Rounding Out the Rotation

Great baseball players are extremely hard to come by.

There may come a time, many years in the future, when the sporting world is seized by a feverishly unscrupulous zeitgeist of genetic manipulation, an era in which human beings have been pushed to the limits of their physical structures and contests become breakneck battles of endurance between hyper-athletic specimens of biological and chemical engineering.  This is the sort of thing that’s occasionally dramatized in bad science fiction movies: in the year 2050, athletes are less a gifted portion of humanity and more a subspecies unto themselves.  A wide receiver with a 13-foot verticals artfully backflips over a free safety.  Power forwards perform 1080 reverse dunks that shatter the very basketball in their hands into trillions of little sparkling nanoparticles.  A square-jawed DH turns on a 130-MPH fastball and sends it screaming toward the right-field bleachers — alas, it is robbed by the center fielder, who scrambles up a twenty-foot wall to make the catch.

That time, thankfully, is not now.  In fact, we like to tell ourselves that it is quite the opposite: now that we’re paying such hawkish attention to the big anabolic meanies, the artisans of old-world skills such as – gasp – defense are suddenly hot properties.  It is, ostensibly, how the Rays were able to be so successful last year, and how teams like the Mariners – who will start an outfield of Endy Chavez, Franklin Gutierrez, and Ichiro Suzuki – are earning pre-season hype as the this year’s surprise sleepers.  A run saved, as they say, is just as good as a run earned (and currently costs a lot less).

Of course, there are still the freaks of nature that make fans’ hearts flutter, the shining temples of accomplishment within the game whose faces get put on video game boxes and sell us disposable razors.  And as most sensible observers of the game will tell you, the sport is not clean, and never will be, because fans’ dollars go toward watching the best players, not watching the best drug testers.  But most teams have only a handful of notoriously skilled players.  Pick a team at random – say, the Minnesota Twins – and you’ll be able to count the stars on one hand.  Joe Mauer, a hometown kid who’s a skilled offensive catcher;  Justin Morneau, a perennial All-Star at first;  Joe Nathan, one of the game’s elite closers.  Francisco Liriano might get there one day.  So might Delmon Young.

But who are these other guys?  Many more still, while not superstars, are above-average.  Carlos Gomez is very fast and a great defender.  Scott Baker is a capable middle-of-the-rotation starter.  Kevin Slowey never walks anybody.  Their talent, too, comes at a premium, and while they will not make headlines, they will please fans for as long as they keep their heads above the water and avoid really murdering their teams’ chances via whatever holes in their game have prevented them from reaching the upper-echelon.  These guys can’t be great, because there isn’t enough greatness left to go around.

Now, the game of baseball is not wont to do any favors: beneath these two layers of ability there lies a massive, churning lake of marginally-skilled players waiting to bubble and froth through and chinks that may appear in the armor of a ballclub as the season wears on.  These are not those young prospects whose fortunes appear written in the stars; rather, these are the sedentary beings past which those wunderkinds slide on their way to brighter things.

They are filler.

Sure, they were once young hotshots, the greatest things to ever pass through their high schools and junior colleges.  Somewhere along the way, though, the hands of fate brushed them aside.  They are occasionally stories of self-ruin (drug abuse, attitude problems) and are occasionally felled by physical malady (see: Mark Prior).  More often that not, though, they’re just not good enough at any part of the game.  Their reaction time is 0.1 seconds too slow, their fastball just a few miles-per-hour south of acceptable.

Baseball, much like life itself, exposes them with varying levels of haste.  Occasionally, these fraudulent icons are able to skip and bounce their way to decent-enough numbers that the men in charge, anxious as they are to get while the getting’s good, reward them with extremely lucrative contracts.  Gary Matthews Junior, having flashed 20/20 potential as a young outfielder in Texas, appeared to turn a corner in 2006 when he batted .313 with 19 homers.  He was rewarded with a $55 million dollar contract with the Los Angeles Angels, and in 2009 finds himself FIFTH on the Angels’ depth chart, having swiftly proven himself wholly undeserving of the money he was given.

Others still are stuck in a sort of limbo, and can get by for years – maybe an entire career – on a mixture of luck and anonymity.  This can happen for a variety of reasons.

Some have excellent skills but have displayed a pathological inability to harness those skills.  Daniel Cabrera, a 6′9″ flamethrower from the Dominican Republic, has a fastball that often clocks in the mid-to-upper 90s.  He also walks in the neighborhood of five batters per nine innings, and in 146 career starts has a 5.05 ERA.  Players like Cabrera carom around the league for far longer than their peers who generate the same results because there are no shortage of men arrogant enough to dream that they can make a tweak here, an adjustment there, and voila: out from the thorny bramble bursts some rare and special player.

For many of these players, that quixotic and ethereal ability is far less apparent.  In 1997, the Atlanta Braves selected Horacio Ramirez, the son of two Mexican emigrants, in the fifth round of the amateur draft out of Inglewood High School in California.  A better fate could not befall a young pitcher: the Braves were establishing a stranglehold on the National League East, and boasted some of the best pitchers in baseball, three of whom – John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Mark Wohlers – were home-grown products.  They had a reputation for developing elite pitching, and were an excellent ballclub in a major media market.

Ramirez broke camp with the Braves in 2003 and would go on to make 29 starts for the ballclub, going 12-4 with a 4.00 ERA.  Had he registered a few more outs, that of course becomes 3.99;  a 23-year old left-hander going 12-4 with a 3.99 ERA in his rookie season is the sort of thing that’s going to inspire some positive thoughts around the league.  So he essentially did that, but unfortunately for him (and the Braves), this was mostly smoke and mirrors.  In 182.1 IP, he only managed a woeful 100 strikeouts, walking 72 in the process.  He induced a lot of ground balls, though, and in that way was able to limit damage.

The next few years revealed two things about Ramirez: not only was he not very good, but he also had serious problems staying healthy.  He missed almost the entire 2004 season with shoulder tendinitis, and missed large portions of 2006 with hamstring and finger issues (he also missed a start after being drilled in the head by a Lance Berkman line drive).  When he was on the field, he displayed an almost preternatural inability to miss bats.  Nestled in between his ‘04 and ‘06 seasons was a 202-inning 2005; his fastball was clocked a hair shy of 89 mph, and he managed just 80 strikeouts for a 3.56 K/9 figure that was the second-worst in the league, behind only the immortal Carlos Silva (3.39).  Silva, to his credit, walked almost no one: his 0.43 BB/9 was far and away the best in baseball.  Ramirez walked six times that many batters, making his skillset uniquely unfit for major league service.

By the end of 2006, the Braves had likely soured on Ramirez, and so it was something of a coup for them when the Mariners offered to trade them hard-throwing setup man Rafael Soriano in exchange for Ramirez.  The deal was an unpopular one; Soriano was a high-risk brilliant arm and Ramirez was a high-risk mediocre arm.  The M’s gave him $2.65 million to avoid arbitration, and in exchange, Ramirez shed the exoskeleton of fortuitousness that had allowed him to hang on in Atlanta for so long.  He started 20 games which somehow added up to just 98 IP, walked more (42) than he struck out (40), and posted a very impressive 7.16 ERA, all while missing a month and a half with shoulder problems.

That was the highest ERA in the major leagues among pitcher who threw at least 90 innings.  A 7.00 ERA is a little bit like a 20-loss season.  When a starter loses 20 games, it is a painful badge of honor: for most pitcher, the team will stop the bleeding around 15 losses or so, and just run someone else, anyone else, out to the mound.  If a starter reach 20 and his team is still starting him, it’s probably because they have faith that the experience will further hone a future starter’s craft.  A 7.00 ERA is just as unusual, and though a pitchers ERA is more indicative of his skill than his Win-Loss record, maybe a guy’s just getting unlucky, or is leaving an excellent fastball up in the zone.

The Mariners had no real reason to believe that Ramirez was destined for the slightest bit of stardom.  He was a groundballer with unacceptably poor control and weak stuff.  Inexplicably, the Mariners offered him a raise for 2008, handing him $2.75 million instead of going to arbitration.

This is the sort of thing that makes a tale exceptional and unusual.  Poor talent is poor talent, and there is an endless supply of it.  It’s the teams that tend to mold them into goats, martyrs, and losers.

The Mariners, realizing the foolishness of their offer to Ramirez, released him less than two months later; the team ended up on the hook for about $500,000 of the deal.  He floated around the talent pool until late April, when the Royals scooped him up, signed him to a minor league deal, and converted him to a reliever. 

He did mostly mopup work for the squad, and the results looked good enough to interest the White Sox, who acquired him in August for a speedy Brazilian outfielder named Paulo Orlando.  Orlando is certainly Brazilian and he is very much an excellent runner, but it is something of a mistake to call him an outfielder (1383 AB, 78SB, 67BB).  Ramirez too was miscast in his own right: the White Sox attempted to use him as a left-handed specialist, but he wasn’t very good at it.  In truth, Ramirez hadn’t been terribly good against lefties since he was new to the league, and being that he wasn’t very good against righties either, the White Sox determined that they probably would not require his services beyond 2008 and let him walk.

He only had to wait a few months for a job opportunity: last December, the Royals came to him and offered him $1.8 million to rejoin the ballclub for the 2009 season.  This time, though, they made it clear that they intended to have him compete for a spot in the rotation, and when spring training began, they slotted him in as a starter.  He absolutely was mauled all spring training long, surrendering 25 earned runs in 25 innings and looking every bit the overmatched pitcher that he’s been since his rookie year.

While it is true that spring training performances are basically meaningless, it’s fine to make the assumption that if a player who has always stunk stinks again in spring training, he will continue to stink into the regular season, and probably for the rest of his life.  He’s scheduled to start against the New York Yankees this Saturday.

So what gives?  Is an out-of-shape washed-up 29-year-old left-hander with a history of injury issues and control problems that can’t strike anyone out really the best the Royals can do with that slot in their rotation?  Their next options would appear to be Luke Hochevar and Brian Bannister. 

Hochevar was the Royals’ first pick in the 2006 draft; in fact, they selected him first overall, taking him ahead of Brandon Morrow, Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Max Scherzer, and Joba Chamberlain, amongst others.  This would’ve been bad enough were it not for the fact that in the previous years’ draft, Hochevar was the subject of great controversy when he, after being drafted by the Dodgers, dumped his agent (Scott Boras), took the Dogers’ $3 million signing bonus, and then went back to Boras the next day and canceled the agreement.  Hochevar spent the remainder of the year playing Independent League ball, then re-entered the draft in ‘06.  He made 22 starts with the Royals last year, and while he is destined to be something of a disappointment, he was not all that terrible, with a 72/47 K/BB ratio in 129 IP.  That’s too many walks, but it was his first full season, and he allowed less than a homer per game.  His 5.51 ERA was a little bit unlucky, as his strand rate (62%) was second-worst in the league (min: 120IP).

