe Ferguson and two other players. Much like Wise, both Carbo and Smith still had some productive years ahead of them when they left St. Louis.

In the mid-70s, the Cardinals forged a total of nine transactions involving Wise, Smith, and the players acquired for them (15 players in all, collectively the “progeny” of the Carlton trade). In the end, however, Wise and Smith were the only acquisitions from whom St. Louis derived any measurable benefit. All others either never played for the Cardinals or played only briefly and contributed only fractional (and mostly negative) WAR values.

The Cardinals’ cost-benefit summary is shown in the table below. Please note that the positive post-St. Louis WAR of Carbo and Mike Vail are included in the calculation as costs, because these players were St. Louis property traded away in multi-player deals, bundled with Carlton progeny. However, this calculation still provides a conservative estimate of the cost of the trade to St. Louis, because the post-Cardinal WAR values of Wise, Smith and the other Carlton progeny do not figure in the analysis, since these players were traded for players of equal value (at least in the eyes of the Cardinal front office) whose St. Louis WAR values do figure in the analysis, grouped under “Others.”

Carlton-Wise WAR Benefit (Cost) to St. Louis
Player Acquired	Years with STL	WAR with STL
Rick Wise	1972-1973	8.4
Reggie Smith	1974-1976	8.1
13 Others		(0.7)
Player Dealt	Years post-STL	WAR post-STL
Steve Carlton	1972-1988	(61.8)
Bernie Carbo	1974-1980	(8.0)
Mike Vail	1975-1984	(2.0)
Net		(56.0)

For those who prefer a more qualitative and less sabermetric recap, the Cardinals’ situation can be summed up like this: future Hall of Famer Carlton was traded for a significantly lesser player in Wise. Wise was traded for Smith, which might have been okay if it had been a 1-for-1 deal, but it wasn’t; St. Louis gave up a valuable player in Carbo. Smith was then given away in exchange for players that on balance were no better than the ones that could have been called up from the minor leagues.

The WAR stats suggest that the Cardinals missed out on 56 team wins as a result of having traded Carlton. Squandering not only Carlton’s future value, but also that of Wise, Carbo, Smith, and Vail provides a negative, if narrow, view of the Cardinal organization’s ability to evaluate talent during the 1970s. I would hope that there must have been other deals that turned out better. However, it is perhaps no coincidence that the late 70s were an uncharacteristically low period for the Cardinals, an organization that typically experiences more success than failure.

As the table below indicates, though, missing out on Carlton’s contributions did not cost the Cardinals any championships during the late 70s, since they finished far enough off the pace each year from ’75 through ‘80 that even Lefty’s pitching talents would not have been enough to land them in the NLCS.

Year	Carlton-Wise WAR Benefit (Cost) to STL		STL finish in NL East
1972	(6.7)		21.5 gb
1973	0.2		1.5 gb
1974	(0.6)		1.5 gb
1975	(4.4)		10.5 gb
1976	(2.7)		29 gb
1977	(8.4)		18 gb
1978	(3.5)		21 gb
1979	(3.8)		12 gb
1980	(10.3)		17 gb
1981	(5.0)		2 gb*
1982	(5.5)		Won by 3
1983	(6.0)		11 gb
1984	(1.9)		12.5 gb
1985	(1.2)		Won by 3
1986	2.1		28.5 gb
1987	0.7		Won by 3
1988	1.0		25 gb
Total	(56.0)
* Split season

The 1980s tell a different story. The Cardinals (with one WS championship and two other NL pennants) rebounded to become one of the two dominant MLB teams of that decade (along with the Dodgers and their 1981 and 1988 World Series championships). If St. Louis had not made the Carlton-Wise deal, they might have seen even greater success during the 80s. In both ’85 and ’87, the Red Birds lost seven-game World Series. At that late point in his career it is questionable whether Carlton could have improved the Cardinals’ chances, but perhaps even a few well-timed late-inning outs from an aging Lefty might have tipped the balance in one or both of those series.

Somewhat less speculative, however, is the value that Carlton could have brought to the 1981 Cardinals. In that strike-altered season, the Cards failed to make the playoffs despite their having the best combined record in the NL East. St. Louis finished a game and a half back in the first part of that quirky split season and a half game back in the post-strike session. Carlton’s 5.4 WAR in 1981 would have served the Cardinals very well indeed. Looking backward, had St. Louis (with Steve Carlton on board) made the playoffs in 1981, they might have had the opportunity to knock off the Dodgers, something that would only have cemented their later claim on team of the decade.

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This was a guest post written by Brendan Bingham. Email Brendan at Brendan@calibertherapeutics.com

What he did: My SABR chapter has organized a letter-writing campaign to get O’Doul into the Hall of Fame, which makes sense seeing as we’re the Lefty O’Doul Chapter. We know there’s little chance of getting O’Doul inducted as a player, since he played just 970 games (though he got some support in my recent project to find the 50 best players not in the Hall of Fame.) We want to get O’Doul honored as an ambassador to baseball, for his work promoting the game in Japan.

