Book Review: Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid, by John Rosengren

The word "skeptical" barely begins to describe my demeanor as I was asked to review John Rosengren's new book, Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid.


First of all, I'd never heard of its author, so how good could the book be, right? Well, I'd never heard of Michael Shapiro before I read his excellent book on the Brooklyn Dodgers a few years ago. Before I happened upon A Dirty Job in the Allentown airport last summer, I'd never heard of Christopher Moore either, and he's now my favorite author. So I didn't give that particular prejudice too much weight.


More important, the book's subtitle "The Year That Changed Baseball Forever" kind of put me on my guard. And not just because it referred to 1973, and therefore happened before I was born. I had to take the title with a grain of salt, mostly because I just read a book last year about a team that (allegedly) changed baseball, just two years before this book supposedly did the same thing, and that, frankly that was a crock. And a really boring book.


Rosengren's book is neither.


This well-written, insightful and intriguing tome relates how the events of the 1973 baseball season, and several events that unfolded around it, really did change the game, and perhaps the country, for all time. Think about it:

* You had Hank Aaron chasing babe Ruth, right down to the last day of the season, contending not only with his aging body and racist death threats, but also the ambivalence of the baseball establishment (read: Commissioner Bowie Kuhn) and the people of Atlanta, who mostly ignored him right to the end.

* Willie Mays, the once great Giants centerfielder, was linping along in his last year as a player with the Mets, who somehow managed to get to the World Series despite winning only 82 regular season games.

* Reggie Jackson was trying single-handedly to not just win the AL pennant again, but to become the superstar that we all now know him to be, and while he was at it, he was also trying to change the way players dealt with both management and the media. He succeeded at all three.

* Pete Rose collected his 2,000th career hit, won his third batting title and his only NL MVP award.

* Charlie Finley was an odd juxtaposition of both progressive and traditional baseball values. For example, he lobbied for the Designated Hitter rule, which was accepted, as a way to improve offense levels in the attandance-challenged American League. He also suggested orange baseballs for night games, though these were only used in exhibitions. At the same time, he was a world-class cheapskate, losing his players' loyalty (and ins ome cases their contracts) over comparitively trifling sums because he simply could not stand to give up a dollar if he didn't absolutely have to.

* George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees for a song from CBS, and despite promises to keep building ships for a living, it was not long before he started meddling...and winning.

At the same time, America was still trying to get out of the Vietnam War, and the Paris Peace Accords were signed, though it would not be the end. By the end of the year, both the President and the Vice President were forced from office over separate political scandals, though Nixon made significant inroads with both China and the Soviet Union, helped to start the DEA, the Alaska Pipeline, and signed the Endangered Species Act, before he was forced to leave.

The World Trade Center, the CN Tower in Toronto and the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Bosporous Bridge in Istanbul and the Sydney Opera House all opened. The SkyLab launches mark the next step in manned space flight and exploration. Thalidomide settlement. The Stockholm Syndrome. The American Indian Movement standoff at Wounded Knee. Roe v. Wade. The Yom Kippur War. The Arab Oil Embargo.

Tie a Yellow Ribbon was the biggest selling single of the year. Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii was seen by over one billion people, and they didn't even have YouTube. Dark Side of the Moon was released. The Miami Dolphins became the first (and still, only) team in NFL history to finish a season undefeated. Secretariat won the Triple Crown. O.J. rushed for over 2,000 yards. Bobby Riggs and his big mouth were beaten (easily) by Billie-Jean King. Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

It was a tumultuous time, you have to admit. And I hadn't even been born yet!

To his credit, Rosengren doesn't try to cover all of that stuff in his book, but he does touch on some of the bigger issues (like Watergate) and how the baseball world could never be wholly insulated from the larger culture. Steinbrenner's illegal campaign contributions to Nixon in 1972 were given special attention in the book,as was the effect of the investigation, and his eventual conviction, on his business with the Yankees). Rosengren also discusses the ways in which Steinbrenner almost immediately renegs on his promise to practice "absentee ownership" and "stick to building ships", and apparently had no shame about the way he wanted to run things. When Mike Burke, the general Manager of the team under CBS's ownership, was forced out, George simply explained that, "[he] didn't agree with everything I wanted to do, so I fired him." (p. 82)

Speaking of contentious and controversial owners, the Oakland Athletics, despite their success in 1972, were a wild bunch, and hated their cheapskate owner. "They disregarded authority with exhuberant contempt." (p. 29) Moreover, they nearly mutinied during the World Series when Finley's meddling forced secondbaseman Mike Andrews to agree to a false medical report in order to get someone else on the roster. Finley eventually forced out his manager, Dick Williams, lost his best pitcher, Catfish Hunter, and the AL MVP Reggie Jackson, once free agency took hold.

