Well, Omar Minaya is still at it, trading Kris Benson to Baltimore for Jorge Julio and rookie pitcher John Maine. Let’s summarize this deal:
1. Dumping Benson: good. I always thought the Mets paid too much for Benson when there were better pitchers on the market last offseason, and I have no faith in Benson after his late-season fade last year. And he makes three times as much money as Julio, although it’s not clear to me if the Mets are eating any of the difference.
2. Getting Julio: bad. Julio’s ERAs of 4.38, 4.57 and 5.90 the past three seasons adequately sum up his contributions. The Mets are now mobbed with righthanded relievers – Julio, Duaner Sanchez, Heath Bell, Juan Padilla, Chad Bradford, Steve Schmoll, and possibly Aaron Heilman. But none of these guys is bankable other than maybe Heilman, although I’m optimistic about Bell and willing to see Sanchez and Padilla get a shot and Bradford show if he’s healthy.
3. Getting Maine: a crapshoot. Maine’s a young pitcher who threw well in the low minors, has been so-so in AAA and horrible in brief exposure in the majors, and according to reports doesn’t have an overpowering fastball. Maine will be 25 this year; he’s basically just another pitching prospect who might or might not work out, so the jury’s out on this one.
4. Trading Jae Seo: really, really dumb. Dealing Seo meant committing two rotation spots to Benson/Zambrano/Heilman. At least it now seems inevitable that Heilman will be in the rotation, which is a very good thing, but there’s now no safety net if Zambrano pitches like Zambrano, or Trachsel or Pedro gets hurt again, or Glavine gets old.
What else is about to happen? Ken Arneson at Catfish Stew has a good roundup. While I’d love to have Barry Zito, and I’m sure Rick Peterson would too, I don’t like the long-term idea of dealing Lastings Milledge for a guy with one year left on his deal, or the short-term idea of dealing both Milledge and Victor Diaz, leaving Xavier Nady as the everyday right fielder and no insurance in left in the 80-90% possibility that Cliff Floyd gets hurt. And while I like Jeff Weaver as a pitcher, I think his track record in New York pretty much speaks for itself. Still, the Benson deal does have “another shoe yet to drop” written all over it.
Category: Baseball 2006
Clearly, Someone Slept Through Heckling 101
The Devil Rays are thinking of a new name: the Tampa Bay Tarpons. As MB puts it, “Do I have to spell it out for them?”
BASEBALL/ Lifetime Pass
Great Washington Post story about the lifetime passes to Major League parks given to the hostages on their return from Iran 25 years ago today. It’s a great gesture by baseball.
Of course, for contrast, the story juxtaposes horror stories of the hostages’ mistreatment with a famous picture of a blindfolded hostage being led by his captors, with a scowling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (now Iran’s president) second from right. The picture of Ahmadinejad is a grim reminder of the continuing timeliness of the hostage crisis, which is really where the campaign of radical Islamist terror against the United States began.