I’m reminded of this since there’s another O’Doul currently on the Hall of Fame ballot, Edgar Martinez. I see many parallels. Both were ineffective early on, O’Doul as a pitcher, Martinez as a third baseman. Each found success around 30 as a hitter. Each made his mark in top hitters parks, O’Doul in the Baker Bowl, Martinez in the Kingdome. Each thrived in a time when hitters ruled baseball.

I think Martinez will eventually make Cooperstown. Though he debuted at 36.2 percent of the vote last year, his numbers seem too good to ultimately ignore, from his .300/.400/.500 splits to his .933 career OPS to his 66.9 WAR. More than that, Martinez redefined the value of a designated hitter, was one of the best bats in baseball at his peak, and seems to have played enough, at 2,055 games, to merit induction. Barring any steroid revelations, he seems like a mid-late ballot selection.

So I got to wondering: What if Lefty O’Doul had a spot in the same Mariners lineup as Martinez?

Era he might have thrived in: We’re taking O’Doul back to the Mariners of the early ’90s, before pitcher-friendly Safeco Field, before Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson blew town. Even if Martinez were to DH, O’Doul could play passable defense and be the left fielder Seattle never really had. He also might hit .400 with this bunch, and, with the right set of circumstances, earn his Hall of Fame plaque.

Why: O’Doul had a couple of things working against him early on. First, he came up in 1919 as a pitcher in the days before baseball had a farm system, and he debuted with a contender, the New York Yankees. In the current game, O’Doul’s strengths would likely be identified and honed long before his first day in the big leagues. If he were a top prospect, a club like the Yankees would also probably ship him to a team like the Mariners for a veteran, as New York did with Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps in 1988.

O’Doul needed a chance to play as a young, failed pitcher, and he got it in the Pacific Coast League, where he hit a combined .369 from 1924 through 1927. He re-emerged in the majors in 1928, hitting .319 with the Giants before becoming a star the following year with the Phillies. O’Doul hit .398 in 1929, and converting that season to the 1996 Mariners, O’Doul would hit .390 with 258 hits, 33 home runs, and 122 runs batted in. I’m proposing this wouldn’t be his first year in Seattle either, that like Griffey and Buhner, O’Doul would start early in the outfield.

The defense wouldn’t be pretty, though looking at O’Doul’s career defensive WAR, I was surprised to see it was only -1.1. Buhner racked up -7.7 defensive WAR playing mostly right field, and Martinez finished with a career defensive WAR of 0.3, largely because he played only 34 games in the field his final ten seasons. O’Doul wouldn’t win any Gold Gloves, but I doubt he’d be costing the Mariners many victories in the field. He’d win at least a few with his bat, since he had 21.1 WAR from 1929 to 1932.

O’Doul was back in the PCL by 1935 at 38 so he could manage his hometown San Francisco Seals. With the Seals defunct and the Giants not in a hitters park or in a league where O’Doul could DH at the end, I don’t know if he leaves Seattle. That’s how Martinez closed things out, and it worked just fine.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Dom DiMaggio, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Home Run Baker, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Nate Colbert, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays

Several years ago at Christmas time, I’ve traveled to Australia. Since I loved their beaches, bohemian attitudes, friendly manner and love of sports, I developed an immediate kinship with Australians.
But cricket, Australia’s national sport, posed major challenges for me even though I made what I considered a serious effort to unravel its mysteries. Since the continent is gripped in cricket mania and the pubs jammed with rabid fans, I was disappointed that I couldn’t join in the fun more enthusiastically. In the end, I concluded that Americans are genetically incapable of understanding cricket.

But I took exception to my traveling partner’s comment: “Cricket is just like baseball—only more boring.”

Luckily for both of us, I could prove her wrong. I took her to see the Sydney Blues play the Perth Heat.
During Christmas in Australia, baseball is in full swing, so to speak. For the decade between 1989 and 1999, the Australian Baseball League played a relatively short season (about 60 games) but with a format similar to Major League Baseball. Regular season winners advanced to the playoffs with an eventual champion crowned.
The ABL used the designated hitter and aluminum bats for non-MLB contracted players whose participation in the league was strictly limited. But the ABL had an innovation that might help add excitement to MLB games as well as move them along faster. Under its rules, once a catcher reached base, a pinch runner could be substituted without having to take the field during the following inning. Having watched Benjie Molina glue up the base paths for years, I’m all for it.

Sadly, the ABL was short lived. Baseball just couldn’t compete with cricket for the fans’ dollar. But after twelve years of wrangling since the ABL folded in 1999, Australians, in partnership with the MLB, launched a new league in November. With baseball more global and with more extensive television and media coverage than existed the last time around, hopes are high. On the other hand, the ABL will have to compete not only with cricket but also soccer and the newly formed iiNet National Basketball League.

A final, non-baseball thought about Christmas in Australia. No matter what you’ve heard about the joys of a white Christmas or how odd it is to be in a warm weather climate during the Yule season, don’t believe a word of it. Relaxing on Bondi Beach on December 25th was fine with me. And the next morning I could read the box scores just summers back home.