Draftback...ain't I clever? The NFL Draft is later this month and the point of this blog is a lot of nostalgia so might as well look back at some old drafts, plus I've done no football content to this point. Pretty much picked in 1990 at random and because at first glance the 1st round looks rather uninspiring. I will only be looking back at the first round picks as to hell with going over the whole thing. Don't expect any real insight as unlike baseball there isn't much in terms of statisical analyst to do when it comes to football. There is Football Outsiders but their data only goes back five or six years.
1. Indianapolis - Jeff George, QB, Illinois
The Colts traded up to make this controversial choice at the time as it surprised many that he left Illinois early and some weren't even sure he was worth a 1st round pick, let alone the #1 choice overall. All things considered George didn't have that bad of a career but his habit of being a jackass kind of always painted him a bad light. Didn't help that he never made it to a Pro Bowl either.
2. N.Y. Jets - Blair Thomas, RB, Penn State
An overhyped Penn State running back who is a bust in the NFL? GET OUT! Actually showed signs of being a good NFL back in his rookie year but bad knees did him in.
3. Seattle - Cortez Kennedy, DT, Miami
Seven time Pro Bowl selection who would spend his entire 11-year career with the Seahawks. Definently a good pick here.
4. Tampa Bay - Keith McCants, LB, Alabama
Was rated #1 overall by many but he was a huge bust. Last I thing heard on him was he stole a car last year. Ya life didn't turn out to well for him.
5. San Diego - Junior Seau, LB, USC
No brainer here, 11 Pro Bowl selections and a future spot in Canton.
6. Chicago - Mark Carrier, DB, USC
Good NFL career as he burst on the scene his rookie year with a 10 interceptions on his way to Defensive Rookie of the Year. Selected to three Pro Bowls.
7. Detroit - Andre Ware, QB, Houston
Hands down the #1 rated QB coming into the draft and everyone thought he'd be star because he was drafted by a team that had the run and shoot offense. Hey how'd that turn out?
8. New England - Chris Singleton, LB, Arizona
Lasted seven years...um ya that's all I got.
9. Miami - Richmond Webb, T, Texas A&M
Another good pick here, made it to seven Pro Bowls, playing 11 of his 13 years in Miami.
10. New England - Ray Agnew, DE, N.C. State
Halfway decent player who hung around forever it seemed.
11. L.A. Raiders - Anthony Smith, DE, Arizona
Pass rushing specialist who was an absolute beast his first few years in the league.
12. Cincinnati - James Francis, LB, Baylor
Solid player who played nine seasons with the Bengals.
13. Kansas City - Percy Snow, LB, Michigan State
The only thing I remember about Snow was I had one of the "behind the scenes" NFL tapes and one segment was on the Chief's war room before the '90 Draft and they were pretty excited about Snow. He ended lasting a whole three years.
14. New Orleans - Renaldo Turnbull, DE, West Virginia
Part of those scary good Saints' linebacker cores from the early 90's. Decent career with his best year coming in 1993 when he had 13 sacks.
15. Houston - Lamar Lathon, LB, Houston
You can see this was a very deep linebacker draft. Solid career.
16. Buffalo - James Williams, DB, Fresno State
With a common name like that you think I'll actually know anything about the guy?
17. Dallas - Emmitt Smith, RB, Florida
Safe to say everyone except maybe San Diego regretted not taking him.
18. Green Bay - Tony Bennett, LB, Mississippi
Yet another linebacker who had a solid career.
19. Green Bay - Darrell Thompson, RB, Minnesota
1641 yards rushing, 3.5 YPC, 7 career touchdowns, gone after 1994. Ya not a good pick
20. Atlanta - Steve Broussard, RB, Washington State
You know it would have been kind of interesting to see what Broussard would have done in a standard offense rather than the run and shoot. Okay maybe not that interesting but might have given a not so non-descript career.
21. Pittsburgh - Eric Green, TE, Liberty
Pretty good tight end who made it to two Pro Bowls.
22. Philadelphia - Ben Smith, DB, Georgia
Played six years and really who noticed?
23. L.A. Rams - Bern Brostek, C, Washington
I don't think I paid as much attention to the NFL as I thought (and I don't pay that much attention today) I did. The guy played for the Rams so being a 49er fan you think I'd remember the guy with them playing each other twice a year but I don't.
24. N.Y Giants - Rodney Hampton, RB, Georgia
Good career, had five consecutive 1000 yard seasons from '91 to '95.
25. San Francisco - Dexter Carter, RB, Florida State
49ers had the right idea drafting a running back as they would end up being correct in their concerns about Roger Craig lasting much longer (he didn't) but Carter wasn't the guy to replace him. Actually led the 49ers in rushing his rookie year but that just tells you had bad their running game was.
List contains the top 30 in Saves. I know you will all be shocked that K-Rod isn't #1.
Closer Rankings
1. Mariano Rivera, Yankees
17.3 Win Shares
34.0 VORP
10.3 WARP3
Year Ag Tm Lg W L G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP WP BFP IBB BK ERA *lgERA *ERA+ WHIP
+--------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+------+----+----+----+---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+---+-----+-----+----+-----+
2008 38 NYY AL 6 5 64 0 0 0 60 39 70.7 41 11 11 4 6 77 2 1 259 0 0 1.40 4.44 317 0.665
2. Joe Nathan, Twins
3. Jonathan Papelbon, Red Sox
4. Joakim Soria, Royals
5. Kerry Wood, Cubs
6. Brian Fuentes, Rockies
7. Brad Lidge, Phillies
8. Francisco Rodriguez, Angels
9. Bobby Jenks, White Sox
10. Takashi Saito, Dodgers
11. Jose Valverde, Astros
12. Billy Wagner, Mets
13. Jonathan Broxton, Dodgers
14. Matt Capps, Pirates
15. Huston Street, A's
16. Trevor Hoffman, Padres
17. Francisco Cordero, Reds
18. B.J. Ryan, Blue Jays
19. Kevin Gregg, Marlins
20. Jon Rauch, Nationals/Diamondbacks
21. Salomon Torres, Brewers
22. Brian Wilson, Giants
23. Ryan Franklin, Cardinals
24. Mike Gonzalez, Braves
25. J.J. Putz, Mariners
26. Brandon Lyon, Diamondbacks
27. George Sherrill, Orioles
5.0 Win Shares
5.8 VORP
3.4 WARP3
Year Ag Tm Lg W L G GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP WP BFP IBB BK ERA *lgERA *ERA+ WHIP
+--------------+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+------+----+----+----+---+----+----+---+---+-----+---+---+-----+-----+----+-----+
2008 31 BAL AL 3 5 57 0 0 0 49 31 53.3 47 28 28 6 33 58 1 1 239 6 0 4.73 4.53 96 1.500
28. Troy Percival, Rays
29. Todd Jones, Tigers
30. C.J. Wilson, Rangers
A week ago on the wonderful baseball stat geek site Hardball Times there was this article about the 1994 Montreal Expos. The article is titled "Where Are They Now?" but it more or less only tells you were they went rather than where they are now, not that I was needing to find out where Freddie Benavides was nowadays. So I figured I'd do the same for another team from the past but have a more approriate title for it. Now for picking the team I was going to go with 1989 Oakland A's or the 1997 Florida Marlins but figured I'd go for something more obscure for the first one so I picked the 1985 New York Yankees. The 80's were considered the dark days for the Yankees, at least by their fan base, but they actually had some very good teams that decade just with no World Series ring to show for it. The best Yankee team of the '80s was the 1985 team which won 97 games but came up two games shy of the Blue Jays for the A.L. East title.
Catcher: Butch Wynegar (.223./.356/.320, 10.9 VORP, 10 Win Shares) - After putting up solid offensive numbers the previous three years, Wynegar hit the catcher wall in '85. He'd spend one more year with the Yankees and then be traded to the Angels where'd he finish out his career.
First Base: Don Mattingly (.324/.371/.567, 78.9 VORP, 32 Win Shares) - Donny Baseball might be a tad overrated by Yankee fans of the 80's but you can kind of understand why when you look at his numbers during the mid-80's. He would of course spend his whole career with the Yankees, retiring after 1995. He won the MVP in '85 but he actually wasn't the best player on his own team.
Second Base: Willie Randolph (.276/.382/.356, 32.9 VORP, 20 Win Shares) - Very consistent, solid performer in the 80's for the Yankees. He'd leave after 1988 as a free agent to the Dodgers. From there he'd be traded the A's during the 1990 season and get to play in his fourth World Series. He'd finish up with one year stops with the Brewers and Mets before retiring after 1992.
Third Base: Mike Pagliarulo (.239/.324/.442, 19.4 VORP, 13 Win Shares) - Aww one of my favorite "names" when I was a kid. Good power but couldn't hit for average or draw walks. He'd flame out pretty quick being traded to the Padres in 1989, ended up with Twins in 1991 and picked up a World Series ring, finshing up with the Orioles and Rangers.
Shortstop: Bob Meacham (.218/.302/.266, 2.7 VORP, 11 Win Shares) - Egads is that an ugly line. If the Yankees had a competent shortstop in '85 maybe they win the East. Maybe Baseball Jesus, The Jeter, will discover time travel and lead the '85 Yankees to World Series title. *fist pump*
Left Field: Ken Griffey (.274/.331/.425, 19.2 VORP, 14 Win Shares) - At 35, Junior's dad was still an okay player. He'd be traded to the Braves for another aging outfielder in Claudell Washington in 1986. He'd make a nostalgic trip back to the Reds at the end of the decade before being released during the World Series run of 1990. Then five days later he'd be picked up by the Mariners in a marketing ploy by having father and son play together.
Center Field: Rickey Henderson (.314/.419/.516, 94.1 VORP, 38 Win Shares) - The man, the myth, the legend, and the real 1985 A.L. MVP. This would be Rickey's best year until he topped it and finally won the MVP in 1990. Of course that was with the A's as he was traded midseason back to Oakland in a trade that still has to have Yankee fans gritting their teeth. The booty for Rickey: Luis Polonia, Greg Cadaret, and Erick Plunk. Woof. Rickey would get his first World Series ring in '89, while Polonia would lead the league having sex with 14 year olds. Running thru where Rickey went:
Oakland
Toronto
Oakland
San Diego
Anaheim
Oakland
N.Y. Mets
Seattle
San Diego
Boston
Los Angeles
Newark
Right Field: Dave Winfield (.275/.328/.471, 38.0 VORP, 21 Win Shares) - Hey look George Steinbrenner's favorite player. '85 was actually the start of a bit of down time in Winfield's career (for him) before he swung back up the bell curve in 1988. Traded to the Angels for Mike Witt in 1990, would win a World Series with the Blue Jays in 1991, make the late career hometown visit with the Twins for a couple of years, then finish up with the Indians in 1995.
Designated Hitter: Don Baylor (.231/.330/.430, 26.6 VORP, 12 Win Shares) - Baylor was definently a product of the DH extending a player's career. Couldn't pay the field anymore but could still hit a decent number of homeruns so he stayed in the line-up. As mentioned before he'd make a tour of the next three A.L. Champions in the Red Sox, Twins (World Champs), and A's before retiring.
Pitchers
Ron Guidry - (123 ERA+, 58.4 VORP, 18 Win Shares) - This would be Guidry's last good year and he finished 2nd to Bret Saberhagen in the '85 Cy Young voting. He played his entire career with the Yankees, retiring after 1988.
Phil Niekro - (98 ERA+, 27.9 VORP, 10 Win Shares) - If I ever have a son he's gonna learn how to throw a knuckleball so he can earn a Major League salary into his late 40's and support me since I'll have no Social Security.
