(As for the question of whether Helton is a real .400 hitter if he hits .3995, get over it. Helton’s a Coors-made .400 hitter if he hits .420. But one asterisk is more than enough. Nobody grew up talking about how Rogers Hornsby hit .4235 in 1924. Nobody gripes about rounding up .300 hitters, or even lifetime .300 hitters.)

We have witnessed a number of challenges at .400 since Rod Carew hit .388 in 1977; before Carew, only Ted Williams (in 1957) made things interesting in the post-war era. The most captivating, of course, was George Brett’s chase in the late summer of 1980. The closest, though, was Tony Gwynn in 1994. Along with Matt Williams and Ken Griffey chasing Roger Maris, the baseball world was robbed of Gwynn’s pursuit of one of his long-time idols, Teddy Ballgame, by the strike. One more reason to hate Jerry Reinsdorf and Don Fehr.

Helton is going about this the hard way: he came out of the gate quickly but hasn’t started a day at .400 since June 10. As hard as it is to hit .400, a hot start followed by a steady march around .390 is the toughest way to do it. A player who comes into the midpoint of the season hitting around .430, as Ty Cobb did in 1911 and 1912, can suffer a mini-slump here and there and still hang on. A player batting .360 or .370 in early August who gets incredibly hot will avoid the daily media pressure until the year is nearly over. Sammy Sosa had it easier in 1998 because he started slowly and was seen as a weaker threat to Maris than Griffey even after his June hot streak; it was late-July before he started receiving some serious media scrutiny. I would have given better odds to Nomar if he and Helton were both at the same point, because Nomar is in a pennant race (is too!) and thus unlikely to get consumed by the .400 issue. Helton is playing for nothing but numbers.

Helton’s path still risks going in the direction of Larry Walker or John Olerud: fading, fading, fading, until the record books no longer reveal that you even made a run. Helton has been pushing it with an August hot streak, like Brett and like Hornsby, who batted .509 in August of 1924. The difference: Brett’s hot weather tear pushed him just over .400, and he couldn’t hang on. Hornsby was already over .400 and just pulled away.

*****

To make sense of Helton’s chances – as well as future runs – I looked back at the men who succeeded. There have been 27 .400 seasons in major league baseball history, counting players who qualified for the batting title in the majors (Terry Forster need not apply, nor Josh Gibson with his incredible .517 season in 1943). What I really wanted to know was not just what type of player hits .400, but what conditions do you need for a .400 season?

First, these were mostly great players. Five players (Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, Ed Delahanty, and Jesse Burkett) hit .400 more than once, accounting between them for 13 of the 27 seasons. 22 of the 23 .400 seasons since 1894 were by Hall of Famers, the lone exception being Joe Jackson. Of course, at least in Bill Terry’s case, the .400 season is most of the reason why he’s in Cooperstown. Oddly, none of the players to hit .400 in the game’s first 18 years – Ross Barnes, Fred Dunlap, Tip O’Neill (no, not that Tip O’Neil), and the original “Louisville Slugger,” Pete Browning, are enshrined in the Hall. That bodes well for superstars like Nomar, but not so well for Helton.

Second, ten of the 27 .400 seasons took place in a six-year period between 1894 and 1899, the golden age of high-average offense (it began when the mound was moved from 50 feet to 60’6” in 1893 and ended when the NL contracted from 12 teams to 8 in 1900 and both leagues started calling foul balls as strikes in 1902). The NL as a whole hit .309 in 1894, .296 in 1895, .290 in 1896, .292 in 1897, and .282 in 1899.

League batting average is the most important factor in determining whether a player can hit .400, because it’s far easier to surpass the average by a little than a lot. As has often been noted, Yaz out-hit the league by a larger percentage margin with his .301 batting title in 1968 than Bill Terry did when he hit .401 in 1930.

On average, the .400 hitters played in leagues with a batting average of
.285; two-thirds played in leagues with averages of .282 or higher. Of the nine exceptions, three played in leagues that were in their first season of existence: Ross Barnes in the NL in 1876 (Barnes hit .429, the league .265); Fred Dunlap in the short-lived and barely-major-league Union Association in 1884 (Dunlap hit .412, the league .245); and Nap Lajoie in the AL in 1901 (Lajoie hit .426, the league .277). Dunlap and Lajoie, at least, can safely be chalked up at least partly to weak competition; their years were way out of step with the surrounding seasons.

