Author: howard

The 2012 baseball season is approaching, if ever so slowly, and at this festive time of year there is something on everyone’s Christmas list.  This is especially true for the 30 general managers who run Major League Baseball. Some have long lists with not much money to spend, others have short lists with lots of money to spend and some have already finished their shopping. There are also three franchise problems which would be a nice Christmas gift for the respective fans this year. Here’s what should be on their lists.

Ownership situations need to be resolved. Franchise locations need to be resolved. It can’t be business as usual without a solution, a solution which, while it didn’t come in time for Christmas, might get done during the holidays or early in the New Year.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, a once storied franchise, need to find responsible ownership. It continues to be unresolved, and no doubt court cases might still be pending. Baseball needs to ensure that any new ownership is financially sound, morally focused and free from past restrictions. Commissioner Selig and former owner Frank McCourt need to step aside and let those not quite so emotionally involved find a solution which would be good for baseball and everyone involved. Los Angeles needs to be restored as a storied franchise. Let’s bury the hatchet but learn from past mistakes.

The New York Mets ownership needs to step aside finally.  Fred Wilpon doesn’t have the money or is unwilling to sell his various other financial interests to make the Mets a solid franchise again. Baseball needs to force his hand and not allow this situation to drag out any longer. While the dodgers have received most of the negative publicity while the Mets have been largely given a free ride by the press, push now has to come to shove. There must be more than qualified potential owners out there.  Let’s insist that one of them be allowed to take over this franchise. Baseball doesn’t need the distraction.

It seems that the Oakland A’s situation is moving closer to resolution. San Jose is ready and willing and some financial consideration for the San Francisco Giants to get them to drop their objections to territorial rights is likely all that is standing in the way.  GM Billy Beane has been tearing apart the A’s with his recent fire sale, (although he is getting a good return for his veterans), and not moving this franchise would negate all of his plans and further drive Oakland attendance downward. It is the obvious solution and one which would appear to have all the makings of a successful franchise. While I feel for those loyal A’s fans, they would still have a team. San Jose isn’t that far away.

Someone needs to find Prince Fielder nicely wrapped under the tree. Use the Christmas layaway plan if necessary but sign on the dotted line.  Max out those credit cards.  The Marlins, Nationals or Blue Jays have the money and have the need. Time is running out and there are not many star free agents left on the shelf. You know you’ve always wanted to own a high performance machine.  Think of how envious all your friends will be despite what they might be telling their friends. They will all be jealous, trust me.  There are approximately 24 other free agents out there, none in ultra premium category, but they all could fill a need somewhere.

The Los Angeles Angels have finished their Christmas shopping.  It appears that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have finished theirs. Tampa Bay needs a first baseman, The Chicago Cubs need everyone but a number one starting pitcher and teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres need a lot of everything can’t attract or perhaps afford the big ticket items.  Their Christmas lists go, for the most part, unfilled.  They can’t, or won’t shop in the big stores but keep scouring the local corner stores, hoping that something good is still on the shelf, it ever was.

Major League Baseball: My advice is to wrap up any remaining shopping and relax in front of the tree with a nice glass of wine and a warm fire. Merry Christmas everyone and have a great New Year. The countdown to Spring Training will begin tomorrow.

What he did: This week’s column was prompted by Cyril Morong, perhaps the best sabermetrician I know and an economics professor at San Antonio College. For anyone who hasn’t checked it out already, Cyril’s blog is well worth a read, a rare site that combines expert quantitative analysis with good writing. Cyril emailed me recently about Deadball Era great Flick, who factored into a post Cyril did two weeks ago about the 38 players in baseball history who had 150 OPS+ or better at least seven seasons apiece. Cyril suggested I do one of these columns on Flick, and in looking at Flick’s stats and SABR bio, a few things resonated.

Flick factored into one of the most famous trades ever that didn’t happen, right up there with the proposed 1947 deal of Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams or the 1916 trades the Yankees passed on that would’ve netted them Tris Speaker or Shoeless Joe Jackson for stolen base king Fritz Maisel. Before that in 1907, frustrated Detroit Tigers manager Hughie Jennings offered angry, young Ty Cobb to Cleveland for Elmer Flick. Cleveland countered with someone named Bunk Congalton, the deal died, and Detroit avoided major calamity: Flick developed a stomach ailment that ended his career in 1910 while Cobb played through 1926 with the Tigers. The two remained linked, with the Georgia Peach’s death in 1961 renewing interest in Flick and leading to his Hall of Fame induction in 1963.