Ed Whitson - (83 ERA+, -0.5 VORP, 4 Win Shares) - Okay maybe if the Yankees didn't have Ed Whitson making 30 starts in 1985 they win the East. Whitson had a weird career as he did absolutlely nothing of note for 12 seasons then suddenly at age 34 with the Padres he pitches like a stud for two seasons in '89 and '90 then falls off a cliff in '91 and was out of the league after that. OMG HE WAS ON THE JUICE!!!!
Joe Cowley - (102 ERA+, 25.0 VORP, 9 Win Shares) - I really don't know whole lot about Cowley. He'd be traded to the White Sox after the '85 season, pitched decently in '86, traded to the Phillies right before the '87 season where he'd meltdown and was out of baseball soon after.
Closer: Dave Rigehtti - (145 ERA+, 30.0 VORP, 15 Win Shares) - Absolute beast of a closer during the mid-80's. Started to tail off by the end of the decade and the Yankees let him leave as a free agent after 1990. Spent three years with the Giants then made brief stops with the A's, Blue Jays, and White Sox before retiring after 1995.
Regulars of the Sports forum know that for the past three years I've been running a College Football Pick 'Em Contest. At the conclusion of last season I was uncertain if I wanted to continue running this contest. During last season the contest started to become a chore for me to run rather than a fun time killer. But after giving it it some thought and given the desire of others to keep it going I've decided to do it for at least one more year. I'll be holding off on posting the sign up thread for this upcoming season until mid-July as I hope having sign ups start closer to the beginning of the season will mean less people jumping ship right as the contest starts. Last year I started signs up around this time and I had four people drop out within a month into the season. Further details of the 2007 contest will be held off until then, including a change in the BCS rankings.
To keep this entry in with the theme of my blog, it's time for a random list which relates to the contest. Last year I posted the Bored's College Football Pick 'Em Encyclopedia which had a recap of the first two seasons of the contest and all-time standings. I don't really feel like typing up a recap of last season but I have gone ahead and updated the all-time contest standings so here they are.
All-Time Records (ordered by total wins)
Note: Results where replacements picks were used are thrown out.
1t. CanadianChris 29-13
1t. teke 184 29-14
3. iggymcfly 28-11
4. Edwin MacPhisto 27-14
5. Vern Gagne 25-16
6t. AlwaysPissedOff 23-17
6t. phoenixrising 23-18
8t. Bored 22-18
8t. nogoodnick 22-21
10t. Cuban Linx 21-7
10t. Lando Griffin 21-19
10t. Spaceman Spiff 21-21
10t. Will Scarlet 21-22
14. Spicy McHaggis 20-21
15t. MarvinisLunatic 19-12
15t. Cartman 19-21
17t. Agent of Oblivion 18-21
17t. Gert T 18-21
19. Kotzenjunge 17-20
20t. JHawk 16-22
20t. bravesfan 16-23
22t. Secret Agent 13-12
22t. Agent Bond34 13-14
22t. Kingofthe909 13-16
22t. the pinjockey 13-25
26. Porter 12-13
27t. SilverPhoenix 11-10
27t. therealworldschampion 11-20
29. A MikeSC 9-3
30t. Loaded Glove 8-13
30t. Damaramu 8-15
30t. Carnival 8-17
33t. kkktookmybabyaway 7-5
33t. Urban Warfare 7-6
33t. Danville Wrestling 7-7
33t. Flyboy 7-7
33t. Vampiro69 7-7
33t. Leena 7-8
33t. Vitamin X 7-16
39t. UTBroward 6-7
39t. HarleyQuinn 6-8
39t. Angel Grace Blue 6-19
42t. Hawk 34 5-7
42t. Ortonsault 5-7
44t. Matt Young 4-2
44t. Dangerous A 4-7
44t. 2GOLD 4-9
44t. Mad Dog 4-9
48t. Jimbo 1-1
48t. "Hail" bps21 1-2
50t. IK Cool Jew 0-3
50t. Rob E Dangerously 0-4
Aww the Congressional Bowl sold it's naming rights and is now the EagleBank Bowl. I'm shocked the St. Petersburg Bowl still hasn't sold theirs as that always seemed like a generic placeholder bowl name.
ACC
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Orange, Chick-Fil-A, Gator, Champs Sports, Music City, Meineke Car Care, Emerald, Humanitarian, EagleBank
Locks: Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina
Bowl Eligible: Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Bubble Teams: Clemson, Duke, N.C. State, Virginia
Everyone is technically still alive but highly unlikely Duke or N.C. State win their last two games. The winner of the Clemson/Virginia game this week will become bowl eligible while the loser will have to pull of an upset in a rivalry game the following week.
Notre Dame
Bowl Tie-ins: Cotton, Gator, Sun
Irish barely avoid disaster at the end of the Navy game to become bowl eligible. Should lock up a bid with an easy win against Syracuse this week which will have them on their way to the Gator or Sun Bowl. Upset USC the following week and they will end up in the Cotton Bowl.
Big East
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS, Gator/Sun, Meineke Car Care, International, Papajohns.com, St. Petersburg
Locks: Cincinnati, Connecticut, Pittsburgh
Bowl Eligible: South Florida, West Virginia
Bubble Teams: Louisville, Rutgers
As covered last week the Big East will lose a bid to Notre Dame if they finish 7-5 leaving the conference with five bids. Rutgers crushed a reeling USF team and can become bowl eligible with a win over Army this week which is quite the surprise considering how bad they played the first half of the year. With that in mind, there will be at least one team in this conference needing to find an open bid if they want to go bowling so it is very important to get seven wins.
Big Ten
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Rose (two bids?), Capital One, Outback, Alamo, Champs Sports, Insight, Motor City
Locks: Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State
Bowl Eligible: Wisconsin
Bubble Teams: Illinois
The Big Ten's season is over after this week and if Penn State and Ohio State win, they are both on their way to BCS bowls. Illinois needs to win at Northwestern this week or otherwise the Motor City Bowl will become an open bid.
Big XII
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Fiesta (two bids), Cotton, Holiday, Gator/Sun, Alamo, Insight, Independence, Texas
Locks: Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech
Bubble Teams: Colorado
There is no scenario where this conference doesn't put two teams in the BCS so you can put them down for nine bids which also locks Kansas up for a bid even they still sit on six wins. With Kansas State and Texas A&M being eliminated from bowl consideration, the Texas Bowl is now an open bid and if Colorado doesn't win at Nebraska in two weeks then the Independence Bowl will also be an open bid.
Conference USA
Bowl Tie-ins: Liberty, GMAC, Texas, Armed Forces, New Orleans, St. Petersburg
Locks: Rice, Tulsa
Bowl Eligible: East Carolina, Houston
Bubble Teams: Marshall, Memphis, Southern Miss, UTEP
Only change was Houston became bowl eligible with a drubbing of Tulsa. Southern Miss scored a big win over East Carolina and now only has to beat an awful SMU team to become bowl eligible.
MAC
Bowl Tie-ins: Motor City, GMAC, International
Locks: None
Bowl Eligible: Ball State, Buffalo, Central Michigan, Western Michigan
Bubble Teams: Akron, Bowling Green, Northern Illinois
The odds of Ball State getting into the BCS are now zilch as they were passed by BYU in the BCS standings. See last week's entry as to why there is a really small chance Ball State could not go bowling but it gets slimmer and slimmer with the the growing number of open bids there will be.
Mountain West
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS?, Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Armed Forces, New Mexico
Locks: Air Force, BYU, TCU, Utah
Bubble Teams: Colorado State, UNLV
There's a story out there that I don't think has received any attention yet and that is if BYU beats Utah this week, they and not Boise State could end up with the Fiesta Bowl invite. There's nothing in the BCS rules that requires the highest ranked non-BCS conference team to be taken, if there is another eligible non-BCS team who can be chosen. Boise getting passed over for a one loss non-BCS team could be a nice shitstorm. UNLV should become bowl eligible with a win over San Diego State this week while Colorado State will play at Wyoming with a chance to become bowl eligible as well. Popular belief is that the New Mexico Bowl would invite the Rebels over CSU.
Pac-10
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Rose (two bids?), Holiday, Sun, Emerald, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Poinsettia
Locks: Arizona, California, Oregon, Oregon State, USC
Bubble Teams: Arizona State, Stanford, UCLA
No changes this week as every favorite won. Stanford's season is on the line in the Big Game on Saturday and they will win. They just have to. ASU and UCLA are both idle before their elimination game in two weeks. Still seems likely that at least the Poinsettia Bowl will be an open bid which would go to a WAC team.
SEC
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Sugar (two bids), Capital One, Cotton, Outback, Chick-Fil-A, Music City, Liberty, Independence, Papajohns.com
Locks: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
Bubble Teams: Arkansas, Auburn
Since the conference is pretty much assured to BCS bids at this point which pushes the conference to ten bids, every eligible team is now a lock including Vanderbilt will be going to their first bowl in 26 years. Both Arkansas and Auburn are longshots to become bowl eligible which would leave the Independence and the Papajohns.com Bowl as open bids. I'm sure the Independence Bowl is just giddy over the possibility of instead of having an SEC/Big XII match-up they may end up with a MAC/Sun Belt showdown.
Sun Belt
Bowl Tie-in: New Orleans
Locks: None
Bowl Eligible: Troy
Bubble Teams: Arkansas State, FIU, Florida Atlantic, UL Lafayette, Middle Tennessee
The winner of the ULL/Troy game this week all but clinches the conference title and the New Orleans Bowl bid. Because of contingency bids and other open bids this sad sack of conference could conceivably end up sending four teams to bowls when all is said and done.
WAC
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS?, Humanitarian, Hawaii, New Mexico
Locks: Boise State
Bowl Eligible: Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, Nevada, San Jose State
Bubble Teams: Hawaii
As I already covered, Boise State's odds of landing a BCS bid could even longer than you think. Fresno, LA Tech, and Nevada all became bowl eligible this week but there is still way too many things that can happen to figure out who is going where and who is staying home. Again the Poinsettia Bowl will likely be added as a 4th bid for the conference, assuming the Pac-10 doesn't fill.
The worst offensive season by a centerfielder since 1901 was Alex Metzler in 1930 with an OPS+ of 56 (.236/.313/.302). The player on the top of this particular list came very close to breaking that record in 1999 (the year of shitting hitting outfielders?) and also made my Worst Hitters since 1986 list. Interesting thing about this list is that most of these punchless performances have happened in the last 20 years.
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Centerfielder Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
1. Darren Lewis, 1999 - Boston Red Sox 57 OPS+ (.240/.311/.309)
2. Gary Pettis, 1988 - Detroit Tigers 61
3. Marquis Grissom, 2000 - Milwaukee Brewers 63
4. Darren Lewis, 1995 - San Francisco Giants/Cincinnati Reds 64
5t. Endy Chavez, 2003 - Montreal Expos 65
5t. Brian Hunter, 1998 - Detroit Tigers 65
5t. Chuck Carr, 1994 - Florida Marlins 65
5t. Brian McRrae, 1992 - Kansas City Royals 65
5t. Bill Virdon, 1964 - Pittsburgh Pirates 65
10. Peter Bergeron, 2000 - Montreal Expos 67
11t. Juan Pierre, 2002 - Colorado Rockies 68
11t. Gerald Williams, 1997 - Milwaukee Brewers 68
11t. Omar Moreno, 1982 - Pittsburgh Pirates 68
11t. Bill Virdon, 1962 - Pittsburgh Pirates 68
15t. Tom Goodwin, 2000 - Colorado Rockies/Los Angeles Dodgers 69
15t. Tom Goodwin, 1997 - Kansas City Royals/Texas Rangers 69
15t. Eric Yelding, 1990 - Houston Astros 69
18t. Tom Goodwin, 1996 - Kansas City Royals 70
18t. Darren Lewis, 1993 - San Francisco Giants 70
18t. Rick Manning, 1979 - Cleveland Indians 70
18t. Jim Piersall, 1962 - Washington Senators 70
22t. Doug Glanville, 2001 - Philadelphia Phillies 71
22t. Doug Glanville, 2000 - Philadelphia Phillies 71
22t. Chris Singleton, 2000 - Chicago White Sox 71
22t. Bob Dernier, 1985 - Chicago Cubs 71
22t. Rick Manning, 1983 - Cleveland Indians/Milwaukee Brewers 71
David Justice - Rightfielder
Atlanta Braves 1989-1996
Cleveland Indians 1997-2000
New York Yankees 2000-2001
Oakland Athletics 2002
Awards
1990 N.L. Rookie of the Year
1993 N.L. Silver Slugger - OF
1997 N.L. Silver Slugger - OF
2000 ALCS MVP
All-Star Selections: 3 (1993, 1994, 1997)
League Leader
None
Career Ranks
SLG%: 90th
OPS: 95th
HR/AB: 73rd
Best Performance
May 7, 1999 - Cleveland at Tampa Bay
Went 4 for 4 with two homeruns, four runs scored, and five RBI.