The National League is batting .268 this year, the AL .277. Proportional to the league, how many of these guys would have hit .400 compared to a league average of .268? Nine, and that includes Lajoie, Barnes and Dunlap. Here are the “translated” batting averages:

Dunlap, 1884: .451
Barnes, 1876: .434
O’Neill, 1887: .427
Cobb, 1912: .415
Cobb, 1911: .412
Lajoie, 1901: .412
Williams, 1941: .409
Hornsby, 1924: .402
Jackson, 1911: .401

Computed: ((avg)/(league avg))*(.268)

A much more select club, and one that leaves you with new respect for Ty Cobb. In 1912, Cobb hit .410 in the same league where Walter Johnson posted a 1.39 ERA and Smokey Joe Wood posted a 1.91 ERA and went 34-5.

Cobb also did this with less help. Every single .400 hitter has played on a team with an above-average team batting average, often far above average. The only team with a .400 hitter that was close to the league average was the 1912 Tigers, who hit .268. Fourteen of the twenty-seven played on teams that out-hit the league by twenty points or more; the 1876 White Stockings outhit the NL .337 to .265. That’s partly the result of having a .400 hitter, of course; the 1894 Phillies had three .400 hitting Hall of Famers starting in their outfield (Delahanty, Sam Thompson, and Billy Hamilton) and reserve outfielder Tuck Turner hit .416 in 339 at bats. The team hit .349.

What about the ballparks, an issue so near and dear to Helton’s heart? Well, we (or I, at least) don’t have access to home/road batting average data, although the high occurrence of high team batting averages suggests that some of these parks may have been good for batting average, specifically. What I do have is park factors for run scoring. The results are mixed. Thirteen players played in parks that inflated run scoring by at least 4%, and six played in parks that pumped up scoring by more than ten percent, a very high figure: Barnes (+45%), Hugh Duffy in 1894 (+26%), Sisler in 1920 (+26%), Cobb in 1911 (+21%), Browning (+12%), and Burkett in 1896 (+11%).
Coors is about +38% so far this season, according to the Baseball Prospectus and that squares with Helton’s 20% higher batting average at home). On the other hand, nine of the seasons were posted against the tide of a park that suppressed scoring by 8% or more: Willie Keeler in 1897 (-15%), Burkett in 1895 (-13%; park effects can be fickle from year to year sometimes), Delahanty in 1899 (-11%), the Phillies outfield in 1894 (-9%), Harry Heilmann (-9%), Cobb in 1912 (-8%), and Terry (-8% and it was probably tougher than that for batting averages, since the Polo Grounds was a
tremendous home run park.

If you are wondering, scoring was up 6% at Fenway in 1941, and we have Ted Williams' home-road splits for that year: accordng to the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, he hit .428 at Fenway and .380 on the road -- not Helton, but a pretty big edge nonetheless. The same source reports Ty Cobb's home/road splits are nearly even: .418/.422 in 1911, .404/.418 in 1912, and .405/.397 in 1922. The Historical Abstract also reports that Rogers Hornsby, in 1922, batted .403 at home and .400 on the road, while George Sisler, in 1920, batted .473 at Sportsman's Park and just .341 away from it (Sisler got 150 hits at home that year).

No third baseman or catcher has ever hit .400; the record averages at those positions are .390 by Brett and .394 by the lefthanded-throwing catcher Jack Clements, a Phillies teammate of Delahanty, Hamilton and Thompson. Only one shortsop has done it (Jennings) and first basemen have done it three times (Sisler twice, and Terry). The rest are split between outfielders (17 times) and, oddly, second basemen (six times).

The average age of a .400 hitter is 27. Two of the four guys to bat .400 after age 30 were Cobb and Delahanty, both on their third .400 season. Cobb was the oldest, at 35; the other two were Thompson (34) and Terry (33). Three did it before age 25: Jackson (21), Williams (22), and Cobb (24 in 1911). Williams, of course, was in the military between ages 24 and 26; it is extremely likely he would have done it again. Helton and Nomar both turned 27 within the past month.

Some random issues:

** The patient Helton has been making exceptional contact, to the tune of 80 walks and 42 strikeouts, an unusually good ratio in today’s high-strikeout environment. While only two men have hit .400 while drawing 100 walks (Williams and Hamilton), most have shown at least decent patience and only one has struck out more than 40 times (Hornsby, with 50 K in 623 at bats in 1922). The .400 hitters averaged 59 walks apiece; while strikeout numbers aren’t uniformly available, the average total (reflecting the slap-hitting 1890s) was just 24.

** The lowest walk total: 19 by Jennings. He nonetheless managed an unbelievable accomplishment: while drawing just 19 walks, he posted an on base percentage of .472. He did it the hard way, batting .401 and being drilled by a major league record 51 pitches in 130 games.

** Helton is currently on track to bat 580 times. That’s important; only three .400 hitters have cleared 600 official at bats (Sisler in 1920, Hornsby in 1922, and Terry), while seventeen have batted 550 times or less. Keeping up the pace gets harder and harder the more you bat.