Era he might have thrived in: With his slight build, 5’9″ and 168 pounds by generous estimate, it’s a wonder Flick fared as well as he did in the Deadball Era, hitting .313 lifetime with an OPS+ of 149. He also disliked Southern cooking and the heat on Eastern road trips and looks like a player who’d benefit being coddled in recent decades. Modern healthcare certainly might have prolonged Flick’s career. And his hard-hitting, fleet-footed style could go well in the 1980s with the Oakland A’s, an organization long appreciative of speed, power, and offensive production and willing to take risks on unconventional players. If not capable of 40 home runs and 40 steals in Oakland, Flick might at least be a 30-30 player.

Why: Never mind Flick’s 48 career home runs, a result of playing in the Deadball Era and its vast parks sometimes constructed to favor triples (Flick hit 164 lifetime.) Flick would have at least a couple hundred more homers in the Live Ball Era. I’d use the stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com to predict but one of the converter’s flaws is that it doesn’t realistically adjust Deadball Era offensive totals to modern day. Flick’s .445 lifetime slugging average hints at what might have been, though. Slugging percentage is calculated by dividing total bases by at-bats. Assuming we boost Flick’s total bases by 20 a year to account for a power boost, his slugging percentage would be .492 in the modern era. Looking at the 162-game averages of guys with similar slugging rates, I estimate Flick would hit 25-30 homers a season at his peak.

Granted, some things might be lost in the transition. Many players had gaudy stolen base totals before 1920, and it’d be interesting to see if Flick could still steal 30-40 bases a year and approach 330 lifetime. He’d be in the right place in Oakland though, as the A’s of the late ’80s stole 120-160 bases every year. Fielding looks less promising for Flick. In his own time, he struggled in the minors with an .821 fielding percentage one year, improving somewhat by the time he reached the majors. He racked up many assists thanks to the short right field dimensions of his first ballpark, the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia and the shallow positioning of outfielders back then. Today, Flick’s best lineup option might be as a designated hitter.

Whatever the case, Flick looks like an All Star at the plate alone. Whether playing most of his career at DH could get him in the Hall of Fame is another story, seeing as the best eligible DH in baseball history, Edgar Martinez is still waiting. But perhaps Flick could pave the way.

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: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jack Morris, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film), Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, W
ally Bunker, Wes Ferrell, Will Clark, Willie Mays

Two baseball Hall of Fame inductees, Nellie Fox and Rickey Henderson had the misfortune to have been born on Christmas Day. Unfortunately for them and others who suffered the same fate, that inevitably results in fewer presents no matter how well intended friends and family may be.

While I admire Henderson’s huge talents, I could never quite warm up to his personality. I’m put off by Henderson’s illeist attitude and his insistence on playing on long after he passed his peak.

Henderson on Henderson:

“If you talk about baseball, you can’t eliminate me because I’m all over baseball… It’s the truth. Telling the truth isn’t being cocky. What do you want me to say, that I didn’t put up the numbers? That my teams didn’t win a lot of games? People don’t want me to say anything about what I’ve done. Then why don’t you say it? Because if I don’t say it and you don’t say it, nobody says it.”

But make no mistake, Henderson was a superb player who, as Bill James once said, if you could split him in two, you would have two Hall of Famers.

Fox, one of the most recognizable players of the 1950s-1960s with his huge tobacco wad and bottle bat, is more to my liking. Undersized and with less natural talent than Henderson, Fox made the most out of what he had.

The Texas Rangers won the right to negotiate with Japanese sensation Yu Darvish, submitting a record $51.7 million bid. When will Major League Baseball learn?

Scouting reports attest that Darvish throws seven different pitches, all with extraordinary skill. The hype surrounding Darvish is reminiscent of Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Red Sox bust who never came close to living up to his reputation as the savior–in-waiting for the Boston staff.  Remember the Gyro ball which through its “double spin” mechanics was going to baffle even the most fearsome American League hitters? You could buy a Dice-K DVD that explained the Gyro ball’s mysteries.

The Miami Marlins began the offseason with four very big splashes.  The normally spend thrift  habits of owner Jeffrey Loria went out the window with a brand new ballpark and a wish to contend, not just now, but for the foreseeable future. The Marlins dove in and got not just their feet wet, but even splashed their neighbours in the process.