Hall of Fame Stats
Gray Ink: Batting - 43 (564) (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
HOF Standards: Batting - 28.7 (309) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting - 43.5 (416) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Similar Batters in HOF: 1 (Larry Doby)
Other Similar Batters: Tim Salmon, Ryan Klesko, Rudy York, Kent Hrbek, Greg Luzinski, Jeromy Burnitz, Darryl Strawberry, Roy Sievers, Mo Vaughn
Year-by-Year Win Shares & Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3)
1989: 0/0.1
1990: 20/4.5
1991: 22/6.0
1992: 23/8.0
1993: 29/8.5
1994: 19/7.5
1995: 19/5.5
1996: 7/2.7
1997: 26/7.6
1998: 13/4.8
1999: 16/4.8
2000: 20/7.5
2001: 8/2.6
2002: 11/3.5
Career Win Shares: 233
Career WARP3: 73.6
My Stupid Opinion
Good hitter who could rarely stay healthy an entire season. He managed to play over 150 games in a season only once in his career, which also happened to be his best year in 1993. His career does prove that postseason experience doesn't mean shit when it actually comes to playing the postseason as he played in 112 postseason games but hit only .224/.335/.382. He did fuck Halle Berry but he's not close to being borderline candidate where such a feat can be considered.
Last night the Oakland A’s beat the Seattle Mariners 4-0 and by doing so have tied a Major League record with 15 consecutive wins over a divisional opponent (Braves turned the trick against the Padres in 1974). On the season the A’s are 53-51 against everyone besides the Mariners while on the flip side the Mariners are 55-49 against everyone besides the A’s. The A’s dominance of the Mariners has now put them a position that didn’t seem possible just a few weeks earlier and that is a commanding lead in the A.L. West. Now it was just four years ago around this time of year that the A’s were in the middle of another streak, one of much more historic importance that I was able to see in person.
On August 12th, 2002 the A’s lost the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 at home dropping themselves 4 and a half games back of the first place Mariners. They wouldn’t lose another game until 24 days later. The following night an Eric Chavez two run single in the 7th broke a 3-3 tie, Billy Koch made it interesting in the 9th as he usually did but the A’s held on for a 5-4 win. They’d take the rubber match 4-2 the next day. That Friday on the 16th I went to the game with my brother as the A’s played the White Sox, the first of three games I’d attend during the streak not that I had any idea at the time what had started. Jermaine Dye led off the 2nd with a homerun and that would be enough for Cory Lidle and three relievers as the A’s went on to win 1-0. After sweeping the White Sox that weekend they headed to Cleveland for four games. The Indians would hardly put up a fight as the A’s outscored them 29-7 during the four game sweep and left Cleveland in a tie for first now with the Mariners. Next up was a trip Detroit. The A’s crushed the hapless Tigers 9-1 and 12-3 for wins #10 and #11 in the streak and the Mariners had lost both days giving the A’s a two game lead now in the West, a six and a half game swing in a span of 11 games. But in the finale in Detroit it appeared the streak would come to an end. In the 4th starter Aaron Harang was tagged for five runs, capped by a Randall Simon three run homer off reliever Micah Bowie to give the Tigers a 7-2 lead. A’s were still down 7-3 going into the 8th but it was in that inning that you got the feeling this streak wasn’t going to end anytime soon. Greg Myers led off the inning with a homerun, Chavez would hit a two run double a few batters later to cut the lead to a run, and then John Mabry followed with another two run double to give the A’s the lead. They tacked two more runs on in the 9th on a Dye homer and the A’s would win 10-7 for win #12. Off to Kansas City next for a fairly easy sweep to cap a 10-0 road trip and head home with a 15 game winning streak.
Now while on this was going on baseball involved in another labor dispute. My Dad and I had tickets to the A’s return game from the road trip on Friday the 30th against the Twins but there was potentially not going to be a game at all as the player’s were set to go on strike the day before if a labor deal was not agreed on. Obviously the A’s had probably more to lose than any team if a strike happened both on the field and at the box office. But for the first time a very, very long time the player’s union compromised with the owners and a strike was avoided. That following night there was a bit of a buzz in the crowd as the A’s closed in the American League record of 19 straight wins held by the ’06 White Sox and ’47 Yankees but at the same time you didn’t get the sense that people thought it would happen. It didn’t help that Jacque Jones would hit the first pitch of the game from Tim Hudson into the right field seats. But Ray Durham would answer with his lead off homerun in the bottom of the inning and the A’s would eventually win 4-2 for win #16. The next day I was off to Tahoe for the weekend for my brother’s bachelor party and I would miss three remarkable games by the A’s, not that I really noticed beyond catching a few highlights at the casinos. A’s won Saturday 6-3, after Ricardo Rincon had coughed up the lead in the top of the 8th they had answered with three runs in the bottom of inning to get the win. With the A’s now two wins shy of tying the record, they would start a streak of three straight games that they would win in their last at bat. Koch would blow a 5-2 lead in the 9th giving up homeruns to Corey Koskie and Micahel Cuddyer. But with two out and one on in the bottom of the 9th, Miguel Tejada hit a walkoff homerun against Eddie Guardado for the 7-5 win. Kansas City came in for Labor Day the next day for a brief two game “series.” The A’s blew yet another late inning lead but Tejada would get the game winning hit again after the A’s loaded the bases for a 7-6 win and tie the A.L. record with 19 straight wins.
I came home from Tahoe on Tuesday morning the 3rd and the A’s had an odd off day between the two home games that day. For whatever reasons I hadn’t even thought about going to the game the next night and I was surprised about two hours before the game my Dad asks me if I want to the game but I was like “sure, why not?” Now a weeknight game against the Royals wasn’t going to have much of a presale so we weren’t too concerned about tickets even if we knew there would be a huge walk up because of the possibility witnessing baseball history. I thought that a lot of the walk up would be people getting off work and buying tickets right before the opening pitch. But apparently people were there all day long getting tickets and everything outside of Mount Davis was sold out by the time we got to the game. For those unfamiliar Mount Davis is the football monstrosity that was erected in the outfield of the Oakland Coliseum back in 1996 in place of the old school bleachers. I had never sat on top of Mount Davis and I’ll never do it again unless the A’s get to the World Series. There’s little to no sarcasm in me saying that you have a better view of San Francisco up there than you do of the field. A good portion of the outfield is obstructed so we had to pretty much rely on what the rest of the crowd did to figure what happened on long fly balls. But bad seats aside the game started out as good as anyone could hope for. By the end of the 3rd inning the A’s had torched Paul Byrd and Darrell May for an 11-0 lead. The A.L. record was in the bag. Even when the Royals scored five in the 4th there was still none of the 55,000+ at the game who was worried at all and as the 11-5 lead held most of us just wanted the game to end as soon as possible so we could see the celebration. Then came the 8th with Chad Bradford in the game for the A’s.
Brent Mayne walked.
Emil Brown walked.
Neifi Perez singled.
Luis Ordaz reaches on fielder’s choice, no out recorded, Mabry scores, 11-6.
Bradford was lifted for Rincon and at this point my Dad and I started to head down the ramps to get down the field level area and watch the rest of the game standing behind the field level seats. Still not that worried but wishing they would stop this from getting too interesting. Now it is a long ass walk down Mount Davis to field level and Michael Tucker struck out while we were walking but as we reached the bottom a large portion of the stadium groaned…Royals just scored again on a Carlos Beltran sac fly. But there were now two out and the A’s were still up 11-7. Rincon was lifted for Jeff Tam and we finally settled on a spot to watch the rest of the game. Any remaining thoughts that the A’s still had this under control soon went out the window. Mike Sweeney crushed one down the left field line and it was now 11-10. It was at that point that I let out a loud “FUCK!” and got a dirty look from some old lady. It was also at that time that Billy Beane was in the A’s clubhouse breaking several things. Thankfully Raul Ibanez grounded out to ended the inning but you suddenly now didn’t even care about the record and were more worried about the A’s being part of a different record by blowing an 11-0 lead. A’s went quietly in the 8th and it was now up to Koch. Joe Randa led off with a single and Mayne bunted him over to 2nd. Koch though would strike out Brown and got two strikes on Luis Alicea…this was it, the 20th straight win! Or not. Alicea singles. Randa scores. Tie game 11-11.
The sound you heard in the Coliseum was 55,000+ people being punched in the stomach at the same time. You just couldn’t believe what had happened. A team with a 19 game winning streak, playing one of the worst team’s in baseball, just blew an 11-0 lead. Now faced with possibly extra innings and the A’s bullpen almost completely exhausted, things couldn’t be grimmer. Against Jason Grimsely, Dye led off the night with a harmless fly out. Scott Hatteberg came up to pinch hit for Eric Byrnes. Grimsley missed with the first pitch and then….
Everyone knew it was gone the second it left his bat. I've never been one to start celebrating and high fiving complete strangers at sporting events but you couldn't help it here. In an instant this had gone from the worst game I've ever been to, to the best game I've ever been to.
Two days later in Minnesota the streak was over. Exactly one month later the Twins would end the A's season in another dissapointing, heartbreaking playoff ALDS loss by the A's and the streak was forgotten. But it is kind of cool to know that I was able to watch some true baseball history in person.
The Streak (* - Game I saw in person)
#1: A's 5, Blue Jays 4
#2: A's 4, Blue Jays 2
#3: A's 1, White Sox 0*
#4: A's 9, White Sox 2
#5: A's 7, White Sox 4
#6: A's 8, Indians 1
#7: A's 6, Indians 3
#8: A's 6, Indians 0
#9: A's 9, Indians 3
#10: A's 9, Tigers 1
#11: A's 12, Tigers 3
#12: A's 10, Tigers 7
#13: A's 6, Royals 3
#14: A's 6, Royals 4
#15: A's 7, Royals 1
#16: A's 4, Twins 2*
#17: A's 6, Twins 3
#18: A's 7, Twins 5
#19: A's 7, Royals 6
#20: A's 12, Royals 11*
ACC
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Orange, Chick-Fil-A, Gator, Champs Sports, Music City, Meineke Car Care, Emerald, Humanitarian, EagleBank
Locks: Boston College, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, Virginia Tech
Bowl Eligible: Wake Forest
Bubble Teams: Clemson, N.C. State, Virginia
We finally had a team be eliminated for bowl consideration this week, that being Duke. N.C. State stayed alive with a stunning blowout win over North Carolina and they finish with a home game against Miami on Saturday. I misspoke last week I said the winner of the Clemson/Virginia game would become bowl eligible. Clemson actually needed two wins since they've played two I-AA teams this year and you can only count one of those games towards bowl eligibility. Their last game will be at home against South Carolina. Wake Forest could be in trouble if they don't beat Vanderbilt this week to pick up win #7 and if there ends up being more eligible teams than bids for this conference, they likely will have to go hunting for an at large bid which could be tough with a 6-6 record.