Brian Bannister is a better story than a pitcher: he was a walk-on second baseman at USC, converted to a pitcher, and had a very successful college career.  He is also a devout Christian, a member of Lambda Chi Alpha, is an avid photographer, and holds a special place in the hearts of sabermetricians everywhere for openly studying baseball statistics.  To summarize, Brian Bannister is a very smart guy, extraordinarily smart for a baseball player; he realizes that he’s not a great pitcher, and so he’s looking for an extra edge in numbers where others might find them in pill bottles or rabbits’ feet.  The “not a great pitcher” part is more important for the Royals that the intelligence factor, though in handing Horacio Ramirez a rotation spot – to say nothing of Sidney Ponson – the Royals have indicated that they need brains just as desperately as they need bats and arms.

Hochevar should almost certainly be starting over Ramirez.  Instead, both he and Bannister will begin the year in AAA, while the Royals’ top minor league pitchers - Daniel Cortes, Tim Melville, Danny Gutierrez – pitch in A and AA leagues, waiting for 2010 or 2011 debuts.  The Royals’ system is in an awkward place right now: they have top young talent at the major league level in Zach Greinke, Alex Gordon, and Joakim Soria, and have a decent amount of projectable prospects, but those guys are years away. 

Positions like these dictate that the front office bridge the gap and do some real work to keep the team competitive while young talent matures and gets the fans excited.  This is especially true for the Royals, who play in the worst division in baseball.  They could finish third in the division with a .500 record, which is something of an accomplishment when your team hasn’t been to the postseason in 23 years and has a .416 winning percentage this decade.  Sure, the team could pony up for Pedro Martinez, but they’re a low-payroll club and already have most of their ill-advised pitching contracts locked up in the bullpen (Kyle Farnsworth and Ron Mahay will earn $8.25m in 2009).  The team is also paying Ross Gload $1.5m to play for the Marlins.

Horacio Ramirez is an awful pitcher, but he didn’t sign himself to that contract.  The Royals’ decision to put Ramirez in the starting rotation is basically indefensible, and it is unclear how exactly he will improve upon what Luke Hochevar could’ve done.  Career 39-33 record, 4.59 ERA.  Horacio Ramirez is what’s considered “freely-available talent” at best, which is unfortunate for the Royals, being that they are paying him almost two million dollars for his services when they’re already paying a number of guys in AAA who could’ve done the exact same thing as him.

What is it exactly that causes teams to make these sorts of decisions, to hand over $2m and a roster spot to a player who offers them absolutely nothing?  What fundamental, hard-wrought biases muster up these tragic, old-timey missteps?  Is the team so desperate for a left-handed option in the rotation that they are willing to eschew rationality in their pursuit of one? 

There are countless biases which skew the direction of human decisionmaking, leading even normally reasonable people astray into the tar pits from which players like Ramirez are dredged.  Perhaps even more remarkable is that the Royals’ other options are so bland as to make proper the criticism of their spending habits rather than their level of talent at the Major League level.  Good baseball players are extremely hard to come by; the Royals don’t have enough of them to matter this season, and they’ve complicated matters by thinking that they need to pay a premium for a starter who’ll strike out fewer batters this season than their closer.

It’s a tough league.  Talent is at a premium, and organizations are constantly at war over it; each team must figure out how to retain their young stars for long enough to be able to, with help from a supporting cast of free agent signees and trade acquisitions, make a run at the postseason and the financial windfalls which generally accompany such berths.  Dollars are more precious than ever these days, which makes younger, cheaper players absolutely critical to an organization’s success.  No team can draft and develop a 25-player Major League roster, so, and Free Agency will never be passe.  With smart spending habits and a shrewd baseball mind, there are just enough guys out there to make it work.

For everyone else, there’s Horacio Ramirez.

 

(Re)building the Birds: Travis Snider

Travis Snider was born on February 2nd, 1988, in Mill Creek, Washington, a small affluent community in the northwestern corner of the country, approximately 20 miles outside Seattle.  Running lengthwise along a large country club, the city is home to Henry M. Jackson High School, a perennial baseball powerhouse (the local Little League team also frequently makes the national tournament).  When Snider was a boy, his father was president of the local Little League chapter; the two would spend countless hours together, at Travis’ insistence, playing baseball.  By the time he’d reached high school, the powerful left-handed slugger was a local star on the football field and the baseball diamond.

During his sophomore year, he shattered his left fibula during football practice, an injury that required the surgical insertion of eight metal screws and a plate into his leg.  A prominent varsity player even as a freshman, Snider had been drawing attention from D1 schools as a football recruit; after the injury, Snider wisely quit football to focus on his budding baseball career.  By his senior season, Snider was batting over .500, leading his team to an undefeated season (27-0) and garnering national attention as a wunderkind prospect (he was named to USA Today’s All-USA baseball team).  In addition to his on-the-field accolades, Snider was drawing attention for his level-headedness.  When he was 14, his mother contracted severe pneumonia and slipped into a two-week coma.  The difficult ordeal enraged Snider, who wound up in anger management therapy after his mother threatened to force him to quit baseball if he didn’t get himself under control.  He consented, and those around him claim that he emerged a changed person, handling the subsequent deaths of his grandparents- with whom he was extremely close – with a newfound maturity (his mother, already suffering from the effects of the coma, would die in a car accident about a year later).

Though he received a baseball scholarship to attend Arizona State following his senior year, he decided to turn pro when the Jays made him their first-round pick in the 2006 draft, giving him a $1.7m signing bonus. Toronto took him 14thoverall; Snider was part of a star-packed first round draft class that included Evan Longoria (TB), Clayton Kershaw (LAD), Tim Lincecum (SF), Max Scherzer (ARI), Chriz Perez (StL), and Joba Chamberlain (NYY).  Elite company means little, especially in baseball, but Snider quickly began justifying the risk the Jays took in drafting a high school player (the team hadn’t taken a high schooler first round under Ricciardi’s watch, though his drafting prowess has been called into question before). His first stop was Pulaski, Virginia, then a Blue Jays Rookie -ball affiliate (the Jays dropped their affiliation with Pulaski after that season; in 2008, they became affiliated with Seattle and rejoined the Appalachian League).  There, Snider was the team’s best hitter: in 194 ABs, he batted .325/.412/.567 with a team-leading 11 home runs, numbers which earned him the league’s MVP award.  The following season, he was moved up to single-A Lansing, where he led the team in AVG (.313), OPS (.902), HR (16), and RBI (93), despite being the youngest player on the Lugnuts roster.  He continued on into the high-profile Arizona Fall League after the season, where he made the All-Prospect team by posting an impressive .316/.404/.541 line and solidified his status as the Jays’ best young prospect.

2008 saw Snider make stops in Dunedin, FL (A+); Manchester, NH (AA); Syracuse, NY (AAA); and finally Toronto, making his big league debut at the end of last August.  He spent most of his time at AA Manchester, where he tied for the team lead with 17 home runs (he won the league’s Home Run Derby) despite witnessing his AVG slip to .262.  He was the youngest player on the team at each of his stops in 2008, but as the organization’s top-rated prospect (Baseball America), he did not disappoint, reaching the major league level just two years after he was drafted.

The 20-year old Snider was the second-youngest player to see a Major League field last year (youngest was fellow AFL alumnus Clayton Kershaw, who was born a month after Snider).  For an extremely young player getting his first taste of the majors, his numbers were excellent: .301/.338/.466, cracking two home runs along the way (his first off Kevin Slowey, the other courtesy Paul Byrd).  His contact rate was unusually low: at 70%, he was dipping into Dunn/Uggla territory, unfamiliar stuff for a kid that had excelled at every stop along his baseball journey.  Though he has struggled with high strikeout totals throughout his pro career, most scouts project him as a better hitter for average than Dunn or Uggla.  He will strike out his fair share, and whiffed 23 times in 73 ABs with the Jays last season, a 31.5% K rate that will come down with additional experience but will always be above the league midpoint.  His pitch recognition has been the subject of some debate: in 2007, Baseball Prospectus characterized it as ”advanced,” but changed their tune heading into 2008, wondering if he was just indiscriminately letting a lot of pitches go by.  He walked just 5 times with Toronto, and at this point in his career almost certainly lacks the plate discipline to hit for average over a full season in the majors, regardless of his status as an offensive phenom.  Still, he’ll likely continue to post high BABIP figures as he’s done throughout the minors, putting up a 34.6% Line Drive Rate in his brief time with the club.

Listed by the Blue Jays at 5′11″, 245lbs, Snider’s never been described as lean.  As a child, his prolific appetite earned him the nickname “Lunch Box,” and professionally, he’s been under a steady trickle of pressure to try and keep his weight down.  It hasn’t slowed his fast-track to the majors, but he has drawn criticism from some for his perceived defensive limitations, with some scouts calling him “stiff” and wondering if he was a good-enough athlete to project as even an average big-league defender (though his arm is considered to be good).  To his credit, he suffered no miscues in his innings with the big club last fall.   Snider is currently penciled in as the Jays’ starting LF in 2009, the team apparently preferring his defense to Adam Lind’s, another young hitter with questionable glovehandling abilities.  They’ve told him to show up to spring training ready to compete for a job, of course.  This arrangement would appear contingent upon the Jays sticking with Lyle Overbay at first, which the Jays appear comfortable with, if not thrilled about.  Overbay, who is signed through 2010 ($7m/yr), is perhaps the least noteworthy first baseman in all of Major League Baseball.  He hit .270/.358/.419 last year; the Jays reportedly shopped him around the trade deadline, but predictably found few takers for a replacement level 1B with a multi-year contract.  The Jays lack a realistic option behind those three players (they hope that Dan Cooper, their first-round pick in 2008, can be their 1B of the future), and so would be foolish to trade Overbay unless they got a major-league bat in return, which isn’t likely to happen. 

Snider will rake, and has earned rave reviews from Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and the well-regarded Keith Law.  ESPN has him tabbed as the fifth-best prospect in baseball heading into the 2009 season, citing his compact swing and natural power to all fields.  For all of his abilities, there aren’t many 21-year old hitters that contribute at the major league level.  Over the past three seasons, there have only been a handful of 21-year olds who’ve been given meaningful at-bats and contributed.  Billy Butler (.292), Delmon Young (.288), Jay Bruce (.254), andRyan Zimmerman (.287) all fit the bill, but its obvious that such players are the exception.  The Blue Jays have a few temporary options available to them if they want to keep Snider in AAA for some additional seasoning.  David Smith and Buck Coats, both currently with AAA Syracuse, are not realistic callups, but Joe Inglett- who played 35 games in the OF for the Jays last year and posted a .762 OPS in 350 ABs – is someone to keep in mind.  The team just signed Jason Lane to a minor league deal, a career .241 hitter that’s logged 1200 major league ABs with the Houston Astros.  Lane has experience but was drafted back in 1999 and has failed to stick at the major league level, never able to make any improvements in his game.   There are plenty of free agent OFs available, and the Jays could sign one that would accept a one-year deal. Garrett Anderson would be a nice platoon corner OF if he came cheap enough, as might Jim Edmonds, though he’d be unlikely to agree to a situation where he wouldn’t play CF.  Signing a DH and letting Lind and Snider split time in left wouldn’t make much sense, as both are left-handed and Lind is basically Snider lite.