** More than 45% of Helton’s hits have been for extra bases. While most .400 hitters have been near or over 30%, that’s higher than anyone in the .400 club, edging out Rogers Hornsby’s 1925 season.

My prediction is probably the same as yours: Helton won’t make it. Coors will keep him close, and he’s a good (but not great) hitter, too. I expect a finish around the high .380s. But if he can close the deal against the likes of Schilling, the Big Unit, Maddux, and Glavine in the season’s final week, he will have earned some real respect.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Jail was better than the Yankees.”
-- Luis Polonia, shortly after being released from both. Amazing how people forget...

TRIVIA QUESTION
Who holds the record for most at bats by a rookie?

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
The only two players to hit grand slams in their first major league game: Bill Duggleby in 1898 and Bobby Bonds in 1968.

*-Based on full year stats

I seem to recall from the book that very few of the all-time great teams you listed had a regular at every position with an OW% over .500, let alone .520, but if Veras were healthy, both of these teams would meet that standard at this stage of the season.

I had to put in the pitchers to show that Hampton is having a better year with the bat than the Braves' starting 2B. The Braves fail to stack up to the Mets primarily due to the absence of Quilvio Veras and the fact that Chipper would be the Mets' third-best hitter. The Mets have a better ERA in the starting rotation and have scored more runs than Atlanta; the Braves' only statistical advantage is in the bullpen (!).

Also: Benny Agbayani's OPS, for 1999-2000, is now .891 (comparing favorably to the .876 figure posted by Bubba Trammell, 1998-2000). Agbayani was not an impressive minor league hitter. Is this a real improvement, or are we still waiting for a larger sample size for Agbayani to return to earth?

--1. Perez's boosters kept insistently arguing that they would not discuss the statistics; Perez even included a self-serving line in his acceptance speech about how he didn't play for statistics. Yet, every single column in his defense cited his 1,652 career RBI as a centerpiece of the argument. And to think, these guys get PAID to write this stuff.

--2. Perez played 21 major league seasons in which his team -- sometimes with a tremendous supporting cast (i.e., players much better than Tony Perez) -- did not win the World Series. Where was the famous leadership and clutch hitting of Perez when the Big Red Machine lost the 1973 NLCS to a team that won 82 games in the regular season? He hit .091 in that series. Perez’s best year in the regular season was 1970; he hit .056 in the World Series and the Reds lost. Two championships, yeah. Wilt Chamberlain took two NBA rings to his grave, and they called him a loser. Did Roger Clemens become a better pitcher in 1999?

--3. C'mon, anybody who watched Tony Perez, Jim Rice and Gary Carter in their prime and thought Perez was the best of the three should be reassigned to cover the XFL. Other than not breaking his hand in October 1975, what did Tony Perez ever do better than Jim Rice? Perez was just as slow as Rice, grounding into 268 career DP (Rice: 315), and an even worse defensive player.

Bill James once wrote that “giving Fenway Park to Jim Rice is like giving Superman brass knuckles.” Who ever wrote anything like that about Tony Perez? Lynn, Fisk, Yaz, Evans . . . when pitchers and managers stayed up at night worrying about the Red Sox, none of those guys (good as they were) were first on their mind. Who ever went into Cincinnati thinking the key thing was to stop Tony Perez? Whitey Herzog once put on a special shift to stop Rice, and complained that the shift he really wanted was to put two guys in the net and two on the Citgo sign. Nobody put infielders in orbit over Tony Perez.

Carter and Rice both played for championship teams when Perez wasn't around, but the Perez magic did nothing for Carter’s Expos or Rice’s Red Sox. RBI, then? RBI is all that matters? Jim Rice had more 120-RBI seasons than Perez (4 to 2), more 100-RBI seasons (8 to 7), more 95-RBI seasons (9 to 7), and only one fewer 85-RBI season (11 to 12). Granted, Perez drove in between 90 and 92 runs five times, but half his 201-RBI edge over Rice was the seasons before their first 100-RBI year and after their last: for Perez, that meant nine seasons, 277 RBI; for Rice, four seasons, 175 RBI.

Did I mention that Perez played nearly 600 more games than Rice and scored 23 more runs?

Lest you think the difference is the leagues they played in, consider the leader boards: In the main offensive categories (Avg, Slg, Obp, R, RBI, and we will throw in OPS) Perez finished in the top five in the league 10 times, Rice 24 times; Perez was in the top ten 26 times, Rice 37 times. In the other categories (G, AB, 2B, 3B, HR, H, BB, TB, SB), Perez finished in the top five in the league 9 times, Rice 26 times; Perez was in the top ten 30 times, Rice 43 times. Fenway alone does not explain that away.