Sorry, Dale
Could Be Better, Could Be Worse
Bruce Sutter makes the Hall of Fame, and four other candidates get over 50% of the vote. As I’ve said before (see here and here), I’m lukewarm on Sutter as a Hall of Famer, but unable in any way to comprehend how Sutter goes in ahead of Goose Gossage. This chart I’ve run before shows some of the reasons why (to save time I’ve excluded Rivera rather than update his numbers):
Pitcher | G | SV | IP | ERA | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Goose 1975, 77-85* | 554 | 253 | 974.2 | 2.06 | 6.39 | 0.46 | 3.27 | 8.52 |
Sutter 1976-84 | 549 | 260 | 890 | 2.54 | 7.30 | 0.58 | 2.63 | 7.61 |
Quiz 1980-86 | 474 | 224 | 806 | 2.48 | 8.79 | 0.49 | 1.31 | 3.15 |
Henke** | 642 | 311 | 789.2 | 2.67 | 6.92 | 0.73 | 2.91 | 9.81 |
Eckersley 1987-97 | 645 | 386 | 750 | 2.87 | 7.55 | 0.88 | 1.27 | 9.02 |
* – Excludes ill-fated year as a starter
** – Whole career
Let’s look at the four-year voting trend by percentage of the vote (75% for induction), excluding guys with very low vote totals and guys who went in on the first ballot:
PLAYER | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sandberg | 49.2 | 61.1 | 76.2 | IN |
Sutter | 53.7 | 59.5 | 66.7 | 76.9 |
Rice | 52.2 | 54.5 | 59.5 | 64.8 |
Gossage | 42.1 | 40.7 | 55.2 | 64.6 |
Dawson | 50.0 | 50.0 | 52.3 | 61.0 |
Blyleven | 29.2 | 35.4 | 40.9 | 53.3 |
L. Smith | 42.3 | 36.6 | 38.8 | 45.0 |
Morris | 22.8 | 26.3 | 33.3 | 41.2 |
John | 23.4 | 21.9 | 23.8 | 29.6 |
Garvey | 27.8 | 24.3 | 20.5 | 26.0 |
Trammell | 14.1 | 13.8 | 16.9 | 17.7 |
Parker | 10.3 | 10.5 | 12.6 | 14.4 |
Concepcion | 11.1 | 11.3 | 10.7 | 12.5 |
Mattingly | 13.7 | 12.8 | 11.4 | 12.3 |
(2005 ballot here, 2004 here, 2003 here).
Everyone’s numbers were up this year, as this was the weakest top of the ballot in years (next year, with Ripken, Gwynn and McGwire, will be different). You can go down the sidebar or use the search tool to get my take on the merits of most of these guys’ candidacies, albeit in some cases written as long as five years ago. Some observations on the voting trends:
*The guys from John on down just aren’t making it.
*Blyleven has gained serious momentum with each year, and this year’s addition of a new Bill James study on his side has to help. I think he’ll make it, and it will be some time before a better starting pitcher is on the ballot (Bret Saberhagen is by far the best starter entering the ballot over the next four years; the next people in Bert’s class or better are all active, those being Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine, Pedro and Mussina, of whom only Clemens might not return in 2007).
*The Goose, I think, will get in next year – not only is he close to 2/3, but with Sutter and Eckersley in, the case by analogy will grow much stronger.
*Rice and Dawson remain on the bubble. Both may be helped by the perception among sportswriters – sure to grow next year with McGwire on the ballot – that these guys were the last generation of non-steroid-using sluggers. I can hope the writers come to their senses on Dawson, but you never know. I don’t think they get past 2007’s crowded ballot, though.
*The analogy argument may also help Lee Smith once the Goose gets in, but if Rivera, Trevor Hoffman or someone else takes Smith off the career saves lead before he gets in, he’s toast.
*Morris will have to wait in line behind Blyleven, but also benefits from a shortage of new starting pitcher candidates. The odds seem against him but he’s not out of the game yet.
Corey O’s
David Pinto notes the Orioles’ acquisition of Corey Patterson in exchange for two minor leaguers. I realize that a lot of sabermetrically-inclined folks, Pinto included, are very down on Patterson due to his appalling lack of strike zone judgment, but I’m not convinced that it’s too late for Patterson to turn himself around, a la Sammy Sosa and Mike Cameron, players with similar skill sets and similiar (if less severe) strike zone problems.
Consider: Patterson will still be only 26 in 2006, and his list of comparable players is impressive; even after a rotten 2005 that dropped Reggie Smith, Andre Dawson and Dave Winfield off his list, he still compares rather closely to Sosa, Chili Davis, Dwight Evans, Paul Blair, Jimmy Wynn, Rick Monday, Augie Galan and George Hendrick – a list that includes a who’s who of late bloomers – and the aggregate rest-of-career average for his comps from 26 on is .271/.460/.362 with 192 home runs. Patterson was quite useless in 2005, but I consider him a decent bet to be surprisingly productive in 2006, and to have a decent career, if only because the things he needs are things that can be learned. It’s not a guarantee; his most-similar comp, Ruppert Jones, never did really put it all together, and of course Orioles fans will rememeber well the forever unfulfilled promise of Jeffrey Hammonds. But I’d put my money on Baltimore winning this deal.