Notre Dame
Bowl Tie-ins: Cotton, Gator, Sun
Wow, don't think anyone anticipated them losing to Syracuse. This puts the USC game as almost a must win for the Irish or they could be staying home for bowl season. You can forget about the Gator Bowl if they finish 6-6 but the Sun Bowl would still be possible. Remember they are considered a Big East team when it comes to bowl selections and the rule is bowls must invite 7+ win teams over 6 win teams if there are not enough available slots in a conference. The Big East has six bids and currently four teams with 7+ wins. If Rutgers and South Florida pickup win #7 that would fill of the Big East slots and Notre Dame would have no where to go except hope for an at large bid although the same 7+ win rule applies for at large bids as well.
Big East
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS, Gator/Sun, Meineke Car Care, International, Papajohns.com, St. Petersburg
Locks: Cincinnati, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, West Virginia
Bowl Eligible: Rutgers, South Florida
Bubble Teams: Louisville
So with Notre Dame's bowl hopes in doubt, the Big East might get to keep all six of their bids. Very big game for USF against UConn tonight to get that all important win #7 because the following week they are at West Virginia. Louisville's season will be on the line in two weeks at Rutgers.
Big Ten
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Rose (two bids?), Capital One, Outback, Alamo, Champs Sports, Insight, Motor City
Locks: Iowa, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin
I was a bit presumptuous last week in stating that if Ohio State won they were on their way to a BCS bowl and the reason is because of what is happening in the Pac-10. Oregon State is one win away from getting the Rose Bowl bid which would put USC into the at large pool and the Fiesta Bowl would likely jump all over them. That would send Ohio State off to the Capital One Bowl. It then remains to be seen if the Motor City Bowl will be an open bid or not.
Big XII
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Fiesta (two bids), Cotton, Holiday, Gator/Sun, Alamo, Insight, Independence, Texas
Locks: Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech
Bubble Teams: Colorado
There are no changes in this conference. Again Colorado must beat Nebraska on Friday to keep their season going or then the Independence Bowl becomes an open bid.
Conference USA
Bowl Tie-ins: Liberty, GMAC, Texas, Armed Forces, New Orleans, St. Petersburg
Locks: East Carolina, Houston, Rice, Tulsa
Bubble Teams: Memphis, Southern Miss, UTEP
Marshall was eliminated yesterday with a loss to Rice. Of the three bubble teams, UTEP has the longest odds as they finish the season at East Carolina. Memphis and Southern Miss play conference bottom feeders Tulane and SMU respectively.
MAC
Bowl Tie-ins: Motor City, GMAC, International
Locks: Ball State
Bowl Eligible: Buffalo, Central Michigan, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan
Bubble Teams: Akron, Bowling Green
I can now safely call Ball State a lock after they beat CMU on Wednesday thus eliminating any chance that they will have to rely on an at large bid. CMU and WMU may have to sweat a little because Buffalo will be attractive to the International Bowl.
Mountain West
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS, Las Vegas, Poinsettia, Armed Forces, New Mexico
Locks: Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, TCU, Utah
Utah is on their way to the BCS now so the conference will get five bids. I was probably the only one watching UNLV last night blow their chance at their first bowl bid in eight years as they were stunned by lowly San Diego State and their season is now over. UNLV's loss ends up being Colorado State's gain as they became bowl eligible with a win over Wyoming.
Pac-10
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Rose (two bids?), Holiday, Sun, Emerald, Las Vegas, Hawaii, Poinsettia
Locks: Arizona, California, Oregon, Oregon State, USC
Bubble Teams: Arizona State, UCLA
As covered in the Big Ten section, Oregon State is a win away from going to the Rose Bowl and likely giving the conference two BCS bids assuming that USC beats Notre Dame and UCLA. Stanford broke my heart yesterday with a listless performance against Cal and has been eliminated. The conference now will have no more than six eligible teams at the most with the ASU/UCLA elimination game this week. The winner of that game will still need another win the following week in their rivalry game to become bowl eligible. Poinsettia Bowl is now a WAC bid.
SEC
Bowl Tie-ins: BCS/Sugar (two bids), Capital One, Cotton, Outback, Chick-Fil-A, Music City, Liberty, Independence, Papajohns.com
Locks: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, South Carolina, Vanderbilt
Bubble Teams: Auburn
Arkansas was eliminated yesterday with a loss to Mississippi State. Auburn will have to shock the world against Alabama this week to become bowl eligible or the Independence Bowl becomes an open bid.
Sun Belt
Bowl Tie-in: New Orleans, PapaJohns.com?
Locks: Troy
Bowl Eligible: None
Bubble Teams: Arkansas State, FIU, Florida Atlantic, UL Lafayette, Middle Tennessee
Troy crushed ULL yesterday but they haven't officially won the conference yet. I think that Arkansas State can still win the conference by tiebreak if they win this week against a horrific North Texas team and then upset Troy in two weeks. But even if that scenario plays out, Troy is a lock for a bowl bid because the PapaJohns.com would then become a Sun Belt bid since the SEC will not fill it and the conference had a contingency bid. I'm still not 100% sure if the Sun Belt needs a 7+ win team to be pick up that bid officially though so if the Arkansas State scenario doesn't play out, there wouldn't be another 7+ win team in the conference.
WAC
Bowl Tie-ins: Humanitarian, Hawaii, New Mexico, Poinsettia
Locks: Boise State
Bowl Eligible: Fresno State, Hawaii, Louisiana Tech, Nevada, San Jose State
Boise State can still get a BCS at large invite but you can forget about them getting invited over Ohio State and now possibly USC. The conference did officially pickup the Poinsettia Bowl with Stanford's elimination in the Pac-10. The rest of the conference is still a mess but I think it's safe to assume at 6-6 that San Jose State will definitely not be getting a bid.
Now we get to the our first holdover and someone who has received some decent support.
Lee Smith - Closer
Chicago Cubs 1980-1987
Boston Red Sox 1988-1990
St. Louis Cardinals 1990-1993
New York Yankees 1993
Baltimore Orioles 1994
California Angels 1995-1996
Cincinnati Reds 1996
Montreal Expos 1997
5th year on the ballot
Past HOF Voting Results
2003: 42.34%
2004: 36.56%
2005: 38.8%
2006: 45.0%
Awards
1991 NL Rolaids Relief Award
1992 NL Rolaids Relief Award
1994 AL Rolaids Relief Award
All-Star Selections: 7 (1983, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995)
League Leader
1983: Saves
1991: Saves
1992: Saves
1994: Saves
Career Ranks
Saves: 2nd
Games: 8th
H/9: 97th
K/9: 11th
K/BB: 61st
ERA+: 30th
Hall of Fame Stats
Black Ink: Pitching - 12 (178) (Average HOFer ≈ 40)
Gray Ink: Pitching - 48 (512) (Average HOFer ≈ 185)
HOF Standards: Pitching - 13.0 (578) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Pitching - 135.0 (50) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Similar Pitchers in HOF: 2 (Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter)
Other Similar Pitchers: Jeff Reardon, John Franco, Roberto Hernandez, Trevor Hoffman, Rick Aguilera, Kent Tekulve, Jose Mesa
Year-by-Year Win Shares & Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3)
1980: 2/0.7
1981: 4/2.5
1982: 13/4.5
1983: 19/8.3
1984: 15/4.9
1985: 17/5.9
1986: 17/7.2
1987: 15/7.4
1988: 12/4.7
1989: 11/3.9
1990: 17/6.2
1991: 15/6.5
1992: 12/4.2
1993: 9/3.4
1994: 8/4.9
1995: 8/5.0
1996: 4/2.1
1997: 0/0.1
Career Win Shares: 198
Career WARP3: 82.2
Would he get my vote?
No. I personally just have a hard time thinking someone who spent their career almost exclusively as a short reliever as being a HOF. As I've mentioned before a closer can rarely ever be considered the most valuable player on a team. Even though he retired as the all-time saves leader Smith was definately a notch below the elite closers in baseball history (Fingers, Eckersley, Rivera, Gossage, Sutter, Quisenberry, Wilhelm, Hoffman) and by the time he reached his mid-30s he was just padding his career save totals.
I decided to watch Baseball Tonight because apparently I want to punish myself, might as well make an entry out of it. Watching people analyze one week of baseball is always hilarious anyways especially when it’s done by the likes of Harold Reynolds and John Kruk. Who cares about sample sizes? Tigers/Brewers in the World Series!
-Chris Berman is doing the show because it’s the Sunday of the Masters and he must do Baseball Tonight every Masters’ Sunday every year to show off his green jacket. He genuinely thinks people care. The world would stop if we didn’t see him squeeze all that fat in his green jacket.
-Berman can’t believe that the Phillies let Vincente Padilla go and Kruk and Reynolds agree. Gee I know the guy had a 1.50 WHIP last year, what kind of a nut lets go of a pitcher like that? Hey he’s 2-0 so I’m sure he’s on top of Kruk’s Cy Young list.
-Kruk went on a mini-rant about how Jim Leyland gets things done his way and that the Tigers are going to manufacture runs and he's not going to baby pitchers (woo hoo Tommy John surgery for everyone!) "because the more you baby pitchers the more they pitch like babies." Of course the Tigers "manufactured" 17 homeruns this week. Maybe Leyland has all of his players smoking too? OMG nicotine is a performance enhancing drug!
-Berman loves Kevin Millar. He loves him. It hurts him seeing him play such a shitty first base. This man has waaaaaay too many man crushes.
-Now Reynolds criticizes the Blue Jays for leaving Roy Halladay in too long, which Kruk agrees with. What happened to not babying pitchers? Well Halladay already has had shoulder surgery so I suppose Kruk just believes in running a pitcher into the ground and then baby him after he has surgery.
-Berman asks the panel, who is the best lefty in baseball? Steve Phillips says Cliff Lee. Hey I can’t believe this guy isn’t a GM still, can you?
-They are playing Godsmack as bumper music to commercial breaks. Way to keep with the times ESPN. What demographic are they targeting exactly?
-They are doing a countdown of Barry Bonds’ 20 greatest moments and #14 is him being intentionally walked with the bases loaded in a meaningless game. Ya that was exciting.
-Chipper Jones’ injury is shown and I swear Berman gets a hard on every time a player gets hurt because he gets to his patented soft tone voice where the producers cutout the background music because this a very serious situation and Chris Berman is talking. At the end of the Braves/Giants highlights Berman says “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” Comedic genius I tells ya.
-Diamond Cuts, it’s extreme highlights with nu-metal! Seriously who are they targeting? Are there really viewers sitting around through the whole show wanting listen to Godsmack to overly produced baseball highlights? At least it’s not like last year where they would do features on other no longer relevant bands talking about baseball.
If you had to guess the first baseman who had the best single season of the last 30 years you might guess Frank Thomas, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell, Albert Pujols, Jason Giambi, or maybe even Don Mattingly in his prime. And you'd be wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong...at least according to Win Shares. This player's numbers don't look huge at first glance but they came in a season when in the N.L. the average team only scored 3.94 runs a game, one of only four seasons since '79 that teams average under 4 runs a game in the N.L.