Carter? Taken in context, his numbers with the bat were just as good as Perez’s numbers. Carter once led the league in RBI, while Perez never led in anything but GIDP. But while Carter in his prime was a great defensive catcher (and later a catcher who threw poorly but did the rest of the job well), Perez was such a disaster at third base (leading the league in errors three straight years, although in his defense, Perez had decent range, and errors are overrated) that the Reds had to trade a good young player (Lee May, who averaged 37 homers a year from 1969 to 1971) to move Perez to first and play Dennis Menke at third. Menke hit .233 in 1972 and .191 in 1973. The move more than worked out because May brought back Joe Morgan and in 1975 the Reds finally plugged the third base hole with Rose, but the point is that nobody ever had to trade good players away because Gary Carter couldn't field his position.

At the start of their respective careers, if you could have traded away the futures of Carter or Rice for Perez, would you have done it? In the middle of their careers, if you could take their best five or ten seasons for Perez’s best 5-10, would you do it? Hey, I’m a big fan of consistency and durability, but two or three extra years of solid production plus a better career as an aging benchwarmer do not add up to the kind of greatness that Carter and Rice reached. Some would say that at least Perez's mammoth career RBI total means he won’t water down the standards for future inductees, but when greatness is the standard, only the great get in. When 1,652 RBI is the standard, the inflated offensive numbers of the 1990s put an awful lot of people on the doorstep to immortality. Don’t look back, Harold Baines (1,614 RBI) might be gaining on you.

I'm not totally sold on putting Jim Rice in Cooperstown, but making him wait behind Tony Perez? Because Perez had Morgan, Rose and Bench while Rice's teams, with shaky bullpens and pitiful benches, came up just a little short of great teams three or four times? Or because Tony Perez is a good interview, and Jim Rice preferred to just do his job and keep his mouth shut?

Hall of Famers should meet standards of greatness in their time, and there is room in the Hall both for players who offered a relatively short period of transcendent greatness and for those who were very good players, consistently, over a very long time. Statistics are the main way that we measure those standards, but they are not the standards themselves and should not be confused with them.

Sometimes a particular position will have a wealth of talent -- first base in the AL of the 1930s, shortsop in the AL now. And sometimes there's a real dearth. Dominance during a weak era for first basemen might be an argument for Perez, although the best first baseman in the NL between 1972 and 1980 was probably Steve Garvey or Willie Stargell. But for an everyday player to be the best at his position over a span of a quarter century or more... to me, that's a definition of a Hall of Famer. And that's Bid McPhee’s argument in a nutshell.

Until this year, the Hall had not found room for a single second baseman whose prime years were in the 19th century. The only three second basemen in the Hall to play their prime years before 1920 were Nap Lajoie, who broke in in 1896 but played 100 games at second only once (1898) before 1900; Johnnie Evers, who became a regular in 1903; and Eddie Collins, who cracked the lineup in 1908. That’s one reason I’ve generally been in favor of Evers as a Hall of Famer, since he was the only NL second baseman enshrined from the league’s first forty years or so. The only credible challenger to Evers as the best NL second baseman of his era would be Larry Doyle.

The first candidate for second baseman of the century would have to be Ross Barnes. In the National Association, the first professional league, which ran from 1871 to 1875, Barnes was the league's dominant offensive player, batting .379 and scoring the preposterous total of 462 runs in 266 games (the seasons were shorter then). Over that period, Barnes outpaced his closest competitors by 17 points in batting and by 63 runs. In 1876, the National League’s inaugural season, Barnes batted .429 (the league hit .265), led the league in walks, hits, doubles, triples, total bases, slugging and on base percentage, and scored a staggering 126 runs in 66 games, leading the league by a margin of 54. No one in the 124 seasons since has approached this ratio of runs scored per game, not even close. Barnes led all second basemen in fielding percentage for good measure, 46 points higher than the average second baseman.

Barnes' career was derailed the following season when the rules were changed, making his signature play, the fair-foul bunt (i.e., bunting with the ball landing in fair territory and rolling foul before crossing the first or third base bag) a foul ball. He played just 168 more major league games over three seasons, never again hitting above .272.

After Barnes came McPhee, the Reds’ regular second baseman from the modern franchise’s inception in 1882 (when they won the American Association pennant, the only one of McPhee’s career) until 1899. In the years 1876-1900, only 15 men played 700 games at second, and only 7played 1,000 games; McPhee played 2,126 games at the position, more than 500 more than Fred Pfeffer, the nearest competitor, and eighth on the list to this day. After retirement McPhee managed the Reds; in 1901, his only full season at the helm, he led the Reds to the worst record in franchise history.