There isn’t much optimism in Toronto regarding the 2009 season, as the global economic downturn has hurt their bottom line; the team had to both watch A.J. Burnett jump ship to the Yankees and accept a lower payroll figure this year, meaning that instead of doing something with their theoretical Burnett savings, they’ve had to remain idle.  The Jays – alongside the Orioles – are almost certain to remain AL East second-class citizens in ‘09, and are trying to convince their fans that they have a plan to get competitive in the near future.  Snider, one of the players at the center of that plan, is an excellent bet to be a future All-Star outfielder for the Jays with the ability to hit for both average and power.  The Jays obviously hope he can surprise them this spring and win the starting LF job outright.  With just 31 days service time,  Snider won’t ever be a super-two, and will not qualify for arbitration until after the 2011 season.  This benefits the Jays, since they’ll already have all sorts of work to do after the 2010 season: Scott Rolen ($11m), Roy Halladay ($15.75m), B.J. Ryan ($10m), and Lyle Overbay ($7m) all come off the books after that year, representing about $44m that will have to be spent in what the Jays hope are improved economic (and baseball) conditions.  Halladay will be the only one of those players the team thinks about re-signing, but he might be too expensive a 34-year old for their tastes.  This is especially true given the organization’s recent track record of successfully grooming its young arms, though they’ve been less than exemplary at keeping them healthy once they’re succeeding (see: McGowan, Marcum, Janssen).

The AL East is as unfriendly a laboratory as you’ll find, and this has the potential to be an ugly year for the Jays if they find themselves unable to improve their ballclub by the beginning of the season.  The team must worry about which Vernon Wells – All-Star or Hapless Injury Machine - will show up, as they are undoubtedly stuck with his foolish contract for the long haul (two other important young pieces, Aaron Hill and Alex Rios, have also seen their production fluctuate over recent seasons).  Snider’s projections are all over the place: Bill James grants him 450 ABs and sees him hitting .270, while the popular CHONEsees him closer to .230 with the same amount of ABs, bothgiving him in the neighborhood of 150 Ks.  If Snider can put together a .250 season with 20 HR, it’d almost certainly be looked at as a successful campaign, even if he struck out 150 times.  They’d have to be careful that all those Ks didn’t go to his head, of course, which is no easy task when you’re dealing with a 21 year old kid with a mercurial past.  Add the high-pressure division to the mix, andthe fact that he’ll be mixing it up with the likes of C.C. Sabathia, Jon Lester, Scott Kazmir, Andy Pettitte, David Price, Hideki Okajima, J.P. Howell, and George Sherrill (to say nothing of righties), and you’ve got what would seem a high-risk move for potentially less reward than its worth.  Jays fan, accepting that the team can’t throw big FA contracts around, seem eager to roll the dice and let the new school in.  They must remain competitive, so unless they have an obviously better option – and right now, they don’t, unless Inglett really hits – J.P. Ricciardi and Cito Gaston might have no choice this year but to run the kid out there and pray.

 

You Are What You Eat

In the summer of 1992, the Oakland Athletics used their second pick in the amateur draft to select Jason Giambi, a bright-eyed third baseman out of Long Beach State who’d hit .407 in his sophomore season and won back-to-back all-league first-team honors after being tabbed as the Big West freshman of the year in 1990.  The A’s assigned him to low-A Southern Oregon; by 1994, he was playing third base for the Tacoma Tigers of the AAA Pacific Coast League.  His team-best .978 OPS (AAA Edmonton Trappers) in 1995 earned the stud prospect a mid-season callup; he walked and singled in five trips to the plate in his first game, and hit his first major league homer against David Cone later that summer.  By 1996, Giambi had earned himself a starting gig, though he didn’t necessarily have a position, splitting time between 3B (Scott Brosius), 1B (Mark McGwire), and LF (Phil Plantier).  He appeared in 140 games and managed to hit 20 homers while posting an OPS+ of 109.  Plantier, whom the A’s had traded for prior to the ‘96 season, finished the year at .212/.304/.346.  Smartly, the team let him walk that fall and handed over the left fielder job to the 26-year-old Giambi.  He wasn’t a very good outfielder, though, so when the team gave Mark McGwire away to the St. Louis Cardinals, they shifted Giambi to first base and he stuck there.  He re-upped with the A’s after the 1998 season, signing a three-year, $9.3 million contract to keep him in town through 2001.

Giambi homered in his first at-bat of the 2000 season, a deep blast to right field off of Hideo Nomo, and then hit another homer in his last at-bat of the same game, off of Doug Brocail.  The emergent slugger would make good on those April auspices, posting a ludicrous .333/.476/.647 (137/96 BB/K) en route to his first All-Star appearance and an AL MVP award.  His 2001 season was even better: .342/.477/.660 (129/83 BB/K), and though he’d lose out on his second-straight AL MVP award to Japanese sensation Ichiro Suzuki, he’d earned himself a reputation as one of the game’s most feared sluggers.  Sports Illustrated had featured the greasy-haired, tattooed Giambi on the cover of their magazine that season, displaying an eerie (if inadvertent) prescience in dubbing him “The New Face of Baseball.”  He was unrepentant power, an unforgiving beast of a hitter who eternally threatened to break your team’s back with one swing of his bat.

He’d also caught the attention of the New York Yankees, against whom he’d played – and lost – in the 2000 and 2001 ALDS.  Giambi entered free agency, and the Yankees offered him a monster contract: 7 years, $120 million, with a $22m club option for 2009 and a full no-trade clause, a deal that he quickly accepted.  He hit .314 with 41 home runs in 2002, his first season as a Yankee; he earned a Silver Slugger Award and started at first base for the AL All-Star Team. 

In 2003, Giambi again hit 41 homers, but saw his average plummet 64 points, down to .250.  Ostensibly, there were two reasons for this: he struck out a lot more (his K rate went from 1 every 5 ABs to 1 every 4), and teams seemed to pick up on the fact that he possessed an almost comical inability to hit the ball the the opposite field.  Giambi’s BABIP dropped to .263 in 2003 after it had averaged .342 over the previous three seasons.  Around that time, it can be presumed, teams started employing ”The Giambi Shift,” leaving just the 3B at the SS position and shifting both the SS and 2B to the right side of the infield.  This pull-side overload dramatically cut down on Giambi’s ability to profit from balls he put in play.  Here’s a quick breakdown of the two “halves” of his career, pre- and post-2003:

 

 

 

GIAMBI	AB	AVG	BABIP	AB/HR	HR/FB	ISO	OBP	BB/K
1996-2002	3782	.312	.327	17.04	20.3%*	.246	.418	0.98
2003-2008	2374	.248	.256	14.13	18.24%	.255	.397	0.86

* = FB data only available for 2002

Since the beginning of the 2003 season, Giambi has traded over 60 points in batting average for a slight uptick in raw power, as is measured by ISO and AB/HR.  His HR/FB numbers have only seen a slight decrease from 2002, when he was still at the top of his game.  You’ll notice, of course, that Giambi played far more regularly over the first half of his career than over the second half.  Giambi hasn’t reached the 600 PA plateau since that 2003 season, having been chronically hampered by numerous maladies: foot, wrist, ankle, elbow, and back injuries have all affected Giambi over the past five seasons.  Giambi health became the subject of considerable controversy in 2004.  That season, he appeared in just 80 games, missing time with what the team claimed was a parasitic infection before being placed on the 15-day DL to undergo treatment for a benign tumor discovered at the base of his pituitary gland.  What was the underlying cause of this weird spate of injuries?

Fans and sportswriters were quick to make a connection between Giambi’s fortunes and the biggest news story in baseball at the time: steroids.  When discussing the bait-and-switch Giambi’s career seems to have pulled in 2003, it is almost impossible to ignore the potential impact that performance enhancing drugs may or may not have had on the slugger’s career.  2003 was the year that the USADA and the state of California began investigating BALCO for their role in delivering performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes.  Court documents showed that Giambi was a BALCO client.  He was subsequently called to testify before a grand jury, after which point his testimony leaked: he’d used several different steroids from 2001-2003.  In 2005, Giambi’s brother Jeremy, himself a baseball player who had been named in the BALCO scandal, admitted to past steroid use, effectively incriminating both brothers (Jason had issued a number of very vague “apologies” earlier that year). After dancing around the issue while the media storm swirled and raged, Giambi issued something of a full apology in a 2007 interview with USA Today, around the time of the Mitchell Report’s release:

“I was wrong for doing that stuff [...] what we should have done a long time ago was stand up — players, ownership, everybody — and said, ‘We made a mistake.’”

Giambi’s use of “performance enhancers” is no longer open to speculation – he used them, as did any number of his contemporaries, regardless of their stature within the game.  The games have all been played, and the numbers have all been tallied and etched in stone for posterity.  What remains unclear is whether or not they truly enhanced his performance, and if so, how much.  This conversely is a question that remains wide-open for speculation, though there are few (if any) reasonable avenues by which to pursue the answers.  Debates rage over identifying the causes of year-to-year variation in performance even in the absence of steroids – when steroid use is added to the equation (and the period of time is not explicitly known), the fingering of cause and effect becomes a speculative witch-hunt. 

Many, like BP’s Nate Silver, are quick to point to what might be called the Ted Kluszewski Paradox.  A football star at Indiana, ”Big Klu” was discovered by a groundskeeper and blossomed into a feared slugger for the Cincinatti Redlegs from 1947-1957.  After hitting 74 home runs over the first five seasons of his career, he hit 40, 49, 47, and 35 over the next four seasons – batting over .300 in all of them – before injuries  quickly and decisively sapped him of his effectiveness (he was traded to the Pirates in ‘58 and was out of the game by ‘62).  Kluszewski was the prototype: listed at 6′2″ and 225  lbs, the first baseman caused a major uproar in the baseball world when he began sporting a uniform with the sleeves cut off, claiming that his arms were too large for him to swing the bat comfortably in a traditional jersey top.  He was joined by greats like Duke Snider, Eddie Mathews, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Gil Hodges in leading an era defined by pure, American strength – an era not entirely unlike how the “Steroid Era” was conceived before the scandals broke.  There were, of course, no steroids back then: Methandrostenolone (“Dianabol”), the first anabolic steroid available in the U.S., was not commercially produced until 1958.  Big Klu was also alone in his bizarre power spike, though it can be speculated that he’d have remained productive had his body not broken down (in the 1959 World Series, after having logged just 223 ABs in the regular season, he famously slugged .826 with 10 RBI in 6 games for the White Sox).  He suddenly became a monster at age 28 (Giambi was 29 during his 2000 MVP season), and little explanation exists as to why.