Top 20 First Baseman Seasons since 1979 (per Win Shares)
1. Will Clark, 1989 - San Francisco Giants 43.8 Win Shares
Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG *OPS+ TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+
1989 25 SFG NL 159 588 104 196 38 9 23 111 8 3 74 103 .333 .407 .546 175 321 0 8 14 5 6
2. Mark McGwire, 1998 - St. Louis Cardinals 40.9
3. Jeff Bagwell, 1996 - Houston Astros 40.7
4. Albert Pujols, 2004 - St. Louis Cardinals 39.7
5. Frank Thomas, 1997 - Chicago White Sox 39.1
6. Albert Pujols, 2006 - St. Louis Cardinals 38.6
7. Albert Pujols, 2005 - St. Louis Cardinals 38.3
8. Jason Giambi, 2000 - Oakland A's 38.2
9. Jason Giambi, 2001 - Oakland A's 37.8
10. Derrek Lee, 2005 - Chicago Cubs 37.2
11. Jeff Bagwell, 1999 - Houston Astros 36.9
12. John Olerud, 1993 - Toronto Blue Jays 36.7
13. Will Clark, 1988 - San Francisco Giants 36.7
14. Carlos Delgado, 2000 - Toronto Blue Jays 36.4
15. Will Clark, 1991 - San Francisco Giants 34.3
16. Jason Giambi, 2002 - New York Yankees 34
17. Jim Thome, 2002 - Cleveland Indians 33.9
18. Lance Berkman, 2006 - Houston Astros 33.7
19. John Olerud, 1998 - New York Mets 33.5
20. Todd Helton, 2003 - Colorado Rockies 33.5
Wrapping up the 2007 Hall of Fame Ballot with the two slam dunks on the ballot and barring a major upset the only two who will be elected on Tuesday. Since there is no real suspense in whether or not these two will be elected I figured I'd just group them together. Sure one could argue than one or the other was overrated in their own right and there will of course be those who will leave them off their ballot just to make sure no one ever gets 100% of the vote. But no one can make a legitimate argument that either is not deserving of being a member of the Hall of Fame. Obviously they are easy "yes" votes from me.
Tony Gwynn - Rightfielder
San Diego Padres 1982-2001
Awards
1984 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1986 NL Gold Glove - OF
1986 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1987 NL Gold Glove - OF
1987 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1989 NL Gold Glove - OF
1989 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1990 NL Gold Glove - OF
1991 NL Gold Glove - OF
1994 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1995 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1997 NL Silver Slugger - OF
All-Star Selections: 15 (1984-1987, 1989-1999)
League Leader
1984: Batting Average, Hits
1986: Hits, Runs
1987: Batting Average, Hits
1988: Batting Average
1989: Batting Average, Hits
1994: Batting Average, Hits, OBP
1995: Batting Average, Hits
1996: Batting Average
1997: Batting Average, Hits
Career Ranks
AVG: 20th
Games: 61st
Hits: 18th
Runs: 84th
2B: 22nd
TB: 50th
RC: 41st
Hall of Fame Stats
Black Ink: Batting - 57 (18) (Average HOFer ≈ 27)
Gray Ink: Batting - 155 (78) (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
HOF Standards: Batting - 53.9 (57) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting - 277.5 (13) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Similar Batters in HOF: 9 (Zack Wheat, Rod Carew, Paul Waner, Wade Boggs, Sam Rice, Roberto Clemente, Heinie Manush, George Silser, Sam Crawford)
Other Similar Batters: Vada Pinson
Year-by-Year Win Shares & Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3)
1982: 7/1.8
1983: 10/3.0
1984: 35/10.2
1985: 20/7.3
1986: 29/10.8
1987: 29/12.1
1988: 23/6.6
1989: 30/9.3
1990: 17/6.4
1991: 22/6.7
1992: 18/5.3
1993: 18/6.1
1994: 17/10.0
1995: 23/8.1
1996: 17/4.6
1997: 39/7.9
1998: 19/3.8
1999: 18/3.0
2000: 3/0.6
2001: 4/0.8
Career Win Shares: 398
Career WARP3: 124.3
Cal Ripken - Shortstop
Baltimore Orioles 1981-2001
Awards
1982 AL Rookie of the Year
1983 AL MVP
1983 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1984 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1985 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1986 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1989 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1991 AL MVP
1991 ML Sporting News Player of the Year
1991 AL Gold Glove - SS
1991 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1992 AL Gold Glove - SS
1993 AL Silver Slugger - SS
1994 AL Silver Slugger - SS
All-Star Selections: 19 (1983-2001)
League Leader
1983: Hits, Runs, Doubles, Runs Created
1991: Total Bases
Career Ranks
Games: 8th
Hits: 14th
Runs: 31st
2B: 13th
HR: 37th
RBI: 20th
BB: 61st
TB: 13th
RC: 30th
Hall of Fame Stats
Black Ink: Batting - 19 (112) (Average HOFer ≈ 27)
Gray Ink: Batting - 116 (171) (Average HOFer ≈ 144)
HOF Standards: Batting - 58.3 (33) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting - 236.0 (25) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Similar Batters in HOF: 7 (Dave Winfield, Robin Yount, Al Kaline, Eddie Murray, Carl Yastrzemski, George Brett, Tony Perez)
Other Similar Batters: Craig Biggio, Harold Baines, Andre Dawson
Year-by-Year Win Shares & Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3)
1981: 0/-0.6
1982: 23/8.2
1983: 35/13.9
1984: 37/15.0
1985: 25/10.9
1986: 28/12.5
1987: 20/7.2
1988: 25/9.7
1989: 26/10.1
1990: 20/9.4
1991: 34/17.0
1992: 21/6.8
1993: 17/5.9
1994: 18/7.7
1995: 16/7.5
1996: 22/7.0
1997: 18/5.0
1998: 13/4.6
1999: 12/4.2
2000: 8/3.8
2001: 9/3.4
Career Win Shares: 427
Career WARP3: 169.1
A's lost two out of three to the Orioles this weekend in Baltimore and as May closes out it is once again looking like this is the year the A's string of winning seasons comes to an end. But it seems that way every year the first couple of months of the season before they go on some insane run for a couple of months that saves their season. Their former shortstop Miguel Tejada had never homered in 25 games against the A's before homering in back-to-back days this weekend and it was five years ago when Tejada played a major role in the A's most remarkable run of all when they won an American League record 20 straight games. It was that streak and some timely hits by Tejada that would be the primary reason he would be awarded the A.L. MVP after the season and it was always a very questionable win in the minds of statheads. I fully supported him winning the award at the time Miggy could have shit on my floor and I wouldn't have minded but enough time has past that it is time for me to take back what he didn't really deserve.
Tejada received 21 of the posssible 28 first place votes beating out Alex Rodriguez and Alfonso Soriano by a comfortable margin. A-Rod hit 57 homeruns and had 142 RBI in 2002 and those normally would be plenty for the writers to give him in the MVP the problem being this was of course when he was with the Rangers where wins did not come very often in Texas. Tejada hit 23 fewer homeruns than A-Rod and had a near idential OPS to his teammate Eric Chavez who finished 14th in the voting. But the main facotr in the writers view was that the Rangers won only 72 games, finishing 31 games behind Miggy and the A's, thus A-Rod could not have been truly "valuable" if his team played so poorly. Soriano had his breakout year with the Yankees, coming up with one homerun shy of a 40-40 season but given how loaded the Yankees line up was it was hard in the view of the writers to give the award to a player with so much help around him with teammates Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams both finishing in the Top 10.
So should A-Rod have been the slam dunk winner and how bad of a choice was Tejada?
Actual Results
1) Miguel Teajda 2) Alex Rodriguez 3) Alfonso Soriano 4) Garret Anderson 5) Jason Giambi 6) Torii Hunter 7) Jim Thome 8) Magglio Ordonez 9) Manny Ramirez 10) Bernie Williams 11t) David Eckstein 11t) Nomar Garciaparra 13) Barry Zito 14) Eric Chavez 15t) Eddie Guardado 15t) Troy Percival 17) Ichiro Suzuki 18) Billy Koch 19) Derek Lowe 20t) Pedro Martinez 20t) Mike Sweeney
#10
.310/.352/.528, 118 RC, 132 OPS+, .290 EQA, 64.8 VORP, 27 Win Shares
#9
.320/.381/.597, 132 RC, 152 OPS+, .312 EQA, 57.7 VORP, 26 Win Shares
#8
169 ERA+, 2.33 K/BB, 1.13 WHIP, 75.3 VORP, 25 Win Shares
#7
.308/.354/.508, 116 RC, 122 OPS+, .288 EQA, 58.6 VORP, 32 Win Shares
#6
.300/.332/.547, 123 RC, 131 OPS+, .291 EQA, 68.9 VORP, 30 Win Shares
#5
.333/.415/.493, 125 RC, 143 OPS+, .312 EQA, 66.7 VORP, 30 Win Shares
#4
.349/.450/.647, 125 RC, 190 OPS+, .353 EQA, 75.4 VORP, 29 Win Shares
#3
.314/.435/.598, 143 RC, 174 OPS+, .341 EQA, 79.2 VORP, 34 Win Shares
#2
.304/.445/.677, 145 RC, 191 OPS+, .357 EQA, 85.0 VORP, 34 Win Shares
#1
.300/.392/.623, 150 RC, 152 OPS+, .317 EQA, 86.8 VORP, 35 Win Shares
Some idiot on this board once said this back in 2003:
Oh wait, that was me. Fuck.
Anyways A-Rod, Thome, and Giambi all have great cases. Thome suffered the same fate as A-Rod that year as he was on a bad team otherwise he may have had a shot at the award if he had been on a contender. Alas I deferred to A-Rod's slight edge in both VORP and Win Shares (WARP3 as well) to give him the nod but there was simply no easy pick that season so this was the perfect year for someone like Tejada to win.
I attended the Mariners/A's game last night. On paper it seemed like a very favorable match-up with Dan Haren pitching for the A's against Jeff Weaver of the Mariners. Haren didn't have it last night, and he really hasn't had it for the last few weeks, but through six innings he had only given up one run mainly due to the Mariners over agressive hitting. He'd thrown 99 pitches to that point and I thought it'd be a good idea to get the hook instead of pressing their luck especially with scored tied 1-1. But manager Bob Geren did press his luck and got the whammy as Jose Vidro would hit a two run double to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead to finally knock Haren out of the game, the Mariners eventually going on to win 7-1. Now this was not the worst game I've ever been to from the standpoint of a heartbreaking loss (that would be this game) but it was one of the worst games I've ever been to from the quality of play by the A's. The A's committed five errors with Marco Scutaro tying an American League record with four errors in one game by a third baseman. Hey I saw history! So for this brief entry I give a brief list of some of the worst performances by the A's that I've seen live in person. The list is brief is I'm doing this off the top of my head and my memories of individual games as a kid aren't particularly good which I'll chalk up to having a short attention span.
June 21, 1987 vs. Texas. Now see talking of not having a good memory, I can't 100% vouch for that I went to this game but it was the second game of a double header and I have an early baseball memory of being at a double header against the Rangers with the A's getting blown out so odds are it was this game. A's lost 13-3 and some guy named Bob Brower for the Rangers hit two homeruns. Ron Cey DH'd for the A's that day. God I feel old.
June 30, 1997 vs. San Diego. The A's hit rock bottom as a franchise in 1997 and this game was pretty much how the season went. The Padres scored seven runs in the 2nd inning, featuring two three-run homeruns by Wally Joyner and Tony Gwynn off starter Don Wengert. He was replaced by Dan Johnson who I thought was good at the time because he had a 2.08 ERA. Not really grasping the idea of sample sizes at that point, he'd only pitched 13 innings so far that season, I would be very dissapointed as he would give up six runs of his own including a two run homerun to Greg Vaughn in the 4th. It was 11-3 at the end of the 4th, 15-5 at the end of the 6th, with the Padres clinging to a 15-6 win.