McPhee was a good, not a great, hitter, over a long period of years. Typical of his day, McPhee was speedy but with limited power, although his 53 career home runs were quite a respectable total. He stole a ton of bases, although stolen bases were counted differently then. He drew a fair number of walks starting with 59 in 1886, when the number of balls for a walk was seven. His career batting average of .271 looks weak when one thinks of the high-octane 1890s, but the league average in the AA was often very low, bottoming out at .238 in 1888, and McPhee's on-base percentages were routinely 20-30 points above the league, very good for a middle infielder.

McPhee’s most impressive credential is his 1,678 runs scored, 23nd the all-time list; McPhee scored 28 more runs than Joe Morgan, 174 more runs than Lajoie. The runs scored total should be taken with a grain of salt, as with Barnes: in an era when the league fielding percentage hovered around .900 and about two-thirds of all runs were unearned, players scored a lot. Still, McPhee scored 155 more runs than Big Dan Brouthers, the dominant hitter of McPhee’s era, and just 12 fewer than Sliding Billy Hamilton, the greatest leadoff man of the century.

On a year-in-year-out basis, though, McPhee was only occasionally among the league leaders in any batting category, despite mostly playing in a good hitters’ park. He led the league in games, triples, and homers (with 8) once each, and on two occasions was in the top five in runs, once in steals. There always seemed to be a better hitter in the league at his position; the STATS All-Time Sourcebook does an annual retroactive All-Star team based largely on batting stats, and McPhee is always ranked behind people like Sam Barkley, Yank Robinson and Cupid Childs.

For his career, the Runs Created/27 Outs method, used in the STATS, Inc. books, estimates that McPhee was 17.8% better than the league average hitter for the balance of his career (before adjusting for his park). Not counting Rod Carew, who I regard as a first baseman, that puts him 11th among the 13 Hall of Fame second basemen, ahead of only Red Schoendeinst (who ,s in partly as a manager) and Nellie Fox.

On the basis of his bat, McPhee falls a little ahead of Perez (by the standards of his position) in the category of good, long-time hitters who don’t quite have what Cooperstown requires. Oh, but his glove. McPhee was a legendary glove man, or rather, hand man; he was one of the last men to play the field barehanded, resisting the widespread adoption of gloves in the late 1880s. The numbers back up his reputation: McPhee led his league in double plays his first nine straight seasons, and 11 times in 12 years. He led in putouts 8 times, assists 6 times, fielding percentage 7 times, and range factor (then an unknown measurement) 8 times. When he switched to a glove in 1896, his fielding percentage jumped 23 points, setting a record that would stand for 25 years.

There were a few other good ones, like Fred Pfeffer and Bobby Lowe. Fred Dunlap hit .412 and led the league in nearly everything in 1884, but that was in the one-year Union Association, barely a major league; only two other times did he bat above .280. McPhee’s only real competition for the position on the team of the century would be Cupid Childs.

Childs was a legitimately outstanding hitter, a lifetime .306 hitter and 21st all time in on-base percentage at .416. He scored over 135 runs 3 straight years, leading the league in 1892 and finishing third in 1891 and 1893. Childs was in the top ten in the league in walks eleven years running and top ten in OBP 7 times in 8 years (leading the NL in 1892); he was probably one of the game’s top 5 hitters between 1890 and 1892. He was also a fine fielder in his own right, twice posting league leading range factors (although with below-average fielding percentages), and he played for a perennial contender.

Nonetheless, I would give it to McPhee, as I will explain more below. McPhee played longer, and was good hitter in his own right. Also, Childs’ teams (unlike McPhee’s) never did win a pennant despite their many stars (Cy Young, Jesse Burkett, Childs, Ed McKean), and he was basically washed up after 30.

I was initially opposed to the McPhee selection. His batting stats look so unimpressive, and if there is little point in immortalizing a guy like Tony Perez for longetivity when he is here to enjoy it, there is less so for a guy who’s been dead for 57 years and who no one alive saw play. It is nearly time to close the Hall doors to any new entrants from any earlier than the mid-1930s; personally I think the Veterans Committee should only be allowed to elect players that at least one member played with or against.

But somebody has to be the best at the position over so many years, and while McPhee was not a great hitter, he was good enough, like Ozzie Smith or Dave Bancroft; he was never a liability like Rabbit Maranville. And McPhee’s defense was truly exceptional. In an era when walks and extra base hits were rare and errors and aggressive baserunning were common, infield defense meant more than it does today; McPhee was clearly the best in the business, and for a very long time.

Finally, I wonder about Ross Barnes. He played for only ten years and unlike contemporaries Al Spalding and Candy Cummings, he was no innovator (his signature play was outlawed 123 years ago). But Barnes was the best position player in professional baseball for its first six seasons, and the second most valuable behind Spalding. Maybe it’s not long enough to make a real Hall of Fame career, but you have to think that there would at least be some way to honor a guy who dominated the game like that. Remember, if Tony Perez can make the Hall of Fame, anything's possible.