No longer the superstar that the Yankees thought he was when they signed him, the team declined his 2009 option early last October.  A free agent for the first time since he left Oakland after 2001, Giambi is set to return to the team that brought him to the majors, having inked a one-year, $5.25m contract to return to the A’s (the club holds an option for 2010).  With Jack Cust locked in at DH, Giambi will probably play first base opposite longtime A’s 3B Eric Chavez.  Chavez and Giambi played together from 1998-2001; Giambi was just 27 when Chavez broke into the majors as a 20-year-old.  The last time they played together (2001), each tallied at least 30HR/90R/100RBI.  Giambi will also be reunited with Billy Beane, who became General Manager of the A’s in 1997, then a 35-year old wunderkind.  The two traded smiles and jokes at the press conference announcing Giambi’s signing.  The latter was distinctly unkempt, clearly paying homage to the attitude that the team embodied at the turn of the millennium, an attitude he hopes to recapture this season after spending seven years as a clean-cut Steinbrenner employee.

Though appearing withered and washed-up under the harsh glare of the Yankee Stadium spotlights, Giambi potentially remains far from his casket.  At .247/.408/.534, 96RBI last year, he arguably had a better season than David Ortiz did (.264/.369/.507, 89 RBIs).  Ortiz will make $12.5m in 2009 and is, of course, a media darling.  Big Papi’s disarming grin and jovial attitude have kept him far from the damning shadows of the steroid issue despite some undue criticism after he attempted to undercut the perceived nefariousness of the problem last year.  Ortiz’ comments were made in defense of Barry Bonds: if all the stars had equal access to all the best steroids, why was Barry Bonds still so much better than everyone else?  The point was that steroids don’t make the swing, but as the most feared slugger on the planet, Barry’s a special case.  Giambi – and those of his ilk – reside in no-mans land between the tarnished elite and the desperate underclass.

It’s interesting, then, that he finds himself in the middle of a small-time feel-good story.  His tenure in New York was distinctly unsatisfactory: the Yankees paid him$32,493.91 each time he stepped to the plate, but he managed just three All-Star appearances in his seven seasons with the team.  He amassed good power numbers when he was healthy, but he seemed to always be dinged up (he averaged just 528 PA per season) and brought the team no World Series rings: the team only won two postseason series during his tenure (though he did hit two home runs in the infamous Grady Little game).  There was the public shame associated with the steroid story – and, being a Yankee, Giambi was predictably vilified by fans and sportswriters throughout the country, who turned his once-beloved greaseball persona into something evil and sinister.  When his inner weirdo emerged – during the unsavory Golden Thong Incident, for example, or when he grew out a hideous moustache – it always bore the scent of unfamiliarity, as though this was not what The Yankees, the class of the sporting world, were supposed to be doing (though the Daily News savored every bit, of course).  What would Mantle and DiMaggio have thought?  The marriage simply never worked.

Back in Oakland, though, Giambi can cast off his ill-fitting pinstripes and return to an organization that is eager to accept him.  Giambi will almost certainly never bat .300 again: he can’t beat the shift, and can’t hit enough home runs to really nudge his BA upwards.  He is still unquestionably a huge improvement to an A’s lineup that lacked an 80RBI hitter in 2008 (Jack Cust’s 77 paced the team), and will form a reasonably fearsome duo in the middle of the order alongside new acquisition Matt Holliday.  The A’s scored fewer runs than any other AL team in 2008, and were sorely lacking in any semblance of recognizability (Daric Barton?  Jack Hannahan?  Dana Eveland?)  Giambi should not only outslug anyone from last year’s roster, but he will also give them team a functional emotional leader, a veteran presence who should put fans in the Coliseum’s seats. 

Vilification, in some cases, has a funny way of getting turned on its head.  After seven seasons spent wandering in the city, Giambi has returned home, and has an opportunity to repair at least part of his damaged legacy.  If he can be a productive player for the A’s – and can recapture some of the underdog swagger that he embodied before he left – he stands a chance at becoming something of a folk hero, an evildoer reformed and redeemed in the bright California sun. Some of us get older and start to wonder what our legacy will be.  Money can make a man do some pretty awful things – Jason’s still got plenty of it, but maybe he’s been around the block enough times to finally feel like he’s got part of something else to play for, and maybe he’ll run with that.  Few will smile and clap as he passes by – fewer still, perhaps, will spit.

 

…but can you just be “whelmed?”

Tim Redding is a goon. 

While it is true that a person plucked at random from the street may bristle at being called such a thing, the professional goon, having come to terms with this distinction, is likely to embrace it, albeit quietly.  This is especially true for the professional pitching goon.  These are your humble practitioners of the boilerplate fastball, your mop-up men and unassuming innings-eaters, artisans of career 4.86 ERAs.  Look closely, and they can be found en masse throughout the registers of baseball’s universe.  Unable to rise above themselves in any meaningful way, they thrive at their least-noticeable: don’t walk too many guys, don’t let too many pitches drift up in the strike zone, and always – but always – jump over the chalk on your way back to the dugout.  Master this art of public anonymity, and a few millions of dollars may flow quietly to your coffers, past rustling reeds of box score notes and a half-dozen Topps cards bearing your likeness.

As anyone who routinely subjects their tendons and ligaments to the unique rigors of baseball-hurling knows, a man is never further than a single pitch away from a new career.  As such, walking this thin line for any number of seasons is an impressive accomplishment unto itself.  The road is made doubly hazardous by the constant threat of forced obsolescence at the hands of some other set of legs and arms that the ballclub has for whatever reason - youth, reputation, popularity - determined is more worthy of a roster spot than the goon.  The replacement player may even be a goon himself.  It is probably considered very bad form for the old goon to resent the new; goonery, after all, is something of a fraternity, and while a player may feel betrayed or mishandled, they are advised to address their frustrations to management.  A goon may occasion greatness, but this is understood to be a product of chance and circumstance.  Those who mistake it for something more are not long for this game.

Born in Rochester, NY, Redding’s major league debut came in June of 2001.  Pitching for the team that signed him – the Houston Astros – he made the start against the Cincinatti Reds, a very bad team in the midst of a very bad season (even in the early summer, they were already 15 games back of first place).  Sandwiched between two first-inning strikeouts was the dreaded BB-HR; this back-to-back series of events haunts the goon pitcher like no other mortal force on this earth.  It is generally not the longball itself that signals the doom of a pitcher: if there’s no one on base, the damage can be limited.  If, however, in the time that a pitcher is not giving up home runs they are habitually ushering runners to first base via walks, these homers can add up very quickly.

Tim Redding is, in fact,  known to walk a few batters every now and then, which has generally been a problem for him, as he is also partial to giving up home runs.  Neither habit has proved grating enough to cause a total jettisoning from the game. Redding threw 182 innings over the course of 33 starts for the Nationals last year, compiling a tidy 10-11 record (the team was 20-13 when he started), including a 3-8 record after the break.  The right-hander was thoroughly mediocre all the while.  He actually threw his first-ever complete game, though it was of the dreaded 8-inning variety: he lost on the road to the Giants, 1-0, after surrendering the game’s only run in the bottom of the 8th.  The 182 innings pitched and 33 games started were both career highs for Redding, eclipsing his 176/32 season of 2003; he earned $125,000 in bonuses on top of his base $1,000,000 contract for his workmanlike efforts.  Amongst other pitchers who tossed at least 180 innings last year, Redding’s ERA (4.95) was third-worst and his WHIP (1.43) was eighth-worst.  He struck out about 6 batters per 9 innings and walked a little over 3.  The 3.21 BB/9 mark was actually the best of his career, which is a nice feather in his cap when considering the fact that he threw more pitches than he ever had before in a professional season.

Being that Redding led the Nationals in Games Started and Wins last season, he was due for a raise in 2009, as an arbitration hearing probably would’ve resulted in a contract worth between $2 and $3 million dollars.  The team attempted to trade him prior to the December 12th contract deadline, specifically to the Rockies in exchange for light-hitting OF Willy Taveras.  The deal fell through, though, and the Nationals chose to non-tender Redding, making him a free agent.  News reports subsequently had him being pursued by no fewer than four big-league teams: The Rockies (now claiming they can’t “afford” him), the Orioles, the Rangers, and the Mets.

Redding would’ve been a poor bet for success in the AL East, a fact which in and of itself makes him entirely qualified to pitch for the Baltimore Orioles.  The division isn’t totally foreign to him: in 2005, Redding was traded by the Padres (he’d landed in San Diego that spring) to the Yankees.  He took the mound for them exactly once: on July 15th, he started against the Red Sox in a game that Boston would go on to win 17-1 (Redding: 1 IP, 4H, 4BB, 6ER).  Not surprisingly, Redding was sent back to AAA the following day; he would not emerge from the minors for two years.  So too would it appear he was unfit for service in the nightmarish confines of the Ballpark at Arlington.

Though it’s very possible that Redding had offers on the table from those teams – or others – he recently signed on with the New York Mets, agreeing to a 1-year, $2.25 million contract.  If Redding indeed had a choice, he’d seem to have chosen well.  Having spent the last two seasons pitching for the Nationals, Redding is already familiar with the opponents he’ll be facing this season; he’ll also be on a much better ballclub than the Nationals were (or will be in ‘09) at double the salary he was earning from them.  A native of New York, he’ll be pitching a cross-state drive from where he grew up.

In 11 career starts against the Phillies, Redding is 5-3 with a 3.29 ERA.  While it is highly irresponsible to spend millions of dollars chasing splits and past performance, such is the nature of business within the game; Redding’s successes against the Mets’ bitter divisional rival were not lost on his new ballclub.  Slice even the most piecemeal of men thinly enough, and you’re likely to notice a significant-looking tendril or two that leads you toward a conclusion that the humble gentleman before you is ill-equipped to realize.  The Mets are still in pursuit of Oliver Perez and Derek Lowe at the very least; if they land one, Redding’s spot in the rotation is not guaranteed.  

Even if Redding starts the year in the bullpen, he’ll still provide rotation depth for Jerry Manuel’s contingent of underachievers.  Depth, at the end of the day, is the one asset that the professional goon possesses the greatest quantities of.  Shouldering these unseen stores is no Herculean task, which is fortunate, as those of Redding’s ilk could nary please us were they handed such instruction.  If Maine, Pelfrey, or any of the other rotation stalwarts miss time, the Mets will be able to draw upon the wells of this depth that are locked within Redding’s trademark goatee and modest sneer.  He will grunt and hurl his most earnest of fastballs, pick up the pieces where they lay, and live to collect another paycheck, until the teams stop calling and he assumes his place in the vast unseen pastures where the Paul Wilsons of the world chew long stalks of grass and melt seamlessly into the bygone tapestries that faithfully measure out the interminable passage of time.

 

The One Where He Knows Time’s Up

There is no guarantee in this game of ours that innate talent will be the ultimate measure by which a players’ legend is defined.  Some men, the sport reveals to us, simply cannot coax their bodies into allowing them to be the players that, with a stronger meniscus here or a more resilient brachioradialis there, they would otherwise be capable of becoming.  The baseball athlete is a quirky breed.  The long years and highly specified skills involved ensure that seasoned decathletes stand no better a chance of enduring a season than David Wells does.  Fitness and athleticism undoubtedly help, of course, but ultimately, the sport will tell you whether or not you’re genetically cut out to handle it.