They need Prince Fielder to complete the transition.  They needed Albert Pujols but he’s in California now.  They need a big, strong, fearsome power hitter. It seems only the Chicago Cubs and perhaps the Washington Nationals have any practical and realistic interest in Fielder at this point.

The Milwaukee Brewers have stated that, with the signing of free agent Aramis Ramirez, their pockets are empty.  They have no interest in their former star, at least not at his asking price. Rumours were flying that the Toronto Blue Jays would take a run at Fielder. Fielder likely wouldn’t play in Canada. The Texas Rangers have been mentioned. The Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles might still be in the running but it is unlikely Prince would sign onto a team which is essentially going nowhere for the foreseeable future. It appears that those rumours were just that, rumors. No online sportsbook favorable odds for the O’s.  Click here to check out the odds.

With the relatively quick signings of Jose Reyes, Heath Bell and the signing of Mark Buehrle and new manager Ozzie Guillen, the Marlins didn’t blink, until lately.  They seem to have abandoned their frugal ways but need to take one more giant step to complete the transformation. This winter’s signings are a big step towards improving their playoff hopes but are not enough to get the Marlins over the hump in the National League East.

Prince Fielder would be and here’s why.

Jose Reyes, while not a marked improvement over Hanley Ramirez, is a genuine star player when healthy and theoretically allows the Marlins to move incumbent Hanley Ramirez to third, filling a gaping hole which has existed at that position for some time now. I say theoretically because reports are that Ramirez is not interested in a position switch.  If Miami can convince their star player to take one for the team, the left side of their infield becomes one of the best in baseball.

The signing of Heath Bell instantly fixes a shaky closer position.  Without a star closer, no team can seriously contend or advance far into the playoffs. Many stat geeks will point out that closers are over rated and Miami paid too much for theirs.  Tell that to the New York Yankees.  Tell that to the teams who don’t have a lockdown ninth inning specialist.  Bell will make a big difference. Bell will allow the other bullpen pitchers to return to the setup or specialist roles they are more comfortable with. Bell will take all the pressure off the entire staff.  He’s a proven lock the game down pitcher.

Mark Buehrle, while not one of those starting pitchers who rack up the strikeouts and intimidates opposing hitters with a blazing fastball or his mound presence, is you’re much needed, innings eating, dependable game in and game out type of starter.  The Marlins need starting pitching.  The rotation they entered the winter with is solid, with a true ace as their number one, but Johnson is too fragile.  The number two and three starters are hot and cold.  They now have a solid anchor, probably a number two arm.

Now the Marlins need to sign a big, scary bat, someone to guide young star Mike Stanton to greatness and to carry the power weight for this team.  They need a hitter who can quickly turn a game around and who would allow them to slug it out toe to toe with the Philadelphia Phillies.  They need a face for the franchise at a time which might be a critical crossroad.  Prince Fielder is that player.  He’s coming into his prime.  Many scouts contend that in two or three years, Fielder will be slow and cumbersome and a better DH candidate than anything else. The history of baseball is full of big, slow moving, not that great in the field first basemen.  That’s why many of them played first base or moved there later in their careers. No one knows how the new Marlin ballpark is going to play but one thing seems a no brainer to me.  Sign Fielder for seven or eight seasons.

Do what it takes.  As my father used to say, come big or don’t come at all.

The awarding of another, (third time is the charm), franchise to Washington, steroids, the All Star game and November baseball.   Let’s continue where we left off last time.  Ad naseum, intellectual Latin for: It makes me sick to my stomach.  More or less.

I touched briefly on the subject of the rape of the Montreal Expos last week.  The story continues with the awarding of this franchise to Washington, D.C.  Once again we have a conflict of interest situation.  The owner of the Washington Nationals and the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig are close personal and business friends. Washington had previously been awarded two franchises, both of which eventually moved to other cities.  Both moves were precipitated by a lack of fan interest in the team.  This was the excuse given by baseball for the closing down of the Montreal Expos franchise.

The search began for a location which promised intense fan interest and a successful and vibrant new beginning.  Other potential markets were “discussed” and then dismissed as not viable.  The choice came down to, (the only one really considered), and the manipulation began. The usual press propaganda was released and suddenly, Washington, despite its previous failures, was chosen as the most likely site.  Money was quickly raised for the building of a new stadium and the search for a name to hide the past failures behind the senators was decided upon.  Somehow, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, a man known for stubbornly holding his ground and a fierce defender of his territorial rights, was persuaded to waive those concerns and sign on the dotted line.  Friends in high places indeed.