Random Comparison
Most similar player to Grady Sizemore at the same age: Duke Snider. Not bad. Sizemore’s overall list is pretty impressive in terms of talent, although names like “Ellis Valentine,” “Tommy Davis” and “Ben Grieve” are good reminders of how many things can go wrong for a talented 22-year-old.
Trammell and Whitaker
I continue to believe that Lou Whitaker belongs in the Hall of Fame. Mike Carminati presents a Win Shares table and arguments in favor of Whitaker’s double play partner, Alan Trammell, and a Win Shares chart for Whitaker as well (the real surprise on that table isn’t Whitaker and Bobby Grich hanging even with the immortals – it’s Willie Randolph right there with them). I guess I’m less sold on Trammell because of his frustrating inconsistency (the polar opposite of the metronomic regularity of Whitaker’s career), but there’s definitely a good argument that the two belong in Cooperstown together.
(h/t Pinto)
Seo Long
The Mets’ two latest moves do not look good. First, they traded Jae Seo and Tim Hamulack to the Dodgers for Duaner Sanchez and Steve Schmoll. Now, I understand that Seo’s strikeout rate has never been real good, although he did get it up to 5.88 per 9 innings last season. So I can’t say with certainty that Seo will be reliable in the future. But as a 29-year-old starter who doesn’t have a ton of mileage on his arm, has great control and seemed to figure things out last season, Seo is a valuable property and one of great usefulness to a Mets team whose rotation now includes 40-year-old Tom Glavine, Kris Benson (who missed April in 2005 and whose fastball went home to get an early start on the offseason in mid-August), 35-year-old Steve Trachsel (who pitched all of 6 games last season), and now, apparently, Victor Zambrano, who considers 5 innings a long outing. Compounding the problem, the Mets are apparently bent on using Aaron Heilman, their only remaining under-30 starting pitcher with a chance of pitching in the majors with the departure of Seo and Yusmiero Petit, out of the bullpen. Among other things, this bespeaks a dramatic misunderstanding of the relative value of starting pitchers vs. relievers. And, to top it off, the Mets pen, aside from closer Billy Wagner, will now include some mix of Heilman, Heath Bell, Sanchez, Schmoll, Chad Bradford, Juan Padilla and Royce Ring – only one of whom (Ring) is lefthanded, thus depriving the team of one of the major benefits of a deep bullpen.
On top of that, I don’t know what evidence exists to suggest that Schmoll is a major league pitcher – he walked 22 batters and struck out 29 in 46.2 innings last season (compared to Seo, who struck out 59 and walked just 16). Sanchez, at least, showed signs of usefulness after bopping around multiple organizations, raising his K/9 rate from 4.95 in 2004 to 7.79 in 2005. But his 3.73 ERA (in Dodger Stadium, no less) was hardly stellar – not the kind of pitcher you surrender a good starter in exchange for. Ugh.
The second move won’t cost much, except in wasted at bats, but seems like a brain-dead move: picking up Bret Boone, who is 37 and has batted .251/.423/.317 and .221/.350/.290 the past two seasons. And – there’s no other way to put this – who seems a likely candidate to fall under the heading of “players who seem less likely to again hit as well as they did before steroid testing started” (Boone gained something like 20 pounds of muscle in one offseason in his 30s upon arriving in Seattle). No, I don’t know a thing about what Bret Boone has put into his body, but under the circumstances I wouldn’t employ him, either.
I actually thought Boone mightn’t be a bad gamble in mid-season last year when the Mets were in the hunt and desperate to plug the 2B hole, but he played as badly with Minnesota as he had in Seattle, he’s a year older now and there are other options out there – as the Daily News noted yesterday, second basemen who were available for a song this offseason included D’Angelo Jimenez, and Mark Bellhorn; Mark Loretta and Mark Grudzielanek were also available, and while I’m no fan of the Gruz he’s not as obviously done as Boone, who’s at the same stage Jay Bell was with the Mets.
Chad Bradford
Perhaps needless to say, I’m in favor of the Mets’ acquisition of former White Sox, A’s and Red Sox reliever Chad Bradford, who some of you may remember as one of the subjects of the book Moneyball. Bradford was a heck of a pitcher between 1998 and 2003, before he started having back troubles. He’s obviously a gamble, since his effectiveness may depend on getting healthy again, but there are few enough sidearmers in the game that they are often a good gamble.