October 1, 2004 vs. Anaheim. This was an awful game and it was a heartbreaker. It was the first game of the final series of the year and the A's were one game out of first place behind the Angels. Mark Mulder made the start despite having a horrific last two months of the season and clearly needed to be skipped in the rotation for rookie Joe Blanton. Mulder would get hooked after surrendering four runs in the 2nd. Blanton would shadow him and kept the A's in it until the 6th when the Angels figured him out and Alfredo Amezaga (who hit .161/.212/.247 in 93 at bats that year) hit a grand slam to make it 8-0, eventually skunking the A's 10-0. And it was my birthday. Angels clinched the division the next day.
Baseball-Reference.com Play Index is saving this blog with more useless lists1 Today I list the 25 worst individual offensive seasons according to OPS+ since 1957, who qualified for the batting title in their given year. Why 1957 instead of all the way back to the beginning modern era in 1901? Because I'm lazy and because the current guidelines for qualifying for the batting title were adopted in '57. The current rule is a player must average 3.1 plate appearances per total number of games played by their team which with the 162 game schedule works out to 502 plate appearances. Here's a copy and paste of the guidelines through out the years from Baseball-Reference.com:
If we took into account players prior to 1957 it would be littered with early 20th century players, who many of you including myself probably never heard of and wouldn't be able to add comments like "Hey I remember him, he sucked!" In case you were wondering, the worst offensive season ever by a catcher who qualified for the batting title was Bill Bergen in 1909 who had an OPS+ of 1 (.139/.163/.156 in 372 plate appearances). Again like with my last entry a lot these guys played a lot due to superior defense (Bob Boone is on it four times) but some probably shouldn't have been playing much at all.
Top 25 Worst Offensive Catcher Single Seasons (per OPS+)
1. Matt Walbeck, 1994 - Minnesota Twins 37 OPS+ (.204/.246/.284)
2. Brad Ausmus, 2006 - Houston Astros 54
3t. Brad Ausmus, 2003 - Houston Astros 55
3t. Jim Sundberg, 1975 - Texas Rangers 55
5. Joe Girardi, 1995 - Colorado Rockies 58
6t. Jason Kendall, 2007 - Oakland A's/Chicago Cubs 63
6t. Bob Boone, 1986 - California Angels 63
8. Tony Pena, 1991 - Boston Red Sox 66
9t. Michael Barrett, 2001 - Montreal Expos 68
9t. Joe Girardi, 1994 - Colorado Rockies 68
11t. Kirt Manwaring, 1994 - San Francisco Giants 69
11t. Johnny Edwards, 1970 - Houston Astros 69
13. Bob Boone, 1974 - Philadelphia Phillies 70
14. B.J. Surhoff, 1988 - Milwaukee Brewers 71
15. Bob Boone, 1985 - California Angels 72
16t. Butch Wynegar, 1978 - Minnesota Twins 73
16t. Randy Hundley, 1968 - Chicago Cubs 73
18. Joe Oliver, 1993 - Cincinnati Reds 74
19t. Pat Borders, 1993 - Toronto Blue Jays 75
19t. Bob Boone, 1980 - Philadelphia Phillies 75
21t. Benito Santiago, 2001 - San Francisco Giants 76
21t. Benito Santiago, 1993 - Florida Marlins 76
21t. Rick Cerone, 1979 - Toronto Blue Jays 76
21t. John Bateman, 1971 - Montreal Expos 76
21t. John Bateman, 1970 - Montreal Expos 76
Took a different rout with the next Draftback by just focusing on the top quarterbacks to come out of each draft with brief comments on each class.
1980
Good depth but not one star came out of this class. Marc Wilson only had one year as a starter that he threw more touchdowns than interceptions. Mark Malone had to follow Terry Bradshaw and he was just awful. David Woodley had his 15 minutes of fame when he started Super Bowl XVII but he was not a good quarterback and only lasted until 1985, although as an 8th round pick you’d have to consider him a good value pick. Gary Hogeboom now of course now best know for being a contestant on Survivor.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Marc Wilson, 15th overall by L.A. Raiders, BYU, 14391 yards
2. Erik Hipple, 85th overall by Detroit, Utah State, 10711 yards
3. Mark Malone, 28th overall by Pittsburgh, Arizona State, 10175 yards
4. Gary Hogeboom, 133rd overall by Dallas, Central Michigan, 9436 yards
5. David Woodley, 214th pick by Miami, LSU, 8558 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Gene Bradley, 37th overall by Buffalo, Arkansas State
1981
Very little depth although did produce two pretty good quarterbacks from small schools in Neil Lomax and Wade Wilson. Rich Campbell was selected 6th overall by the Packers in one of the all-time draft blunders as he threw just 68 passes in the NFL. They passed on Ronnie Lott to pick Campbell. Whoops!
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Neil Lomax, 33rd overall by St. Louis, Portland State, 22771 yards
2. Wade Wilson, 210th overall by Minnesota, East Texas State, 17283 yards
3. Dave Wilson, Supplemental pick by New Orleans, Illinois, 6987 yards
4. Mark Herrmann, 98th overall by Denver, Purdue, 4015 yards
5. Bob Gagliano, 319th overall by Kansas City, Utah State, 3431 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Brad Wright, 96th overall by Miami, New Mexico
1982
Basically just Jim McMahon and a whole lot of nothing. Mike Pagel hung around for a long time as a back up. Does feature one of the greatest busts in sports history as the Colts drafted Art Schlichter as the 4th pick overall who’s career would derail very quickly due to the fact that he was a degenerate gambler.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Jim McMahon, 5th overall by Chicago, BYU, 18148 yards
2. Mike Pagel, 84th overall by Baltimore, Arizona State, 9414 yards
3. Oliver Luck, 44th overall by Houston, West Virginia, 2544 yards
4. Matt Kofler, 48th overall by Buffalo, San Diego State, 1156 yards
5. Art Schlichter, 4th overall by Baltimore, Ohio State, 1006 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Mike Kelley, 149th overall by Atlanta, Georgia Tech
1983
This draft doesn’t need introduction as it produced three Hall of Famers. Todd Blackledge was the one true bust of this famous 1st round and it’s amazing that he went so high. Bad luck back-to-back years for the Colts as we all know Elway was drafted #1 by them but whined his way into a trade.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Dan Marino, 27th overall by Miami, Pittsburgh, 61361 yards
2. John Elway, 1st overall by Baltimore, Stanford, 51475 yards
3. Jim Kelly, 14th overall by Buffalo, Miami, 35467 yards
4. Ken O’Brien, 24th overall by N.Y. Jets, UC Davis, 25094 yards
5. Tony Eason, 15th overall by New England, Illinois, 11142 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Jeff Christensen, 137th overall by Cincinnati, Eastern Illinois
1984
No first round quarterback in this draft but it did produce decent depth with one standout in Boomer Esiason and a Super Bowl winner in Jeff Hostetler. I don’t know how Jay Schroeder ended up with 20,000+ yards passing.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Boomer Esiason, 38th overall by Cincinnati, Maryland, 37920 yards
2. Jay Schroeder, 83rd overall by Washington, UCLA, 20063 yards
3. Jeff Hostetler, 59th overall by N.Y. Giants, West Virginia, 16430 yards
4. Randy Wright, 153rd overall by Green Bay, Wisconsin, 7106 yards
5. Steve Pelluer, 113th overall by Dallas, Washington, 6870 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Rick McIvor, 80th overall by St. Louis, Texas
1984 Supplemental
The ’84 Supplemental Draft was different from any other as it was to draft the rights to USFL players (those who NFL teams didn’t own the rights to already) and a handful of CFL players. The draft was three rounds with 84 picks. Steve Young was #1 overall and was only one of two quarterbacks from the draft to throw a pass in the NFL. Young had already signed with the Los Angeles Express so he wasn’t eligible for the regular draft.
1. Steve Young, 1st overall by Tampa Bay, BYU, 33124 yards
2. Frank Seurer, 76th overall by Seattle, Kansas, 340 yards
1985
In terms of overall depth there was very little as there was no quarterback picked in the first round and only 11 quarterbacks selected overall, but a very good group of quarterbacks did come out of this draft all with very different career paths. Due to quirk the in the draft rules at the time because he wasn’t a senior Bernie Kosar was able to declare himself eligible after the regular draft and be taken in the supplemental draft so he could play for his hometown Browns.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Randall Cunningham, 37th overall by Philadelphia, UNLV, 29979 yards
2. Bernie Kosar, Supplemental pick by Cleveland, Miami, 23301 yards
3. Doug Flutie, 285th overall by L.A. Rams, Boston College, 14715 yards
4. Steve Bono, 142nd overall by Minnesota, UCLA, 10439 yards
5. Frank Reich, 57th overall by Buffalo, Maryland, 6075 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Scott Barry, 168th overall by San Francisco, UC Davis
1986
Lots of quarterbacks drafted in the first few rounds but some what of an underwhelming group led by Jim Everett and Mary Rypien. Featured a pretty big bust in Chuck Long. I always hated Bubby Brister. Come on his name was Bubby!
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Jim Everett, 3rd overall by Houston, Purdue, 34837 yards
2. Mark Rypien, 146th overall by Washington, Washington State, 18473 yards
3. Bubby Brister, 67th overall by Pittsburgh, NE Louisiana, 14445 yards
4. Jack Trudeau, 47th overall by Indianapolis, Illinos, 10243 yards
5. Hugh Millen, 71st overall by L.A. Rams, Washington, 6440 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Robbie Bosco, 72nd overall by Green Bay, BYU
1987
Doesn’t the have star power of the ’83 Draft but this was a very deep quarterback class with four first round picks. Just outside the Top 5 in passing yards was Packers quarterback Don Majkowski who had one great season in 1989 but injuries derailed his career. Draft does feature a huge bust in Kelly Stouffer who the Cardinals picked 6th overall. A first round bust by the Cardinals? Go figure.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Vinny Testaverde, 1st overall by Tampa Bay, Miami, 45252 yards
2. Rich Gannon, 98th overall by New England, Delaware, 28743 yards
3. Jim Harbaugh, 26th overall by Chicago, Michigan, 26288 yards
4. Steve Beurlein, 110th overall by L.A. Raiders, Notre Dame, 24046 yards
5. Chris Miller, 13th overall by Atlanta, Oregon, 19320 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Doug Hudson, 186th overall by Kansas City, Nicholls State
1988
Although it did produce two quarterbacks who started Super Bowls, this was an incredibly weak class with zero depth. No quarterback was taken until the 3rd round when the Cardinals picked Tom Tupa who’s long term future ended being as a punter. Of the 13 qb’s selected, only five threw a pass in the NFL. Did feature two CFL standouts in Danny McManus and Kerwin Bell.
Top 5 Passing Yards
1. Chris Chandler, 76th overall by Indianapolis, Washington, 28484 yards
2. Stan Humphries, 159th overall by Washington, NE Louisiana, 17191 yards
3. Tom Tupa, 68th overall by Phoenix, Ohio State, 3430 yards
4. Scott Secules, 151st overall by Dallas, Virginia, 1311 yards
5. Kerwin Bell, 180th overall by Miami, Florida, 75 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Don McPherson, 149th overall by Philadelphia, Syracuse
1989
Pretty much the Troy Aikman class although I suppose Rodney Peete had his moments. Cowboys picked Aikman #1 overall and then took Steve Walsh in the supplemental draft. Many thought Walsh would be better than Aikman. Many of us don’t know anything.