Young uber-achievers like Rocco Baldelli know this fact just as well as the Dmitri Youngs do.  Ever seen Gabe Kapler without his shirt on?  How about Kevin Youkilis?  Sure a defensive back looks different than a nose tackle does, but few physical endeavors are so diversely populated than the acts of hitting, pitching, and fielding are.  You don’t really need muscles to drive in 100 runs.  There’s no way around it.  Over thousands of at-bats and innings played, you are what you are.  Thanks for the bench-presses, though.  Really.

This reality ensures that the annals of baseball history will be dotted with guys like Mike Sweeney.  A 14-year veteran of the game, Sweeney has just 4,794 at-bats, or an average of 343 per season.  This is not due to a lack of skills: you don’t hang around the majors for 14 years on luck, and Sweeney’s got a career OPS+ of 119 and almost as many walks (491) as strikeouts (561).  The man simply can’t stay healthy.  From 1999-2002, Sweeney hit .324 with 104 HR, averaging 96 runs and 108 RBI over those four seasons.  All the more impressively, he walked 250 times over that span while only striking out 225 times.  In 2008, only two players are on pace to finish the season with a BB/K over 1.00 and an ISO over .200: Chipper Jones and Albert Pujols (they both did it in 2007 as well, as did Guerrero and Ortiz).  Sweeney didn’t quite have their credentials, but that gives you an idea of how good he was in his prime, brief though it may have been.  Hell, he even stole 33 bases over that time.

He was a five-time All Star, and though he played for a number of bad Royals teams from 1995-2007, he wasn’t ushered in on the back of the one-player-per-team rule: he was simply an All-Star caliber player.  He drove in 144 runs (29 HR) in 2000, and in 2002, finished sixth in the league with an OPS+ of 148.  In July of 2002, he hit the disabled list for the first time in his career, falling victim to a lower back/hip strain.  He’d never reach 2002’s total of 471 at-bats again.  Back tightness.  Groin strains.  Hamstring pulls.  Now, doctors tell him that he needs microfracture surgery on both knees.  He barely latched on with the Athletics after earning a minor league contract with the team this past spring.

Having played in the Royals organization for 17 years (he was drafted by the club in the 10th round in 1991), Sweeney will probably have his #29 jersey retired in Kansas City in due time.  He is, by all accounts, one of the nicest players in the game today: an devout Christian and fluent speaker of Spanish, Sweeney is involved in numerous charitable and social organizations, many of his own creation.  In his final game as a Royal, he purchased 500 tickets for local military personnel, and during his recent minor league rehab assignment for the Athletics, Sweeney purchased the minor leaguers post-game spreads for their clubhouse.  The day before Sweeney was activated, his AAA teammate SP Josh Outman was recalled by the A’s, and Sweeney told him that he’d be required to wear dress shoes on the road trip; when he showed up in tennis shoes and told Sweeney he couldn’t afford dress shoes, Sweeney purchased a pair for him.

As it happens, of course, many people will recall Sweeney not for his affability, but for uncharacteristically charging then-Tigers starter Jeff Weaver in 2001, hurling his helmet at the pitcher before bodyslamming him to the ground and inciting one of the most memorable on-field fracases of the past decade.  Sweeney has expressed some modicum of remorse for the incident, though if anything, the brawl should make people wonder just how big of an asshole Jeff Weaver is for teasing that kind of reaction out of a man like Sweeney.  The incident proved that he was no cream-puff, though, as did his 1997 appearance on Saturday Night Live alongside then-stars like Todd Hundley, Mark Wohlers, Marty Cordova, Jeff Fassero, Todd Zeile, and Rondell White in which he was shown parading a keg around a room.

The DH/1B has recently admitted that there’s a real possibility 2008 is his last year in the game.  At 35 years old, Sweeney has little left to prove between the foul lines: his body can’t handle the rigors of the season, and though he never played in a single post-season game, he’d have little chance of latching on with a contender in ‘09.

“There’s probably a better chance of me not playing next year than there is of me playing,” Sweeney said. “And if this is my last 30 days, I wanted to sprint to the finish line.”

Michael John Sweeney, hailing from Orange, California is the owner of a .299 lifetime batting average.  While such a figure may seem poetic to some and for all intents and purposes is no different than .300, by golly, I’ll be cheering for the man to get that measly point and ride off into the sunset with his perfectly fitting badge of achievement.  For anyone following along, here’s the very least of what he’ll need to do over the rest of the year to get there.  It won’t be easy:

ABs	H	AVG
20	9	.450
30	12	.400
40	15	.375
50	18	.360
60	21	.350
70	24	.343

He was hitting .292 before his latest DL stint, and the above figures, of course, round up.  I don’t think there’s any shame in .2995 though, and I doubt Mr. Sweeney does either.  And yeah, maybe he’ll be back next year, but it’s so much more romantic to imagine this being it.

He’ll hit his last home run soon.  Maybe he’ll steal one more base, or get plunked by another fastball.  He’s made his mark on the game, and will be content riding out his legacy, however small it may be outside the great state of Missouri.

Those at-bats will be tough to come by.  Good luck out there, Mike.

 

Retrospectives on Obscurity: Ken Harvey

You could not play major league baseball. Not a chance. Not on your best day, in your nicest pair of shoes, after eating a completely balanced breakfast.

In fact, no one you know, or have ever known, is good enough to play baseball in the majors. Jeff Weaver could pitch left-handed and make you look like Billy Crystal. Juan Pierre would deposit your most intently-hurled fastball on the moon. Barriers to entry are high in this market for the majestically gifted. What’s all the more fascinating is the fact that pretty much every AAA player who’s never so much as sniffed a major league bench could dominate you as well. Such is the nature of professional baseball- the entire spectrum of talent, from the lowliest pinch runner to the most accomplished of superstars, is contained within but a few small percentage points on some unseen scale. Those percentage points just happen to be a great many standard deviations away from wherever you sit reading this. A quarter of an inch closer here, a tenth of a second faster there: it’s what separates Alfonso Soriano from Izzy Alcantara, and Izzy from you and everyone you’ve ever played wiffle ball with.

There are, of course, a great many men who have charged brazenly across the talent divide with total disregard for the fact that they do not actually belong on the big show’s greener pastures. They are gunned down by turrets the guard towers eventually, but as for how far they make it, there is considerable variation in the experiences of these not-quite-good-enoughs. The clock runs out on most in about the time it takes for a scouting report to be published. Can’t hit the slider. Susceptible to fastballs on the hands. Change-ups are an absolute adventure.

Some men, though, are able to eke out a bit more from their brief journey through the majors than others. Kenneth Eugene Harvey – all 6′2″, 250lbs of him – was one of those men. Harvey began his trek towards the majors like most others do: by hitting the ball prodigiously throughout high school and college. He was by all accounts an extremely gifted college player, and in his senior year at Nebraska led the nation in hitting at .478, which included 23 homers and a 23/38 K/BB ratio. That got him a fifth-round selection by the Royals in that summer’s draft. He’d go on to hit .328 in the minors from 1999-2002 before breaking camp with the Royals in 2003; they had lost 100 games in 2002, and really had no business keeping a young .300 hitter off the squad, regardless of who or what they thought he might eventually become. Harvey hit .266 in 485 at-bats as a 1B/DH for a Royals club that bunted, blooped, and stole their way to a miraculous 83-79 record.

The following year, the team got back to being miserable (58-104), and in late June traded their best player, Carlos Beltran, to the Houston Astros. Beltran was set to be an All-Star but, having been traded in the middle of balloting, was told that he could not play for the AL, nor could he be placed on the NL ballot (he was named as an injury replacement on the NL team anyways). This left the Royals without an All-Star; Harvey, batting .330 at the break, was tabbed as the team’s obligatory representative. He even got into the game: in the 3rd inning, with the bases loaded and one out, Harvey struck out on an 87mph Randy Johnson slider, an outcome which Channel 6 News in Lawrence, Kansas called “fitting.”

Harvey’s decline had already begun, though. From the first of July forward, he hit just .235 with 13 extra-base hits while missing time with a strained ribcage and sprained knee. Opposing pitchers had caught up to him, and finding himself unable to catch back up, he scuffled badly. He’d also accomplish what those who witnessed it reckoned to be a major-league first: while playing first base against the Padres at Petco, in a 4-4 game in the bottom of the 8th, Khalil Greene hit a sacrifice fly to Royals right-fielder Matt Stairs. Stairs caught the ball and fired a throw home down the first base line – Harvey, caught up in the moment, had turned his back to Stairs and was, on bent knee, watching Kerry Robinson attempt to tag. Stairs’ throw wound up drilling Harvey directly in the back; stunned, the portly Harvey slowly keeled over and dropped to the infield grass in pain, leaving Graffanino to jog over and retrieve the baseball. The Royals lost the game 5-4.

There was little left to mystery following that 2004 season. Harvey managed a .287/.338/.421 line on the year, but everyone understood just how inflated with early-season singles those totals actually were. For a big man, he had no power. He was an average defensive first baseman at best and had little to no plate discipline. Being the miserable organization that they were, the Royals had entire minor league rosters filled with mediocre first-basemen with bad backs, and in 2005, he lost his job to Calvin Pickering, a behemoth of a man (6′5″, 275lbs) who could do neither the things that Harvey did right (hit singles) or the things that he did wrong (everything else). The Royals went through three managers that year, lost 106 games, and only had 2 players reach 500 at-bats, one of which was Angel Berroa, who walked 18 times in 159 games. Harvey would see a little action – 45 at-bats – but could turn just 10 of those into hits. He started on May 18th against Bruce Chen and the Baltimore Orioles. In the bottom of the 8th, facing Steve Kline, he grounded back to the pitcher; he was placed on the DL on May 22nd, and would never again appear in a major league game.

He latched on with the Twins organization in 2007, but did absolutely nothing in just 10 games and that fall opted for free agency. With no major league organizations interested in his services, he signed on at age 30 with the Kansas City T-Bones of the Independent Northern League where, at last check, he was hitting .275 with a nifty .310 on-base percentage. As an added note of great personal humor to me, I discovered that Harvey’s newest teammate with the T-Bones is none other than Westfield, MA native and Northeastern University alumnus Bobby Carrington, a big right-hander who went 1-8 with a 6.85 ERA over three years with the Huskies. Carrington just recently graduated, and not only did I frequently observe him stalking around campus by himself early in the evenings, he also took a writing course with a girl I know who wanted desperately to sleep with him. She managed to be as successful toward those ends as Carrington was on the mound – which is to say, not at all. She remains in a slump, and he’s currently throwing pickoff throws to Ken Harvey at CommunityAmerica ballpark.