TRIVIA QUESTION
Name the only two players to hit grand slams in their first major league game. (One is very hard, having done it before 1900, so feel free to guess just the modern one).

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK'S TRIVIA QUESTION
Before Robin Roberts, the record for homers allowed in a season was 39, by Murray Dickson in 1948. Before Dickson, the record belonged to Larry Corcoran, who was tagged for 35 homers in 516.2 innings for the Cubs (then the White Stockings) in 1884.

AL CENTRAL

INDIANS: C-
The Indians made so many moves that it’s hard to make sense of it all, ultimately dumping two of their everyday outfielders (Justice and Sexson are now replaced by Russell Branyan, Wil Cordero and David Segui), overhauling the pitching staff and serving as a halfway house to Ricky Ledee. The Segui move works if they're serious about this season; the Justice deal was defensible if they were rebuilding. What gives?

Dealing Sexson looks bad, given his monstrous power and youth and the Indians’ history of dealing big young sluggers (Giles, Burnitz, Casey) for mediocre pitchers. Sexson is not productive at this point, given his dismal on-base percentages in 1999 and 2000, but at age 25 it seems hasty for them to give up on his ability to learn the strike zone. The guys who came in return are useful but unimpressive; I’d hate to rely on Jason Bere, and the talented Mr. Woodard has been awful this year.

The fascination with Wil Cordero, to the point of trading two good young players for him, paying his 3-year $9 million contract and possibly demoting Branyan to play him everyday, is utterly inexplicable. Cordero has a reputation as a good bat because he had some pop for a shortstop, but he hasn’t played there in five years. As a corner outfielder he's woefully inadequate, combining mediocre power with minimal speed and an inability to get on base. Ordinarily you would assume he must be one heck of a nice guy to get so many undeserved chances, but he is basically unrepentant about beating his wife.

Peter Gammons called him an “experienced situational hitter,” which is baseball-speak for a guy who doesn’t hit real well on the whole. You take the “situational” hitters and I will take the guys who are just good hitters like Manny Ramirez (last year’s Divisional Series or not), and we will see who wins more games. More to the point, if a guy is a “situational” hitter, why play him everyday? Why not just save him to pinch hit in the “situations” where he will supposedly excel, rather than polluting the lineup with outs in meaningless situations (like the first six innings of a tie game, for example).

WHITE SOX: A-
Chicago could have used another starting pitcher, but their main need was at catcher and they upgraded tremendously, getting a guy who’s battle-tested and will steady their defense, plus he will hit a little. Charles Johnson should remind White Sox fans of a rich man’s Ron Karkovice, a cannon arm and home run power but little else. Harold Baines should remind them of a poor man’s Harold Baines, a shell of the guy whose number was retired by the White Sox 11 years ago. Baines has not, traditionally, been a good guy to acquire for the stretch run; ask the Rangers, Indians or A’s. Still, both came cheap, so there is little to complain about.

ROYALS, TWINS: B
Neither of these teams are in the race; both had already jettisoned their useless veterans, so neither really needed to make a major deal. The Royals gambled that they can afford to keep Johnny Damon; let’s hope they were right. It's hard to believe that Damon won't get swallowed up by one of The Haves this winter.

TIGERS: F
The recent run to right the ship notwithstanding, this is a bad veteran team whose best player will walk after the season. Now it’s too late to cash in Dean Palmer, Gonzalez, Easley, Jones, Moehler, Nomo and Higginson for some young talent. Oops.

AL WEST

MARINERS: B
Seattle’s only significant deal was to get Al “What, me married?” Martin for the eminently replaceable John Mabry and disappointing pitching prospect Tom Davey. I’m not that impressed with Martin and I'm not sure where he'll play, but he's having a good year and gives them insurance in case Buhner gets hurt (imagine that) or Rickey sprains his motivational muscle. Still, there are plenty of cheap substitutes for McLemore and Bell at second and third; Seattle's failure to find one is almost inexcusable.

A’s: B+
The A’s real challenge, long-term, is to shift from accumulating guys with good hitting stats to getting some complete players. It’s hard to develop a solid pitching staff with a beer-league defense, no matter how many runs you score. Adding Mario Valdez widens the talent base yet again, but how many 1B/DHs does one organization need? The A’s already have five in their everyday lineup, including Ben Grieve, who is outlasting the competition to make a run at Jim Rice’s GIDP record despite being (1) lefthanded and (2) 24 years old.

In the short run, they needed bullpen help, and while Colome may turn out to be a steep price for the Larry Andersen-ish Jim Mecir, Mecir will take some heat off an overworked Jeff Tam. But the pen is still thin, the everyday rightfielder is still hitting .220 and Terrence Long is still leading off. I think the A’s are still a year away; judging from their nonchalance around the deadline, I suspect they do too.