1. Troy Aikman, 1st overall by Dallas, UCLA, 32942 yards
2. Rodney Peete, 141st overall by Detroit, USC, 16338 yards
3. Billy Joe Tolliver, 51st overall by San Diego, Texas Tech, 10760 yards
4. Steve Walsh, Supplemental Pick by Dallas, 7875 yards
5. Timm Rosenbach, Supplemental Pick by Phoenix, Washington State, 3676 yards
Highest Pick Not to Throw a Pass: Jeff Graham, 87th overall by Green Bay, Long Beach State
You know I should probably finish this up this week being that the 2008 season ends on Sunday which will make these lists out of date. But hey that also means it'll be time to work on my "famous" Bored Player Rankings which will just serve as a painful reminder of how bad the A's offense was this year.
Top 20 Designated Hitter Seasons since 1979 (per Win Shares)
1. Frank Thomas, 1991 - Chicago White Sox 33.8 Win Shares
Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG *OPS+ TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
+--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+
1991 23 CHW AL 158 559 104 178 31 2 32 109 1 2 138 112 .318 .453 .553 180 309 0 2 13 1 20
2. Frank Thomas, 2000 - Chicago White Sox 33.7
3. Edgar Martinez, 1995 - Seattle Mariners 31.7
4. David Ortiz, 2005 - Boston Red Sox 31.6
5. Rafael Palmeiro, 1999 - Texas Rangers 31.1
6. Paul Molitor, 1991 - Milwaukee Brewers 29.6
7. David Ortiz, 2006 - Boston Red Sox 29.4
8. Paul Molitor, 1993 - Toronto Blue Jays 29.4
9. David Ortiz, 2007 - Boston Red Sox 28.9
10. Paul Molitor, 1987 - Milwaukee Brewers 28.6
11. Paul Molitor, 1992 - Milwaukee Brewers 28.4
12. Edgar Martinez, 2000 - Seattle Mariners 28.2
13. Dave Winfield, 1992 - Toronto Blue Jays 26.7
14. Edgar Martinez, 1997 - Seattle Mariners 26.6
15. Hal McRae, 1982 - Kansas City Royals 26.1
16. Jim Thome, 2006 - Chicago White Sox 26.0
17. Manny Ramirez, 2001 - Boston Red Sox 25.1
18. David Ortiz, 2004 - Boston Red Sox 25.1
19. Travis Hafner, 2006 - Cleveland Indians 25.0
20. Frank Thomas, 1998 - Chicago White Sox 24.7
1975 World Series Game 4 - Red Sox 5, Reds 4 (boxcore and play account)
-The Cincinnati crowd audibly groans when starter Fred Norman gets behind 2-0 to the first batter of the game. Man, tough crowd.
-The announcers throughout the series have been talking about the possibility of Rico Petrocelli retiring after the Series. He’d retire after the following season.
-Announcers do a promo for the reunion of Simon & Garfunkle on Saturday Night Live that week.
-The video quality is very good for the first six innings and then in the 7th goes to shit. It’s such a dramatic change that for a second it almost seems like it’s a completely different game.
-They show Luis Tiant’s wife a few times and she’s waving some giant noise maker and the announcers say she does it for every game during the entire game. Now why didn’t the crowd around her rise up and slay her, I have no idea.
-In the 9th inning Tony Kubek thinks Tiant is at almost 200 pitches. Errr not quite. He did throw 163 pitches which is a lot of fucking pitches. Given his shutout in Game 1 and another complete game victory here he was definitely the MVP of the series so far. He even has a couple hits and runs scored in the series although he was just a .164 career hitter.
1979 World Series Game 4 - Orioles 9, Pirates 6 (boxscore and play account)
-Once again no network graphics for this game which is getting annoying. This game was played on a Saturday so they run a bunch of college football scores during the game which would have been kind of neat to see, if only to me. Cosell seems more excited about reciting the scores to the college games than this game itself.
-They hype the Red River Shootout game which was to follow the telecast of Game 4. Texas beat Oklahoma 16-7, the Sooners only loss of that season.
-It’s mentioned that the Pirates and Tim Foli have agreed on a new five-year contract. He’d spend just two years of the contract there as he was traded to the Angels after 1981. In Game 3 and this game the Pirates fans do a “Foli, Foli, Foli” chant. I’m not aware if Tim ever lost part of his ear during a game or landed on some thumbtacks while diving for a groundball.
-In this series and the ’75 Series there are several check swings that in today’s game would always be called strikes that are almost always called balls here. There must have been some rule change or evolutionary change in how umps call check swings in the last 30 years. In the Orioles huge 8th inning Doug DeCinces checks his swing on a two strike pitch that 99.9% of the time would been called a strike in today’s game but is called a ball here without question. He would draw a walk and be followed by pinch hit doubles by John Lowenstein and Terry Crowley.
1986 World Series Game 4 - Mets 6, Red Sox 2 (boxscore and play account)
-A potential great storyline never happened in this series as Tom Seaver would have been the Game 4 starter here for the Red Sox but an ankle injury caused him to miss playoffs. Jerry McNamara decides to go with Al Nipper and his 5.38 ERA here instead of having Bruce Hurst on three days rest. Nipper was solid in this game though and the Red Sox missed several opportunities against Ron Darling who didn’t give up an earned run in his first two starts.
-The crack researchers at NBC note that Danny Heep, who was at DH for the Mets, is the first DH in World Series history with the initials DH. God I hope that doesn’t end up on his tombstone.
-Lenny Dykstra’s homerun in the 7th goes off Dwight Evans glove. They compare it to Dave Henderson’s play in Game 5 of the ACLS where a Bobby Grich flyball went out of his glove and over the wall for a homerun but this wasn’t nearly as bad. Evans had it on his webbing and it would have been a snow cone job if he caught it. If he timed his jump better he would have had it.
-Classic series or not, the last three games haven’t been very competitive.
1979 World Series Game 6 - Pirates 4, Orioles 0 (boxscore and play account)
-This game was played on a Tuesday just two days after the Colts played a game and the football yard marks a very visible. Once again it's a very good thing that multi-purpose stadiums are almost gone.
-Howard Cosell spends time early in the game whining about some unamed Baltimore columnist whining about ABC's habbit of showing the players wives on a regular basis, which it did get completely out of hand in a few of the games. Maybe not quite as annoying as FOX cutting to close ups of fans between almost every pitch in the playoffs now.
-In every game they've played brief interview clips of players with Cosell and there's a kind of interesting one here of Rick Dempsey talking shit about Bill Madlock.
-Several promos done for ABC's college football line up that Saturday, featuring USC/Notre Dame and Texas/Arkansas. #4 USC would crush #9 Notre Dame 42-23 and #10 Arkansas would upset #2 Texas 17-14.
-In case you only thought today's announcers had hard ons for scrappy, short, white middle infielders like David Eckstein, Cosell and Keith Jackson constantly fawn over Phil Garner here. Cosell constantly calls him "The Little Pepper Pot" which as far as I can tell never caught as a nickname for Garner but "Scrap Iron" did. Garner did have a great series though and through this game was probably the favorite for the series MVP before Stargell's huge Game 7.
-The scoreless tie is broken in the 7th inning when with Omar Moreno on first and going on the pitch, Tim Foli chops one up the middle. Kiko Garcia makes a terrible decision by waiting right at the bag at second for the ball to get to him instead of cutting it off to get the easy out out first, thinking he can get a double play which would have been impossible with Moreno going on the pitch. The ball ends up going through Garcia's legs and Rich Dauer backing him up can't get Foli at first. It's scored a hit. Dave Parker then follows with a hard hit ball at Dauer but he misjudges the ball of the bat and commits to far to his left and can't recover to get in front it thus allowing it to get through for a base hit. There was a lot of bad fielding in this series although some of it had to do with the terrible shape of the Memorial Stadium turf.
-Relief aces/closers were overused during this era but it was kind of cool to see Kent Tekulve come in here and shutdown the Orioles for three straight innings.
1979 World Series Game 7 - Pirates 4, Orioles 1 (boxscore and play account)
-Jimmy Carter was at the game. Ya I know you care.
-Coming into this game the road team had won 12 of the last 15 Game 7's in the World Series. The Pirates win here is the last time this has happened as the home team is 8-0 since.
-Cosell thinks advancing the runner should be an official stat. Hey he was light years ahead of Buster Olney for coming up with completely meaningless statistics.
-By far the most tense, exciting moment of the series comes in the bottom of the 8th. Trailing 2-1, the Orioles 2nd & 3rd with two out and Chuck Tanner had Tekulve intentionally walk Ken Singleton to load the bases to pitch to Eddie Murray who was 0 for his last 20. Murray hit one hard to right and Parker would stumble going back for the ball and for the briefest of moments it looks like it would go over his head but he recovers to make the catch. That would have ranked up their with the Buckner play if Parker had fallen down and potentially cost the Pirates the series.
-The top of the 9th lasts forever as at one point Earl Weaver makes four straight pitching changes as the Pirates had a staggered left/right line-up. It backfires as Mike Flanangan gives up an RBI single to Omar Moreno, Doug Stanhouse gives up a single to Tim Foli, Tippy Martinez plunks Dave Parker to load the bases, and on his first pitch Dennis Martinez hits Bill Robinson on the hand to force in the Pirates' final run.
-When Flanangan makes his rare relief apperance it is mentioned that his wife had an emergency apedectomy that morning. Cosell takes this time to take about how hot she is. One of the few times in the series Cosell made me smile.
-Tekulve pitches a pefect 9th and even though it was in the visiting park the fans still run on the field. Steve Nicosia is seen beating down who I'm assuming was an upset Baltimore fan with his catcher's mask in the melee.
Bonus Clips
-Nothing terribly interesting here except they have the original footage of the final three outs of the Pirates sweep of the Reds in the NLCS.
-They include all of ABC's postgame coverage in the clips and President Carter was involved in the trophy presentation. Chuck Tanner is as giddy as a school girl to be talking to him while it appeared to me that Willie Stargell wasn't sure who he was.
Here's just a list of the extras.
1. Bruce Kison: Origin of "We Are Family"
2. Bill Robinson: "The Family"
3. Don Robinson: Characters on the Pirates
4. Tim Foli: Pirates Had Roles
5. Dave Parker's Outfield Assist, 1979 All-Star Game (just a TWiB recap)
6. NLCS Clincher: Last Inning and Celebration (original footage)
7. Don Robinson: Rookie in the World Series
8. Willie Stargell: Compares 1971 and 1979 Pirates
9. Willie Stargell: Pirates Put Aside Differences
10. Tim Foli: On Willie Stargell
11. Willie Stargell: Chuck Tanner Fights Through Tragedy
12. Tom Boswell: Willie Stargell, Pirates Leader
13. Bill Robinson: Stargell's Homerun
14. Earl Weaver: Dissapointment of 1979
15. Last Out and Celebration
16. World Series Trophy Presentation
17. World Series MVP Trophy Presentation to Willie Stargell
18. Bill Robinson: City of Champions and Closeness of Club
19. Pirates Championship Rally
This past week the Golden State Warriors ended 13 years of misery by finally clinching a playoff bid. My interest in the Warriors has never come close to my passion for the A's or even the 49ers but I'm excited never the less. As a kid I was a bandwagon Laker fan, which was hard not to do in the 80's, but around age 12 or 13 I dumped my bandwagon ways and started rooting strictly for the local teams then finally adopting the Warriors as my NBA team. I was a freshman in high school the last time the Warriors were in the playoffs and I only have vague memories of their season. I do remember going to their fan fest that year and getting my picture taken with Byron Houston, well because the lines for Chris Mullin and Latrell Sprewell were way too long. Damn little I knew at the time how oddly cool it would have been to have a picture taken with Sprewell although I seem to remember Houston got arrested on gun posession charges later in the year.