Steroids has once again raised its unwanted head with the release of a report that Ryan Braun has tested positive.  The tireless efforts of the commissioner’s office to ignore this cheating and the “oh, that was in the past, unfortunate but can’t we all just forget about it” propaganda is self serving and dishonest to say the least.  The so called standards which have been apparently put in place were quickly put aside with the news that Manny Ramirez will be allowed to reenter Major League Baseball and, despite having been caught twice, would serve only a 50-game suspension, the penalty for a first-time offender. Allowing Mark McGwire to be hired on by St. Louis as a coach sends the wrong message as well. A policy can’t be a policy when enforced depending on which way the wind is blowing on that particular day. It’s either wrong, or it isn’t. The current chest puffing on HGH testing is also unwarranted. I’m sorry that I got caught, not that I did something less than above board.

The All Star game was changed from a pleasant and fun mid-season exhibition to a game which could decide the World Series the next season. This almost relegated a back seat afterthought to the World Series by what used to be and should be a pleasant midsummer diversion.  This idea is quite simply, the wrong approach. This was done to divert attention from and to speed the end of memory of the Bud Selig-inspired tie game during the 2002 game. Of course, this solution and the 2002 game show the incompetence of the commissioner more than his corruption. This wasn’t the end of the All-Star fiasco either.  I’m in favor of fan voting, but allowing up to 25 votes per fan seems more akin to the elections in several third world countries.   It grossly inflates the actual numbers of fans who vote.  Instead of making glorified claims as to the popularity of the sport, it would be much better served to let actual numbers reflect as to the relative health of the game and get a much clearer and viable indication of what needs to be done.

In 2010, we were treated to November baseball. This could also be named, let’s ensure that the New York Yankees, TV’s biggest market, at the pleading of Fox Sports, make it to the World Series. Never before had I witnessed off day which were not travel days. But theses off days, non travel days, would help a team which had only two viable starting pitchers not have to dip into the rest of the rotation which was certainly not playoff worthy. Apparently, baseball feels that it needs the Yankees and/or RedSox in the finals every season.  TV money speaks far louder than the so called competitive equality which Selig boasts about each season. It was only his bad luck which has seen different champions for the past several seasons. November baseball is flirting with disaster, (see 2008 Tampa Bay-Philadelphia). Baseball shouldn’t be played in November. Check the history of weather patterns throughout the years.

The list goes on and on but enough already.  At least that’s what the commissioner’s office would prefer.

What he did: I gave Jack Morris a vote for my recent project on the 50 best players not in the Hall of Fame. I even said he belonged in Cooperstown. Felt a little sheepish after I started counting votes– Morris, one of the more polarizing figures in baseball today, fell big in our rankings. After finishing No. 36 in the 2010 edition of the project, Morris plummeted all the way to a tie for 52nd with Rick Reuschel  this year. It made sense in the respect that advanced research shows Morris to be somewhat overrated, and a lot of my voters this year were members of the Society for American Baseball Research.

Plenty of fans and old-school writers could care less about advanced research, though and bemoan Morris’s absence from Cooperstown. Needless to say, our voting wasn’t well-received by one person who commented:

Jack Morris not being included is a joke. 4 world series rings. WS MVP. Pitched the greatest game in WS history. If that was for the Yankees, he would have been in the hall years ago.

It’s a joke.

I don’t agree, particularly since Don Larsen isn’t in the Hall of Fame or our Top 50, and he pitched the actual greatest game in World Series history and did it for the Yankees to boot. Still, the comment made me think.

Morris sports a 254-190 lifetime record and 1991 World Series heroics that grow more mythical by the year. He also won the most games of any pitcher in the 1980s, maybe helped by the fact he was on winning Detroit Tiger teams nine of those years (Detroit finally went 59-103 in 1989 and an injury-plagued Morris staggered to 6-14.) Still, the biggest thing keeping Morris out of Cooperstown might be his 3.90 ERA, higher than any man enshrined. Morris didn’t need Yankee pinstripes for a Hall of Fame plaque. He needed an era where his ERA could have been lower.