ANGELS: B-
The Gant for Bottenfield deal could have been made after the dealine; nobody else wanted either one of those guys. Bottenfield can be usable, but getting him out of town clears the path for the young pitchers, and Gant isn’t quite so finished that he couldn’t hit better down the stretch than Scott Speizio. The best you can say is that the Angels aren’t fooling themselves about being serious contenders, so they're doing this on the cheap.

RANGERS: B-
The Rangers were quieter than perhaps they should have been -- they didn’t deal Wetteland -- but the Segui/Ledee move seems like a decent gamble in going for youth. I can easily understand if the Rangers aren’t really sure what their strengths and weaknesses are until they get better medical prognoses on their many hobbled players.

AL EAST

YANKEES: A+
$@!#@ Yankees did it again. They managed to get a couple of good players, rather than great ones, in Neagle and Justice, and Glenallen “Spiderman” Hill gives them a proven righthanded hitter who mercifully won’t have to use his iron glove. Of the guys they gave up for Neagle, only Yarnall is likely to contribute anything at all before 2002. Jackson Melian seems like your classic AAS ballplayer: Athlete Awaiting Skills. He’s young enough that he might learn to play the game, but then he might not. The Indians found more immediate help in Ricky Ledee and Jake Westbrook, but those guys were not going to hold down steady jobs in the Bronx, ever.

Some Yankee fans were upset (in a “Hey, there’s a paint chip on my Mercedes” kind of way) that they didn’t bring home a superstar, and the Yanks do still have some legitimate holes, like the offensive cavities at first and third. But with the collective bargaining agreement coming up and the howls over revenue sharing only getting louder, George has to figure that loading up his team with Sammy Sosas and Juan Gonzalezes is only going to make the Philadelphias and Torontos of the world that much quicker to join Les Miserables de Montreal faction in ganging up on Mr. Big's cable money.

ORIOLES: C-
Well, the O’s got the first step down: they are no longer in denial. They are no contender and no closer to being a contender. In that sense, the moves they made make sense; the next time a championship flag is raised over Camden Yards, Surhoff, Bordick, Timlin, Baines and Will Clark will all be retired.

Unfortunately, they only got the housecleaning concept right; they forgot to get anyone in return. Luis Rivera (obtained in the Surhoff deal) is supposed to be a prospect, but I have yet to see anyone get a pitcher from the Braves and find the guy completely healthy (ask Jim Bowden how long it took to get Denny Neagle back in form). The guys the Mets gave up are mildly useful. At 28, Melvin Mora doesn’t have long to learn the ropes, but for a team out of contention it’s worth spending two months to see if Mora can learn to play shortstop. He hits well enough to play there but not to play center field regularly, and if he can’t learn there’s every indication that Bordick will come back to Baltimore next year to fill in until permanent help arrives. Leslie Brea (the typical wild fireballer, walking six men per nine innings in AA ball) and Mike Kinkade (a guy who hits for average with a little power and plays several positions almost as well as Pedro Guerrero played them) could be helpful spare parts, but Brea isn’t close to ready.

BLUE JAYS: B
The Jays only made one deal of note, which was a disappointment since they have more holes than O.J.’s alibi. They still have gaps in the starting rotation (I’m still waiting to find out what Carpenter’s injury is), they still have Alex Gonzalez at short, and now they have Craig Grebeck at second and Marty Cordova in right.

The one deal they made, I like. Steve Trachsel is a solid pitcher, notwithstanding his record the last two years, and he’s never been hurt, rare for a starter these days. The guy they gave up, second baseman Brent Abernathy, is supposed to be pretty good, which begs the question of why he wasn’t eating Homer Bush’s lunch by now.

DEVIL RAYS: B-
I don’t really know that much about Abernathy, but Trachsel isn't old and he isn't expensive; if you have to trade a guy like that you have serious financial problems. The Mecir deal also made sense, since good middle relievers on a dismal team are basically pointless and Jesus Colome supposedly has Grade A heat. By contrast, they were unable to unload any of the aging slugs, I mean sluggers, a serious drain on Tampa Bay’s budget and ability to develop youngsters. Some days, you just can’t get rid of a bomb.

The deal with the Mets wasn’t totally awful; Jason Tyner is several years younger than Bubba Trammell, and Paul Wilson might maybe turn back into a pitching prospect with some patience. Right now, though, I’d rather bet on Dwight Gooden’s future than Wilson’s.