Now trying to figure out an entry for this I finally found an excuse to use paperofrecord.com. It's a free newspaper archive service that happens to have an expansive archive of old Sporting News. The Sporting News was still some what relevent then, although by then had already lost of a lot of it's prestige, so I figured it'd be interesting to check out an issue from 13 years ago this week and see what was being talked about in the world of sports.
Cover Story: Soar Subject. Can Danny Manning and the Hawks rise to occasion?
-Hawks had the #1 seed in the East going into the playoffs but they would be pushed to five games by the Heat in the first round and then lost in six to the Pacers in conference semis.
Sound Bites: Gorge Steinbrenner, giving yet another manager a vote of confidence:
-Hey he didn't lie. He'd fire him after 1995 instead. Who would have thought that 12 years later Steinbrenner hadn't fired another manager since? Showalter has of course been fired from two more jobs since.
-The NFL announced for the first time their games would be available by pay-per-view for home dish owners.
-In 1994 for the first time those advertisements behind home plate started popping up and in the "Voice of the Fan" section there is one from a fan saying he won't purchase any product shown behind homeplate and urging others to do the same. How'd that boycott turn out?
A Lively Debate: Only two weeks into the season, juicy theories abound about the core of the game - the ball itself.
-Everyone in baseball seemed to be hitting homeruns to start the season and many thought the ball was juiced. The word "steroids" is never mentioned once in the article. I miss those days.
-In a little blurb with an update on the baseball labor situation it is mentioned that Senator George Mitchell is a lock to be the next commissioner, if he wants the job. Guess he didn't want it.
-Dave Stewart accuses Barry Bonds of not respecting anyone but himself. Get out!
-In the Expos' notes section, pitcher Ken Hill shows why his future wouldn't have been as a GM. Expos were off to a slow 4-8 start and he complained about them trading Delino DeShield to the Dodgers in the offseason and saying that teams didn't fear them anymore. Who did the Expos receive for DeShields? Some guy named Pedro Martinez.
-Of course this time of year the NFL Draft was about to happen and they had an article ranking the top defensive players in the draft.
Defensive Ends: 1. Willie McGinest 2. Henry Ford 3. Joe Johnson 4. Shante Carver 5. Fernando Smith
Defensive Tackles: 1. Dan Wilkinson 2. Bryant Young 3. Sam Adams 4. Romeo Bandinson 5. William Gaines
Outside Linebackers: 1. Trev Alberts 2. John Thierry 3. Jamir Miller 4. Rob Fredrickson 5. Ron Woolfork
Inside Linebackers: 1. Winfred Tubbs 2. Kevin Mitchell 3. Allen Aldridge 4. Ken Alexander 5. Jermaine Younger
Cornerbacks: 1. Aaron Glenn 2. Antonio Langham 3. Dewayne Washington 4. Thomas Randolph 5. Tyronne Drakeford
Safties: 1. Toby Wright 2. Marvin Goodwin 3. Van Malone 4. Jason Sehorn 5. Anthony Phillips
-They added a quick Top 50 overall rankings. Comment on Heath Shuler: "A cut above Rick Mirer." High praise indeed.
-Also they had a mock 1st Round draft. Most interesting pick they had...Charlie Ward 19th overall to the Vikings. Ooookaaay.
-Speculation that the Raiders might move to Orlando. Damn, too bad that didn't happen. A's might have had a new stadium in Oakland by now.
-Charles Barkley on the Knicks. Knicks would come within one win of winning it all.
-Dennis Rodman on the Sonics. Wow, Rodman surprisingly prophetic as the Sonics were shocked by the Nuggets in the 1st round.
Ugh, I had almost finished the entire entry and my dumbass clicks the back button by accident. Click forward, nothing there. So fuck it I'm not typing all that out again so here's the quick version of the Top 10 for each league and maybe I'll edit in some numbers later.
Pujols still has a huge lead although it could be gone if he misses the full six weeks like many think he will.
Edit: Okay I've put the numbers in now.
National League
10. Jason Bay, Pirates
.305/.427/.614, 49 RC, .328 EQA, 30 VORP, 9 Win Shares
9. Carlos Beltran, Mets
.266/.389/.572, 42 RC, .309 EQA, 21.4 VORP, 12 Win Shares
8. Lance Berkman, Astros
.299/.380/.598, 45 RC, .310 EQA, 20.6 VORP, 12 Win Shares
7. David Wright, Mets
.327/.400/.559, 47 RC, .315 EQA, 25.5 VORP, 11 Win Shares
6. Miguel Cabrera, Marlins
.349/.437/.593, 51 RC, .338 EQA, 32.5 VORP, 10 Win Shares
5. Chase Utley, Phillies
.323/.389/.541, 43 RC, .300 EQA, 27.5 VORP, 13 Win Shares
4. Bobby Abreu, Phillies
.285/.454/.505, 48 RC, .317 EQA, 19.0 VORP, 14 Win Shares
3. Alfonso Soriano, Nationals
.310/.363/.628, 54 RC, .309 EQA, 25.8 VORP, 13 Win Shares
2. Brandon Webb, Diamondbacks
217 ERA+, 5.00 K/BB, 1.08 WHIP, 40.0 VORP, 12 Win Shares
#1
.308/.442/.751, 65 RC, .357 EQA, 38.8 VORP, 19 Win Shares
Basically can flip a coin between Thome and Hafner right now but gave Thome the nod for the edge in Win Shares.
American League
10. Curtis Granderson, Tigers
.287/.388/.483, 43 RC, .295 EQA, 18.9 VORP, 12 Win Shares
9. Vernon Wells, Blue Jays
.326/.379/.606, 44 RC, .314 EQA, 28.2 VORP, 10 Win Shares
8. Ramon Hernandez, Orioles
.307/.366/.512, 47 RC, .298 EQA, 18.5 VORP, 13 Win Shares
7. Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox
.319/.434/.505, 44 RC, .322 EQA, 22.1 VORP, 11 Win Shares
6. Jermaine Dye, White Sox
.306/.405/.669, 42 RC, .333 EQA, 22.3 VORP, 10 Win Shares
5. Derek Jeter, Yankees
.344/.435/.495, 47 RC, .320 EQA, 30.1 VORP, 11 Win Shares
4. Alexis Rios, Blue Jays
.359/.397/.631, 47 RC, .324 EQA, 26.5 VORP, 11 Win Shares
3. Jason Giambi, Yankees
.277/.458/.620, 51 RC, .350 EQA, 27.0 VORP, 12 Win Shares
2. Travis Hafner, Indians
.308/.449/.631, 57 RC, .355 EQA, 33.2 VORP, 12 Win Shares
#1
.296/.432/.656, 58 RC, .344 EQA, 30.2 VORP, 13 Win Shares
The worst offensive season by a rightfielder has stood for over 100 years as Jack Dunn in 1902 had an OPS+ of 56 (.211/.256/.249). But for this modern exercise, 1999 was officially The Year of the Shitty Hitting Outfielder as players from that season have topped the list at each outfield spot.
Top 25 (or so) Worst Offensive Rightfielder Seasons since 1957 (per OPS+)
1. Derek Bell, 1999 - Houston Astros 66 OPS+ (.236/.306/.350)
2t. Cory Snyder, 1989 - Cleveland Indians 70
2t. Mike Hershberger, 1964 - Chicago White Sox 70
4. Felix Jose, 1993 - Kansas City Royals 71
5. Mike Hershberger, 1965 - Kansas City A's 72
6. Dave May, 1974 - Milwaukee Brewers 73
7t. Tony Womack, 1999 - Arizona Diamondbacks 77
7t. Hosken Powell, 1980 - Minnesota Twins 77
9t. Jeromy Burnitz, 2002 - New York Mets 80
9t. Steve Finley, 1990 - Baltimore Orioles 80
9t. Glenn Wilson, 1987 - Philadelphia Phillies 80
12. Dave Martinez, 2000 - Tampa Bay Devil Rays/Chicago White Sox/Texas Rangers/Toronto Blue Jays 81
13t. Alex Ochoa, 2001 - Cincinnati Reds/Colorado Rockies 82
13t. Jose Guillen, 1997 - Pittsburgh Pirates 82
13t. Darnell Coles, 1989 - Seattle Mariners 82
13t. Bob Bailor, 1978 - Toronto Blue Jays 82
17. Mark Kotsay, 1999 - Florida Marlins 83
18t. Randy Winn, 2006 - San Francisco Giants 84
18t. Alexis Rios, 2005 - Toronto Blue Jays 84
18t. Juan Encarnacion, 2004 - Los Angeles Dodgers/Florida Marlins 84
18t. Roger Cedeno, 2003 - New York Mets 84
18t. Jose Guillen, 1998 - Pittsburgh Pirates 84
18t. Rob Deer, 1993 - Detroit Tigers/Boston Red Sox 84
18t. Ron Fairly, 1967 - Los Angeles Dodgers 84
25t. Danny Bautista, 2004 - Arizona Diamondbacks 85
25t. Brian Jordan, 2000 - Atlanta Braves 85
25t. Pat Kelly, 1970 - Kansas City Royals 85
25t. Gino Cimoli, 1963 - Kansas City A's 85
Orel Hershiser - Starting Pitcher
Los Angeles Dodgers 1983-1994, 2000
Cleveland Indians 1995-1997
San Francisco Giants 1998
New York Mets 1999
2nd year on the ballot
Past HOF Ballot Results
2006: 11.2%
Awards
1988 NL Cy Young
1988 NL Sporting News Pitcher of the Year
1988 NL Gold Glove - P
1988 NLCS MVP
1988 World Series MVP
1995 ALCS MVP
All-Star Selections: 3 (1987, 1988, 1989)
League Leader
1984: Shutouts
1985: Winning %
1987: Innings Pitched
1988: Wins, Winning %, Innings Pitched, Complete Games, Shutouts
1989: Innings Pitched
Career Ranks
Wins: 100th
Strikeouts: 58th
Hall of Fame Stats
Black Ink: Pitching - 20 (88) (Average HOFer ≈ 40)
Gray Ink: Pitching - 129 (130) (Average HOFer ≈ 185)
HOF Standards: Pitching - 34.0 (101) (Average HOFer ≈ 50)
HOF Monitor: Pitching - 90.5 (115) (Likely HOFer > 100)
Similar Pitchers in HOF: 2 (Catfish Hunter, Dazzy Vance)
Other Similar Pitchers: Bob Welch, Milt Pappas, Kevin Brown, Vida Blue, Jim Perry, Dave Stieb, Silver King, Bob Shawkey
Year-by-Year Win Shares & Wins Above Replacement Level (WARP3)
1983: 0/0
1984: 18/6.8
1985: 23/7.7
1986: 12/5.1
1987: 21/9.1
1988: 25/10.3
1989: 21/9.7
1990: 1/0.2
1991: 8/3.1
1992: 8/4.5
1993: 13/5.6
1994: 7/3.2
1995: 13/6.4
1996: 14/5.9
1997: 11/4.5
1998: 7/2.9
1999: 8/3.0
2000: 0/-1.7
Career Win Shares: 210
Career WARP3: 86.2
Would he get my vote?
No. Looked like he was on his way to a Hall of Fame career at the conclusion of the 80's but a torn rotator cuff in April of 1990 cost him over a year and he was never the same pitcher after that. Like with Bret Saberhagen throwing over 250 innings three straight years did not end being a good idea. Hershiser was arguably a better pitcher than his HOF comp Catfish Hunter but Hunter was vastly overrated and a very dubious HOF inductee, while Hershiser was not at the level of Dazzy Vance.