Era he might have thrived in: With his durability, good for at least 240 innings ten times in his career, Morris might have been well-suited for the 1960s. The pitcher-friendly era might take somewhere close to one run off his ERA, and on the 1968 Tigers, Morris could stand in for Mickey Lolich who had postseason brilliance of his own that year, winning three games in the World Series. That all might be enough for Cooperstown.

Why: Hall of Fame voting doesn’t always deal in context. Morris could take his exact same abilities, his 105 ERA+ and 39.3 WAR which rank near the bottom for enshrined pitchers and have passable surface stats in the right era. Playing his best years in the 1960s, this could mean an ERA somewhere in the lower half of the 3.00s. If that didn’t satisfy the Baseball Writers Association of America in its Hall voting, Morris would at least probably be honored by the Veterans Committee.

There’s a tool on Baseball-Reference.com that converts stats between different eras based largely on average number of runs scored. Since earned run average directly relates to this, it’s a good tool to see how Morris’s ERA might fare with the ’68 Tigers. In short, he’d do well with them for any number of seasons from his career. Take 1986, where Morris went 21-8 with a 3.27 for Detroit; that’d be good for 16-13 with a 2.60 ERA in 1968. Or there’s the strike-shortened 1981 season where Morris led the American League with 14 wins against seven losses and a 3.05 ERA; in 1968, that would come to 20-14 with a 2.53 ERA.

Whatever the case, it’d be a huge benefit for a man who, in real life, never had a season with a sub-3.00 ERA. Then there’s the fact that playing prior to 1980 when four-man rotations were common, Morris might get enough additional starts over the course of his career for 300 wins. Heck, Morris wouldn’t need a fairytale ten-inning shutout in Game 7 of a World Series for his plaque. Fans would have to find another non-enshrined player to get angry about.

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: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies,Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson,Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe,Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film),Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson,Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson,Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell
, Will Clark, Willie Mays

Editor’s note: This week’s edition of “Any player/Any era” will be published Thursday afternoon.

_______________

Baseball fans are righteously shocked and disgusted at the ludicrous contract offered by the Anaheim Angels and accepted by Albert Pujols. But I recall another winter transaction even more stunning although it took place on a smaller stage.

During the 1956-1957 season, the Puerto Rican League Santurce Cangrejeros sold Roberto Clemente, the team’s superstar, local hero and the island’s most beloved figure to its rival Caguas Criollos.

Baseball, as owners constantly remind us, is a business. The Clemente sale is an outstanding example of how money can be the overriding factor in front office decisions.

Here’s how it happened. The Crabbers’ owner, Pedrin Zorrilla had sustained heavy losses in running his club and could no longer afford to to carry on. So although Zorrilla loved his Crabbers, he reluctantly sold the ball club to Ramon Cuevas, a business potentate. Cuevas’s first move was to liquidate the Crabbers debts by selling Clemente, Juan Pizarro and Ronnie Samford to Caguas for $30,000. The move, which Zorrilla would never have considered, horrified the former owner and shocked all of Puerto Rico.

The transaction so enraged Ruben Gomez that when he heard the news in the clubhouse, he tore off his uniform and swore he would never play another game.

But the deal backfired on Caguas. Even though Clemente was hitting a torrid .400 and was in the middle of an 18-game hitting streak, Caguas ended up tied for third place with the San Juan Senators. In a single elimination game for the final playoff spot against the Ralph Houk-led Senators, Caguas lost 4-1. Entering the game, Clemente needed to go 2-4 to secure .400 but fell one hit short and ended the year at .396 to win the batting crown with the decade’s highest average.

The Senators’ winning pitcher was Luis “Tite” Arroyo who won 111 games in his 19-year Caribbean League career, an astonishing total given that the seasons lasted a mere three months and games were played only on the weekend.

In an interesting footnote, when Clemente went to Caguas he took Sandy Koufax’s roster spot. Caguas was forced to release Koufax because of a new regulation that limited “imports” (American-born players) to three. In Koufax’s final appearance, he pitched a two-hit shut out against Santurce with Clemente getting both hits.

During his fifteen seasons with the Santurce, Caguas, and San Juan, Clemente compiled a .323 batting average. He competed in five championships: two with Santurce, two with San Juan and one with Caguas. Clemente played for Puerto Rican teams that twice won the Caribbean Series on two occasions, and as manager, he directed the San Juan team to two playoff appearances in two seasons.