I wonder if trading Trammell for Tyner is a sign that the Rays are about to head back in the direction of slap-hitting speedsters and away from power. The Rays are like the guy in your rotisserie league who lost the pennant last year because he had no closer, so this year he goes and buys four of them, none named Mariano Rivera, and the rest of his team stinks. They haven’t figured out that just having a plan (speed and defense! No, lumbering power hitters!) isn’t enough; you have to show good judgment in getting talented players, and you need people in or entering their prime.

RED SOX: C
The Arrojo deal isn’t necessarily a bad deal; it may well improve the Sox. My initial reaction was positive, then skeptical the more I thought about it, as I’ll explain below.

Obviously the short-term key is whether Arrojo’s present is more valuable than Rose’s future. Granted, Arrojo has not quite been the same since his injury in early 1999, and for all we know he could be older than Luis Tiant, but he does have some tricky stuff and he wasn’t half as bad as his numbers look from Colorado. On the road, his ERA was right around the league average, so it would not be unreasonable for him to get turned around and post an ERA around 4.00 the rest of the way. Given Joe Kerrigan’s record with reclamation projects like Fassero and Schourek and Ramon, there is reason for Sox fans to hope for the best here.

Lansing might also help if used properly. He was a decent player in Montreal who fell off sharply in Colorado. My sense is that, with his chronic back problems, what Lansing needs most is to get away from the grind of playing everyday. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look so far like Jimy has figured this out – he has been playing everyday so far (granted, with Offerman out) and worse yet, on Tuesday he actually tried batting him LEADOFF! At this pace, Lansing will probably be finished as a major league player by the end of his contract next season.

The cost in players wasn’t that high. I’ve always liked Jeff Frye, but his injury record is ghastly. Rose is the opposite: he never distinguished himself as a legitimate prospect, but he’s young, healthy and possesses a respectable fastball, so if he can get out of Colorado quickly there is always the outside chance he could develop into a decent pitcher. The problem with this deal isn’t who Boston got or gave up; at the end of the day this is not an earthshaking trade. The problem is how it impacts the available alternatives and what it says about the Red Sox.

First, was Arrojo the best available pitcher? I would rather have had Masato Yoshii, who was brilliant down the stretch last year, and beyond Colorado there’s certainly a bigger upside to Ismael Valdes. Second, acquiring a guy like Lansing is fine for the Yankees or Dodgers, but the Red Sox presumably don’t have an unlimited budget to eat other teams’ mistakes. It’s bad enough when it’s one expensive year (like the Mets bought in Derek Bell), but Lansing will cost them $6 million next season.

Worst of all is Boston's refusal to bite the bullet and pick a few young pitchers to stick in the rotation and live with their ups and downs. Rose just wasn’t the right guy, in my opinion, but at least he was given half a shot. But a guy like Okha, for example, has nothing more to prove at AAA; if you gave him a few months in the rotation you could start to get a fix on whether he might survive the jump to the majors. Same with Paxton Crawford and Juan Pena, although it’s not the Sox fault that Pena skipped right to the Saberhagen stage of his career. Jerking guys in and out of the rotation after two or three starts is no way to develop young pitchers; that’s the old Steinbrenner method. Ferry in a guy like Schourek -- as we have seen -- and even if he’s a hit, after three or four months you need another to re-order another quick-fix guy.

As for the prior acquisitions of Sprague and Gilkey, they fit in with the prevailing theme: bad players that are better than the REALLY bad players they replaced. For a team that seems one or two quality players away from the prize, that isn’t enough; the Sox simply did not add a guy who will bring positive value to the club rather than just stanching the bleeding.

And, to top this all off, the Sox go out and get Rico Brogna. Now, Brogna's a good guy and a good fielder, and he was a fine hitter in 1994-95. But let's look at 1999-2000:

Avg Slg Obp OPS
Rico Brogna .273 .441 .329 .770
Mike Stanley .263 .449 .373 .822

And that's without mentioning that Brogna has grounded into 22 double plays in that stretch to Stanley's 9, in just 89 more plate appearances. Yes, Stanley had Fenway on his side, but this is yet another addition that adds nothing. Brogna gets on base at a rate well below the league average, which is dismal for a first baseman.

In my opinion, Dan Duquette dropped the ball. The Sox could still win the division or the wild card, but it's now a long shot, and they are taking on ballast they don't need. I've been a Duquette fan in the past, but anyone who thinks you win championships by collecting the likes of Sprague, Lansing and Brogna has no business running a contender. Hey, the Cubbies' GM job is open...

QUOTE
“Corey Lidle is in for the Mets... Lidle is an ancestor of Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat.”
-- Ralph Kiner

TRIVIA QUESTION
Robin Roberts (twice) held the record for most home runs allowed in a single season, until Bert Blyleven broke it. Who held the record before Roberts?

ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S TRIVIA QUESTION
Kent Tekulve holds the major league record for most career intentional walks.