Last Sunday, Harvey hit a game-winning solo blast for the T-Bones in the top of the 9th against the Schaumberg Flyers at the tail end of a 6-game road trip. They start a homestand today against the Fargo-Moorehead RedHawks, and according to those around him, Harvey still aspires to get back to the Majors. For what it’s worth, he is almost certainly a helpful presence in the T-Bones clubhouse, and serves as an unmistakable reminder to his teammates of everything that’s possible, for better or for worse, in this silly world. Harvey lives with his family in Kansas City and, now clearly heavier than he was during his younger days, has little chance at making it back to the bigs.

Such is life, Ken. Many things are given and many are taken away. He’s had two knee scopes, and were he able to avoid an injury here or there, he might still be getting 300 at-bats a year for some major league squad. Fate, though, is unconditional; he was destined to play the role he did, in front of the eyes of those who cared to watch, now and forever. A poor major leaguer and a wholly undeserving All-Star, Harvey did more in the game than thousands before him, and accomplished more than what many after him will aspire to. We all have good days and bad days, and were the lot of us reducible to averages and percentages, we’d be able to look back on our times and pick out the unequivocally best of them. For baseball players, the task is a bit easier. It’s possible that Ken Harvey’s best days had nothing to do with baseball, but as a 30-year old playing in front of a few thousand people every night, that seems somewhat unlikely.

For good measure, here’s an incomplete list of the things that the big guy accomplished in his 271-game major league career:

• Faced Randy Johnson with the bases loaded in an All-Star Game
• Singled off Tim Wakefield
• Doubled off Johan Santana, Rich Harden, Roy Halladay, and C.C. Sabathia
• Homered off Jake Peavy, Kenny Rogers, and B. J. Ryan
• Hit a home run in Yankee Stadium
• Hit a walk-off home run on an 0-2 count against a major league closer (Brian Anderson)
• Hit a grand slam
• Hit a triple
• Had 10 game-winning RBI in your first season, tied for sixth all-time among rookie first-basemen
• From 2003-2004, led the majors with home runs on an 0-2 count (8)
• On June 15, 2004, was leading the majors in batting average (.361)
• Had a 15-game hitting streak
• Stole three bases

What have YOU done lately?

 

This Post Contains No Pictures of Hunter Pence’s Girlfriend

Hunter Pence has never really looked like a real major league baseball player to me.  Listed at 6′4″ 220lbs, the blond-haired Texan seems too gangly a mess of arms and legs to ever amount to much on the field, the kind of player that wears his uniform a little too snugly and and habitually sticks his tongue out when he exerts himself.  If you thought he didn’t belong on the ballfield, though, you’d probably be wrong: since being taken by the Houston Astros in the second round of the 2004 draft, Pence has impressed at every stop, going .303/376/.554 from over four minor league seasons before making serious Rookie of the Year noise in his 2007 freshman campaign.

Scouts have tended to disagree on Pence’s ceiling throughout his entire playing career.  The kind of player that does “nothing pretty but everything well,” he projected to some as an average major leaguer and others as a five-tool star.  He made a habit of choking up on the bat during his minor league career, a tendency which stuck out considering Pence’s size and reputation for power (Pence has remarked that even his mother made fun of him for doing so).  He tended to be extremely streaky at the plate.  He had good speed, but had a strange, loping, arm-intensive stride that lacked fluidity.  He had a strong throwing arm, but did a funky stutter-hop before unleashing the ball in a violent, jerky motion.  He wore only one batting glove, on his left hand.  He was quick, but seemed too “long” to be a gold-glove caliber outfielder.  He has a hitch in his swing where he brings his hands way down before coming through the zone, a point that major league pitchers could exploit by busting him in.

Still, Pence impressed everyone in the Astros organization, and batted .571/.647/1.071 in spring training prior to the 2007 season.  Despite his efforts, he was sent down in favor of 27 year old Chris Burke, a nifty little multi-position player who was in his fourth season with the organization and was rumored have both speed and the ability to hit for average.  Neither proved to be true, and the Astros quickly realized the error of their ways: on April 28th of that year, the club announced their plans to call Pence up to the majors and hand him the starting center fielder gig.  He responded by going out of his mind at the plate, hitting .342 through the All-Star Break and finishing the year batting .322 with 9 triples, 17 homers, 11 steals, and 69 RBI despite missing a month with a chip fracture in his right wrist.  Pence’s Astros finished 73-89.

Prior to the 2008 season, the young outfielder earned himself a little bit of unwanted media attention when, on the eve of the club’s first full-squad workout, he accidentally leaped through a sliding glass door on his way to the bathroom, which shattered and left him covered with small lacerations on his hands, knees, and pretty much everywhere else (he was wearing a bathing suit at the time). He received numerous stitches and missed about a week of action, but returned at full-strength on March 3rd and went on to have an excellent spring (.352, 3HR).

Pence started the 2008 regular season in the #2 spot in the order because Kaz Matsui, who was the Astros’ planned #2 hitter, was out of commission with – ugh – a “severe anal fissure.” Pence struggled to a .161 average in the first two weeks of the season and found himself dropped to #7 slot, but got to .250 by the end of April thanks to a 14-for-29 stretch towards the end of the month. Pence went .346/.400/.577 in May but slumped again in June and is currently sporting a mediocre .265/.306/.422 line in 332 at-bats.  As his hitting has gone through peaks and valleys (he was at .311 on May 27th then hit just .200 in June), so has his spot in the order: he’s got at least 50 at bats in the 1, 2, 6, and 7 spots in the order, with most of his time coming at #6 where he’s hitting .297.

Something of a free-swinger, Pence doesn’t care much for walks.  His 5.7% walk rate is on the very low end of the spectrum, alongside fellow contact guys like Pudge Rodriguez, Juan Pierre, and Dustin Pedroia.  For a “dynamic” guy, though, he strikes out a little too often right now, with just 0.29 walks for every K (13th worst in the majors).  It’s not impossible to thrive with a BB/K figure that low – Ryan Braun and Corey Hart’s are lower, though they both have shown more power than Pence and have better contact rates.  Still, his

plate discipline is less than stellar.  30.87% of the balls that Pence swings at are outside of the strike zone; of players with O-Swing figures that high, Pence’s contact rate on balls outside the strike zone – 52.13% – is 3rd worst, behind Torii Hunter, Matt Kemp, and Mike Jacobs.  The book on Pence generally says that he has a predilection towards sliders down and away, a la Alfonso Soriano.  The numbers would seem to give a general thumbs up to that assertion.  All of these rate statistics have carried over from 2007.  His batting average on balls in play last year was .378, though; this year, it’s come down to earth, as has his batting average.  Pence probably won’t finish his career with a .300 batting average.

Pence has also been bad enough on the basepaths this year to warrant a reconsideration of his supposed base-stealing abilities. According to The Book (2007: Tango, Lichtman, Dolphin), a baserunner being caught stealing has a “Runs to End of Inning” value of -0.467 (the average team will score almost a half-run less per inning when a runner is caught stealing), and is the single most detrimental offensive play a baseball player can make. In 2008, Hunter Pence has stolen 5 bases on the season and has been caught 7 times, a .417 success percentage that is far and away the worst among major league regulars who have attempted at least 10 steals. Pence was “only” 31 for 45 in his minor league career (.689), and no major leaguer who stole 20 bases last year had a SB% less than .700 (as a group, 20-steal players in 2007 were .824). Using Run Values and Win Values from The Book, I calculated “Baserunning Run Values” and “Baserunning Win Values” for Major League starters in 2008 based on SB and CS. Here, according to those values, are the 5 most overrated baserunners in the majors (min. 10 SB attempts):

Rk	Player	TM	SB	CS	BRRV	BRWV
1	Pence, Hunter	HOU	5	7	-2.394	-0.211
2	DeJesus, David	KCR	6	5	-1.285	-0.107
3	Theriot, Ryan	CHC	15	8	-1.111	-0.074
4	Granderson, Curtis	DET	6	4	-0.818	-0.064
5	Damon, Johnny	NYY	13	6	-0.527	-0.024

In short, he’s been killing his team on the basepaths (I’m considering them “overrated” because they get lots of attempts – you can’t call them “the worst” because the truly awful guys just never even try). He’s not getting picked off, either, catchers have simply been throwing him out. In 2008, MLB catchers have averaged a .263 Caught Stealing Percentage; Pence has been thrown out by Chris Coste (.270 in 40 games) Mike Rabelo (.273 in 32 games), Josh Bard (.128 in 37 games), Paul Bako (.318 in 60 games), Raul Chavez (.412 in 19 games), Dioner Navarro (.381in 61 games), and Corky Miller (.500 in 19 games). Navarro is the only catcher on that list who is his team’s primary catcher, and Josh Bard is widely considered to be one of the worst catchers in the majors at throwing out baserunners, so being caught by him is not only detrimental to your team’s success but is in fact borderline insulting. Pence has never stolen 20 bases in his professional career, and it’s almost a guarantee that he won’t accomplish the feat at the major league level. He might never steal 15.  One weird note is that he currently leads major league baseball with 23 infield hits, one ahead of Ichiro Suzuki.  None of these have been bunt hits, so it may stand to reason that he’s been topping off balls and is very good at getting out of the box.  More likely, though, is the theory that Pence has been relatively lucky in this department, and that his batting average should be even lower: he had just 13 last year in over 100 more plate appearances, and only five players had more than 23 infield hits on the season last year (Ichiro was the leader, with 44).  There are usually only 3 or 4 guys per season that have 30+ infield hits, so Pence’s rate is likely not sustainable.

While he may not be a good base stealer, Pence is athletic enough to be a good defensive outfielder. He split time between CF and RF in 2008, but when the club brought Michael Bourn into man center in 2008, Pence was switched permanently to right, a move which seems to have paid off defensively for the Astros. The Astros are tied for the fifth-best fielding percentage in baseball, and after posting an .885 Revized Zone Rating in CF in 2007, Pence has put up a .931 RZR in RF in 2008 and is second among NL right fielders in out-of-zone outs recorded (he’s also got 6 assists and has yet to make an error in 746 innings).  He’s got the pop to play corner outfield, though his 10.3% HR/FB rate could use a little boost.

What Astros fans have in their 25-year old right fielder is a guy who will hit .280 with 25 homers and 10 steals on a regular basis, and should drive in 80-100 runs with the right guys around him.  He’s probably never going to be a legitimate MVP candidate, but should find his way onto a few All-Star squads due to his propensity to run hot and cold (he’ll have years where a big first half makes him a shoe-in).  He’s a youthful talent in an organization that’s still looking for a post-Bagwell/Biggio identity, and his presence and playing style should endear him to a new generation of Astros fans.  At 41-48, the Astros aren’t going to make the playoffs this year, despite strong seasons from Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, and Miguel Tejada.  Their rotation, of which Runelvys Hernandez actually counts himself a member, is a complete joke, and they lack the prospects to make 2009 – or even 2010 – seem like sure things.  With that knowledge, it’s going to be very important for the organization that Pence play like the exciting player that everyone seems to think he has the potential to be.  Smarten up on the basepaths, son.

 

You got PUNKED!