No on Dawson
Why am I not surprised that Phil Rogers, one of the deans of the old-time know-nothing sportswriters’ club, wants Andre Dawson in the Hall of Fame? Much of this article is devoted to pumping up Dawson’s grit and character and attacking steroid users, neither of which is much relevant to the question. And, like all sportswriters who disdain statistics, Rogers can’t resist cherry-picking some stats of his own:
No eligible player has ever collected as many hits (2,774) or RBI (1,591) without becoming a Hall of Famer — a claim that Dawson will almost certainly pass to Harold Baines (2,866 hits, 1,628 RBI) when he goes onto the ballot a year from now.
I think the second part of that pretty well answers the first, no? And this is a valiant attempt to make virtues of Dawson’s flaws as a candidate:
With the Cubs, Dawson won a Most Valuable Player award in 1987 and helped his team to the National League East title in 1989, putting an end to the New York Mets’ dominance. Even then, we weren’t getting the best of Dawson.
We saw him struggle against the San Francisco Giants in the championship series. Only his teammates and peers understood the daily battle he went through to get onto the field with knees that only an orthopedic surgeon could love. He had been born with good ones, of course, and still had them when he left Florida A&M in 1976. He destroyed them playing with reckless abandon on the concrete-like artificial turf at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
Maybe this wasn’t as tragic as the irreversible glaucoma that ended Puckett’s career in 1995, after 12 seasons. But there’s reason to give Dawson the benefit of the doubt in terms of his Hall of Fame candidacy.
Um, Dawson’s career was ground down by bad knees. Know how many guys would have better Hall resumes if they hadn’t had bad knees? Even with his knees, you take Dawson and I’ll take Tony Oliva and we’ll see who wins more pennants.
I’ve been through the case against Dawson before. In a nutshell:
1. Dawson’s .323 career on base percentage made him a far easier out than any Hall of Fame outfielder or first baseman:
Dawson’s career OBP of .323 isn’t just unspectacular, it’s poor. In fact, only one Hall of Fame outfielder has a career on base percentage below .353, and that’s Lou Brock (.343), who played in the offense-starved 1960s, as did the only two other non-shortstops in the Hall with a career OBP below .340, Brooks Robinson (.322) and Bill Mazeroski (.299), both of whom were also legendary glovemen. (The only two until Gary Carter, that is; Carter’s was dragged down at the end to .335). The only Hall of Famers below .350 who got in without playing a key defensive position and playing it well are first basemen Tony Perez (.344) and George Kelly (.342); I’ve argued before that Perez was a mistake, and Kelly is the Hall’s single most indefensible selection.
The low OBP means a lack of runs; Dawson played 21 years at a slugger’s position and wound up 78th on the career runs scored list, and 100 runs behind Dwight Evans . . . Dawson’s OBP was above the league average only six times.
2. Dawson was a poor postseason performer:
The postseason should be a big thing for a guy thought of as an inspirational leader. But Andre Dawson in October was hideous, .128 with no homers in two losing efforts in the NLCS. (Dawson hit .300 in the divisional series in 1981, but with no homers and no RBI). In 1981, when Dawson was at his peak – runner-up for the MVP award – the Expos lost an NLCS decided by one run in the last inning of the deciding game. Where was Andre? He didn’t drive in a single run the whole series.
3. Dawson’s teams often did not show any sign of benefitting from his presence:
Dawson’s Cubs teams never won much in part because they got few baserunners and the young players on the team (except Mark Grace) followed Dawson’s lead in swinging at anything. Coincidence?
Dawson’s Expos teams consistently missed the playoffs despite the presence of an outstanding cast around him, including Gary Carter, Tim Raines and Steve Rogers. Coincidence?
The Cubs finished last [in 1987] with Dawson winning the MVP in the middle of their order. Coincidence?
The year the Cubs did win the division, 1989, Dawson missed 44 games. Coincidence?
The last two franchises Dawson played for were a combined 9 games under .500 in his last season on the roster, and each won the division the next year. Coincidence?