At 6′4″, 240lbs, Brett Myers fits the physical profile of a hard-throwing, dominant right-handed pitcher.  And so he appeared to be through much of his early career:  An imposing force in high school, the Phillies made him their first-round pick in 1999 (12th overall) following the conclusion of a senior year in which he registered 130 strikeouts in 78 innings.  He was assigned to rookie ball, and struck out 30 batters in 27 innings for the Gulf Coast Phillies; from there, he methodically rose through the system, making his major league debut in July 2002 against the Cubs, tossing a masterful 8-inning effort (5K, 2H, 1ER) and earning his first win.  He appeared destined for stardom and rose to prominance in 2005, where he went 13-8 with a 3.72 ERA and 208 strikeouts in 216 innings.

He pitched almost identically in 2006, but in 2007, things started getting a little funny.  With his team facing a shortage of relief options, Myers began openly campaigning to be placed in the closers’ role.  Already having a bit of a bull-headed reputation, he believed himself a natural fit for the high-pressure job.  Myers made three starts in 2007, the second and third of which were miserable, and then – lo and behold – the team made him a setup man.  With incumbent closer Tom Gordon ineffective and ailing, the team named Myers the closer within a month and, despite straining his shoulder a few weeks later, he finished out the rest of the season in the role.  The numbers were very good: in 53.1 relief innings, Myers posted a 64/18 K/BB ratio with a 2.87 ERA and 21 saves, registering the final out of the regular season to seal a postseason berth for the Phillies.  The team was happy, and he was happy.  In the offseason, though, Philadelphia was looking to add pitching, and finding a market that had more options at closer than at starter, the Phillies signed Brad Lidge and announced their plans to move Myers back into the rotation:

“I’m upset, not with the Phillies, because I understand the situation,” Myers said [following the announcement]. “I’m upset because I think I really found myself and my role this year as a closer. I know, because I’ve been told that I’m best suited to be a closer.”

Though Myers reasoned that the dual experience would make him more valuable as a free agent, he was obviously unhappy with the change, and presumably (note: this is not necessarily my own speculation here) did not fully dedicate himself to converting back to the rotation, notoriously refusing to participate in long-toss between starts.  The stubbornness may come part and parcel with the right-hander, who’s had a couple of very public outbursts during his playing time with the Phillies. He was infamously arrested in Boston in the summer of 2006 for smacking his wife around in the middle of a crowded street (the intersection where the assault occured, incidentally, is NEVER not full of people on the weekends).  He also then called reporter Sam Carchidi a “retard” following a August 2007 game in which he surrendered two homers in the ninth to the Padres.

Prior to that season, Myers had effectively called Billy Wagner a wuss following the 2007 offseason, after comments Wagner made about the venemous nature of Philadelphia’s sports scene.  Those same fans and media members are certainly taking their hacks at Myers these days.  His fastball is to Philadelphia sportswriters what Kim Kardashian’s ass is to Thesuperficial.com: oft-discussed, criticized, pondered, analyzed (and now, basically accused of being fake!). He’s lost a quarter-inch of horizontal movement on his fastball and almost a half-inch of “rise” to accompany a 3mph drop in velocity, from 2007 to 2008 (initial speeds: 93.87mph, 90.56mph, according to Josh Kalk’s figures).  Following a miserable outing on June 27th against the Rangers, Myers woke up next to T.J. Bohn and Oscar Robles as a member of the AAA LeHigh Valley IronPigs:

My apologies for the rudimentary graph.  The blue box is an approximation of the strike zone based on the PitchFX data and the generally accepted standard width of the zone (20″).  Myers threw 66 pitches, 46 of which were to left-handed batters, as is rather obvious from this picture.  Almost everything he threw was inside on lefties, seeming to prefer throwing his curveball and sliders down and in on them while keeping them down and away off righties.  Myers faced five righties: Kinsler twice (homer, double); Young twice (line out, single); and Byrd (walk).  His strategy didn’t seem to work, as batters were able to lay off his offspeed pitches (mostly) and attack his mistakes.  He generated 9 swinging strikes (two were against Saltalamacchia, who would swing at a pitch that was rolled to him from the mound), seven on curveballs.  As might be obvious from the graph, Myers preferred his curveball that night, throwing them 39% of the time.  This is a pretty good indication that, having no confidence in his fastball (88.4mph average), he’d pretty much made up his mind to try and pitch around everyone.  The fastballs are noticeably clustered up in the zone and away from lefties.  Myers was afraid to pitch to contact.

At 27 years old and with over 1,000 innings logged in the majors, it could be said that Brett Myers’ career is at something of a crossroads.  While he tries to work out his problems in AAA (he surrendered 3ER in 5IP and lost his IronPigs debut to Jeff Karstens and the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees last night), he has a couple clear paths ahead of him.  He could work out his issues there, build his arm strength back up, and come back to the Phillies as the dominant starter they need him to be.  Myers is due $8.5 million in 2008 and $12 million next year, so if he fails to impress in AAA, the Phillies would be in a difficult position if they thought it was in their best interest to trade him.  Should he find himself available to other teams, though, he could either re-emerge as a starter or a reliever, as many people frankly believe he’d still prefer to be the latter.  Or, of course, he could simply flame out as so many players have done before him.

Myers is married to a woman named Kim; his daughter is Kylie, and his son is Kolt. There’s simply no way that a person names their son “Kolt” unless they are totally committed to having a name that sounds American and starts with the letter “K.”  Clemens named his kids the same way.  Myers, from Jacksonville, Florida, has modeled himself after a long lineage of big, power righties, but when your fastball is crossing home plate at 80mph, it’s time to seriously evaluate just what it is you’re trying to do.    During Spring Training this year, Brett Myers spearheaded an elaborate practical joke on teammmate Kyle Kendrick, convincing him that he’d been traded to Japan.  The incident was caught on camera, and the pair even did an interview on the Today Show (Myers giggled and wore sunglasses the whole time).  Well, Kendrick’s currently sitting at 8-3, and while he’s not really a good major league pitcher right now, his 1.56 G/F ratio has helped the Phillies win in their bandbox of a park.  The same couldn’t be said about Myers’ MLB-worst 2.12 HR/9, which is why Kendrick still has a rotation spot and Myers doesn’t.

The prank was in good fun, both sides enjoyed it, but it stands as a bit of an awkward reminder of the little twists and turns that life likes to take on people, and Myers probably isn’t giggling very much right now.  Hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, Brett; there’s no guarantees.

 

On Wistfully Recalling the Days of Shouldergate

November 14, 2001: The Toronto Blue Jays hire Oakland Athletics Director of Player Personnel J.P. Ricciardi as their new general manager, replacing the incumbent Gord Ash (fondly remembered in Toronto for trading away Michael Young, hiring phony Vietnam vet Tim Johnson as manager, and, of course, Wells-for-Sirotka). Michael Lewis’s Moneyball was still two years away from publication, but even without its detailing of the inner workings of the Athletics’ organization, it was clear to see the success that Billy Beane and Ricciardi were enjoying in Oakland. They had just been eliminated in heartbreaking fashion by the New York Yankees in the playoffs once again, but their regular season was astounding; while many of their key contributors, including aces Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder, were being paid just six-digit salaries, the team won 102 games, seven more than any other American League team besides the record-setting 116-win Seattle Mariners.

All of these successes are well documented in Moneyball and need not be retread at this time. They only serve as evidence for why the beginning of the Ricciardi Era in Toronto was met with excitement and optimism by fans and media alike (the anti-Moneyball movement still a speck on the distant horizon), who appreciated how much Beane and Ricciardi had done with so little in Oakland.

Oakland’s successes also serve to contrast exactly how underwhelming a job Ricciardi has done in his seven years in Toronto.

When Ricciardi took over the GM role in 2001, he vowed to make the Jays, a team treading water in the years before his arrival, a legit contender by 2005. The farm system would be rebuilt; prospects and young major leaguers would be ready to compete with the juggernauts of the division; things would be different by 2005.

Over the next four years, Ricciardi proceeded to make the following first round draft picks:

2002: Russ Adams (SS) (14th overall)
2003: Aaron Hill (SS) (13th)
2004: David Purcey (LHP) (16th)
2005: Ricky Romero (LHP) (6th)

No team has a 100% success rate when it comes to first rounders, even when they’re drafting, like Toronto did, exclusively college players, but suffice it to say: this is an unimpressive group.

Adams was unable to stick with the major league club after multiple stints there, ultimately compiling a .248 / .314 / .376 line in 864 at-bats over the course of four seasons. Last season in the Rogers Centre as a late season call-up in 2007, Adams is playing in Syracuse, approaching his 28th birthday and showing very few signs that he’ll be back with the Jays anytime soon, barely hovering over the Mendoza line in AAA in 2008.

Hill can be considered a success. While he may never develop into a consistent .300 hitter or 25-homer threat, expecting perennial figures that fall a little short of those marks would not be unreasonable. But consider this: 2003 marked the second consecutive year, the first two of Ricciardi’s GM reign, in fact, that he drafted a shortstop in the first half of the first round. While Hill and Adams were both eventually groomed as potential second base replacements for Orlando Hudson (more on him later), the fact is that Ricciardi used back to back high draft picks on the same position. I don’t have a problem with this approach. The careers of baseball draft picks, even first-rounders, are notoriously difficult to foresee, and as such, taking the best player available, regardless of position, is a sound strategy. In the best-case scenario that each of these picks enjoys success in the minor leagues and develops into a legit major league talent, trades can always be made to clear up logjams. Unfortunately, Ricciardi did an about-face on this line of thinking two years later, in the 2005 draft, when everyone in his scouting room pushed for the drafting of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. Ricciardi liked Romero, and didn’t want another shortstop in the pipeline, with Adams already in the majors and Hill having recently made his debut as well. Romero is mired in New Hampshire in AA ball this season, walking a batter every other inning, while struggling to keep his ERA below 6, his WHIP below 1.75. Tulowtzki? Well, you know what he’s done. (And is it even worth mentioning that in the years since this draft, the Jays have signed Royce Clayton, John McDonald, and David Eckstein as shortstop stopgaps?)

David Purcey, now 26 and having lost his standing as an exciting major league prospect, made his debut earlier this season; in two starts, he did his best Dontrelle Willis impression, walking 11 in 7.3 IP, allowing nine runs and striking out only three. His return to Syracuse was swift.

Needless to say, the Blue Jays weren’t exactly ready to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world heading into 2005. They were coming off a disappointing injury-ravaged 2004 season that saw them finish 67-95, allowing Tampa Bay to finish out of the AL East cellar for the lone time in their first decade of existence. Ricciardi had, by this point, backed off his three-year plan, proposing that 2007 would now be the year that Toronto would be ready to make a playoff run. When most of us procrastinate like this, we face some sort of consequences; Ricciardi was rewarded with an increase in the team’s payroll and his second contract extension, signing through 2010.

And still the questionable personnel moves persisted. In fact, of the Blue Jays’ most promising young talent on its 2008 roster, seven years after Ricciardi took over, Gord Ash is responsible for more than Ricciardi. Alex Rios? An Ash pick. Ditto Dustin McGowan. Roy Halladay too. And even when it comes to Vernon Wells, Ash was the one responsible for drafting him; Ricciardi the one responsible for his current seven-year, $126 million deal that, even the day it was signed, seemed questionable, if not downright foolhardy.

That the Blue Jays have yet to make a bona-fide playoff run during Ricciardi’s regime, or that they currently sit at an underwhelming 41-43, once again last in the AL East, is almost a secondary concern. So too is the fact that, depending on whose reports you believe, they could’ve acquired players like Eric Gagne (they got Luke Prokopec instead) or Ryan Howard (they stuck with Ted Lilly, then watched him leave in free agency a year later). Every GM makes personnel gaffes, and while Ricciardi has had his share, he has made some admirable moves as well, such as the Koch-for-Hinske trade, or the drafting of Shaun Marcum. Inexcusable, however, is the staggering amount of PR blunders he has made over the years. The Adam Dunn debacle is the latest, and though it’s fresh in everyone’s minds, it’s worth reiterating just how badly Ricciardi has handled the entire situation, from the moment he was asked about Dunn on The Fan 590 until the present.

To state that a player on another team “doesn’t really like baseball that much” and “doesn’t have a passion to play the game” is absurdly inappropriate on multiple levels. We can assume, it’s safe to say, that Dunn never previously made such a confession to Ricciardi over a few drinks, which means that Ricciardi’s claims are dependent on either heresy or flat-out speculation. How could a general manager of a baseball team possibly think that making such a speculation on Toronto’s most popular sports station would be appropriate? Confounding the situation even more is the fact that Adam Dunn is exactly the type of player that the Blue Jays need. He has hit twice as many home runs as anyone on their roster, and it’s not like the value of his walks and OPS is lost on Ricciardi; these stats were at the heart of the Athletics’ strategies as documented in Moneyball, and have since gained a wider appreciation throughout the majors. Ricciardi’s logic then, is baffling. Combine this statement with his offseason signing of David Eckstein and his early-season release of Frank Thomas, and it seems like his newest goal is merely to provide as much material as possible for Fire Joe Morgan. That Ricciardi’s claim to have talked to Dunn personally and cleared the air was negated by Dunn’s insistence that such a conversation never occurred only adds another layer of misguided and downright inexplicable decision-making to the entire saga. But it wouldn’t be the first time.

It was Ricciardi who sent Orlando Hudson to the minors before the 2002 season, despite an impressive spring training, because Hudson referred to him as a “pimp.” While Homer Bush, Felipe Lopez, and Joel Lawrence struggled for the Blue Jays, Hudson played in AAA when the major league team could have used him, if not for Ricciardi’s personal vendetta.

It was Ricciardi who withheld information about B.J. Ryan’s injury in 2007, actually presenting false info to the media and to fans, before later opining, when it was revealed that Ryan needed Tommy John surgery, that “they’re not lies if we know the truth.”

Every few months, it seems, Ricciardi says or does something he shouldn’t, and while having an outspoken figure in management is feasible when he’s successful – just ask the White Sox about Ozzie Guillen – it’s hard to stomach when he’s not. Ricciardi’s tenure in Toronto is on its last legs, and he knows it. How else to explain the appeal to the city’s collective nostalgia, bringing back Cito Gaston to the Blue Jays’ bench? Ricciardi’s contract runs into 2010, but if he lasts until the end of it, it’ll be at least two years too long.

 

On Eager Cries of Reformation

The helmeted celebrator pictured on the left of this photograph is Nationals outfielder Elijah Dukes. Dukes, who turns 24 years old this Thursday, is a five-tool talent that scouts believe is capable of one day becoming a superstar of the game.

By many accounts, he is also a crazy asshole.

In 2007, as a rookie in the Tampa Bay system, Dukes made headlines thanks to a number of domestic disputes with his then-wife NiShea Gilbert, a middle-school teacher in Florida. Dukes first got himself banned from the middle school where Gilbert taught by inviting himself into her classroom during a lunch period and verbally accosting her. The incident earned Dukes his first restraining order of the year, but he wasn’t done; months later, he reportedly not only sent Gilbert a picture message of a handgun, but he also left the following now-semi-infamous voice message on her phone:

“Hey, dawg. It’s on, dawg. You dead, dawg. I ain’t even bullshitting. Your kids too, dawg. It don’t even matter to me who is in the car with you. N*gger, all I know is, n*gger, when I see your motherfucking ass riding, dawg, it’s on. As a matter of fact, I’m coming to your motherfucking house.”

The Tampa Bay organization failed to properly identify and deal with just how crazy Dukes had gotten. Before anyone could get through to him – or perhaps because no one legitimately tried to – Dukes wound up days later on WDAE radio in Florida, issuing what could kindly be characterized as a rambling, wildly-insane philippic on his detractors, namely Gilbert, who had called into the radio station shortly before him. Observant individuals noted that the Devil Rays were in Arizona at the time of the radio appearance, meaning that someone had to actually call Dukes and inform him that he was being talked about on the radio, goading Dukes into calling in himself.

The ensuing court case between he and Gilbert shed light on a number of past domestic issues. Dukes, it seemed, had a fondness for launching projectiles at people in fits of rage: remote controls, soda cans, glass bowls, and the like. Gilbert testified that Dukes “smokes marijuana daily” and “drinks to the point of passing out.” Dukes had also been slapped with prior restraining orders by a different woman, with whom he had fathered his first child. He wasn’t done, though – in June of that year, he made headlines again by impregnating another girl, this one a 17-year old foster child living with a relative of Dukes’, and again throwing things at her – reportedly a Gatorade bottle this time – when she confronted him about the child, his fifth with four different women (at least).

If it all seems hard to follow, well, that’s because it is. His issues didn’t stop in the kitchen or on the living room sofa, either. Dukes had also been involved in numerous on-field incidents throughout his tenure with the Devil Rays, culminating in a 30-game suspension in 2006 after which not only threatened to quit baseball, but also threw fellow prospects B.J. Upton and Delmon Young under the bus:

“I didn’t tell Delmon to throw his bat at that umpire. I didn’t tell B.J. to go driving his car after he had some drinks. I don’t even hang out with those guys. It was always just me in my apartment after games or whatever. I think I went out twice and both times I got a cab because I don’t need any more hassle than I already have on me.”

The quote came after a number of media outlets had been publishing reports focusing on the perceived “bitterness” of the three star prospects at not being in the majors. Dukes, rightly or wrongly, was made a focus of many of the reports, due in no small part to his history of anger issues and legal problems. He’d been arrested half a dozen times since 1998, and had few supporters among baseball’s old guard – including his coaches in Durham, with whom he frequently clashed (incidentally, the entire Durham coaching staff was fired following the 2006 season).

Still, following a strong spring and having done little to suggest that he was not still an extremely gifted baseball player, Dukes got his shot at the beginning of the 2007 season. He got the start in center field on opening day in Yankee Stadium, worked a walk in his first plate appearance, and then crushed a 1-1 Carl Pavano offering over the center field wall for his first major league hit. Dukes showed plenty of power in his first big league stint, but did not appear ready to be a full-time major leaguer, scuffling his way to a .190/.318/.391 line in 184 ABs (10HR, 44/33 K/BB). He was eventually optioned to Durham and placed on the inactive list following his aforementioned off-field problems, and in December that year was traded for pennies on the dollar to the Washington Nationals for 19-year-old lefty Glenn Gibson (who is currently getting knocked around the Sally League for the Columbus Catfish).

In contention for a starting outfield position, Dukes hurt his hamstring in spring training and then re-aggravated the injury on opening night, forcing him to sit out the entire month of April before returning to action on May 9th. He stumbled badly throughout most of May, before really turning it on as of late:

Over the past 14 days, Dukes has batted .352 with 7 RBI and five steals and, despite a small locker-room confrontation with manager Manny Acta (which Dukes later apologized for), he has been a good citizen to boot. His power has been uncharacteristically absent, but he did hit a game-tying homer in last night’s game against the Rangers after Kevin Millwood put a curveball on a tee for him, and then knocked a game-winning seeing-eye single past third base in the 14th inning. Dukes was mobbed by his teammates, a scene which led to the picture featured at the top of this post.

Elijah Dukes has been fielding the ball cleanly, swiping bags, and for now at least, the hits are falling. Things are looking sunny for him, and surely he’s happy right now, which begs the question: should we be happy for him? To be clear, Dukes’ recent success by no means indicates that he has turned some sort of corner or become a successful major leaguer. Dukes is still hitting .270 on the year, and at 23 years old, has only logged 366 major league plate appearances. Still, it’s very difficult for the human mind not to assume that small statistical samples represent larger trends, especially when they’re framed around emotional drama (how many women give the deadbeat men in their lives additional chances based on the occasional well-timed box of chocolates?) If the story is about sports, well, we Americans simply can’t help ourselves, however premature our proclamations of success may inevitably be.

As is generally the case, Dukes’ lunacy is not entirely of his own design. When he was 11, his father was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murdering a man who sold his wife $100 worth of fake crack (Dukes has been adamant about the fact that his mother has never done crack, but may or may not have been involved with the sale of it). Dukes had the same rough childhood as millions of children have had and will continue to have in the socioeconomic slums of the world. He’s never shot, stabbed, or killed anyone. He doesn’t seek out confrontation, nor does he revel in the media attention he generates. How many extra chances do we give him? Plenty before him have been given zero. Dukes is an athlete, though, in a country that worships his kind, and he’s already made more money at his craft than most – especially those with his background – will make in their entire lives. It’s an economic system, though. The fans need players just as much as the players need fans, and given the intense competition in the minor and independent leagues throughout the country, people do not find themselves on major league rosters by accident. They’re there, however generally, because the fans want them there. People want Dukes in uniform. They want to watch him play, and they want to see if he’ll hold it all together or fall apart like so many before him have. There’s also the question of whether or not success on the diamond is enough. Should he become a perennial All-Star, will he actually have changed as a person, and will he himself be more happy and fulfilled? And again, should we CARE?

Most non-athletes will point to the amounts of money that professional athletes make, saying that for millions of dollars a year, they’d like the media say pretty much anything about them and still keep their mouth shut. And there are plenty of players about whom negative things are said who avoid large-scale confrontations and blowups. Selfishly though, I think that the game needs those eternally tortured souls whose physical brilliance is ultimately toppled by a mental fortitude incapable of withholding intense criticism and scrutiny. I’m not saying that Dukes will ultimately fail at transformation and find himself back in the glum obscurity of Miami-Dade County. Life, however, is often a story of failures, and her grand stages should be no different. He’ll never shed his reputation, and will live out the rest of his life with a chip on his shoulder regardless of his vocation at the time. There’s sane athletes and crazy athletes, and Elijah Dukes has always found his home on the crazy side of things. That’s the case in all professions and all walks of life. So too is the case that, whether or not you cheer for him or root against him from hereon out, it probably has more to do with you than it ever will with him.