Finley's brainchild, the DH, was proposed essentially as a gimmick to improve attendance, which, it was though, would increase with increased offense. The American League in 1972 had averaged just 3.47 runs per game, 13% lower than the Senior Circuit, and almost exactly as low as the anemic 1968 season. Run scoring (and attendance) increased dramatically in 1973, and everyone was so pleased after only the first season of what was supposed to have been a three-year experiment, they decided to make the DH permanent. Hard to blame them.

With that said, I do have to take issue with Rosengren's contention that, "The experiment had improved offense, no question." Offense improved, sure, but how much did the DH have to do with it? Plenty, but not everything. The AL scored 4.28 runs per team per game in 1972, a 25% increase from the previous year, but only about half of that was due to the DH. The rest of it was due to the fact that the League as a whole just hit much better, and much more in line with historical trends. Designated hitters scored 0.58 runs per game in 1973, compared to only 0.14 runs per game by pitchers and pinch hitters in 1972, but everyone else in the American League jumped from a paltry 3.17 R/G up to a much more palateable 3.56 R/G. In short, it looks in retrospect like 1972's pitcher's paradise was just a fluke, which would likely have reverted to the mean anyway, at least to some degree.

Anyway, I'm off-topic. Back to the book.

Rosengren manages to relate some of the social and historical implications of the DH, the ways it was perceived and who actually embraced the role and succeeded at it. Ron Blomberg may have gotten his name in the record books as the first player to serve in the role, But Orlando Cepeda was the one who made the DH look like a good idea. Cha Cha was basically washed up at 35, but got a second chance in Boston in 1973 due entirely to the DH rule, and probably owes his Hall of Fame induction to it. (Rosengren mentions that Cepeda won the inaugural Outstanding DH Award in '73, though he fails to include the fact that Frank Robinson had a much better season. Baby Bull only got the award because it was started by a newspaper in New Hampshire, which is obviously in Red Sox Nation.)

The book, in fact, is really quite good. The author seems to be one of those select few people who can look at an array of information from various and sundry sources and not only see the big picture, but relate it to others as well. It seems that a lot of things really did change in 1973, and Rosengren weaves all the intricate parts of that season together for you, presenting the tapestry and explaining how it all fits, and what it all means.

How he managed to do this is beyond me. His bibliography lists over 50 different books, plus numerous websites, periodicals, audio/video sources and more than a dozen personal interviews with players and other personalities who lived the events in the book. And talk about meticulous! After the brief first chapter, every chapter has at least 29 end notes, and most have at least 60! The man obviously paid enormous attention to detail, working his butt off to verify and cite his sources.

The result is an interesting, well-researched, well-written and comprehensive work that tells the tale of a season that really did change the world of baseball forever.

Pitchers with Something to Prove, AL Edition

Continuing a theme today...

American League:

The Junior Circuit has no shortage of intriguing starting pitching matchups either.

The marquee matchup (and by "marquee" I mean, "The only one I really care about") is Josh Beckett vs. Mike Mussina. Beckett was decent in his last start, especially considering that it came against the Yankees, but in neither of his two starts this year has he much resembled the ace who won 20 games for the BoSox last year. With the Yankee bats starting to heat up, he'll have his work cut out for him.

Thirty-nine year old Mike Mussina, unlike John Smoltz, has been showing his age of late. While he hasn't been terrible, exactly, in any of his three starts this year, he's hardly dominated anyone either, and he's yet to throw more than 91 pitches in a start. Given the drubbing that Chein-Ming Wang took last night, and the efforts put forth by the bullpen to keep the Red Sox at bay, Moose should be trying to figure out how he can go 6+ innings tonight and instill Joe Girardi with some confidence in him.

Simultaneously, Chicago's Gavin Floyd will be starting against Baltimore. Floyd is hardly a big-name, big-game or big-contract pitcher, as many of these others are, but after throwing 7+ no-hit innings against the pre-season favorite Tigers last week, Floyd will want to demonstrate that he's not just a flash in the pan.

Speaking of the Tigers, their alleged ace, Justin Verlander starts for them tonight against Fausto Carmona in Cleveland. Verlander had 35 wins in 2006-07 combined, more than any pitcher in baseball except Wang (38) and Beckett (36). Unfortunately, he's 0-2 with a 6.52 ERA this year, and none of his three starts has been close to "quality", though that trend won't likely continue. Granted, four of his 14 earned runs have been allowed to score by his alleged bullpen "support" but then they were only there in the first place because of Verlander's efforts, so he's got nobody to blame but himself.

Carmona won 19 games last year for the Tribe, and was off to an amazing start this year when the Clevelands signed him to a contract extension last week. The next day he allowed 3 runs in 3 innings to the Oakland A's, who can't hit worth a damn. Hopefully without the pressure of the recently-announced contrat on his mind, he can get his head back in the game and pitch like he showed he could last year. With that said, it appears that the sleeping Tigers' bats are starting to wake up, so Fausto had better work fast-o and get out-o there before he's eaten alive.

One of three former Cy-Young Award winners pitching tonight (along with Smoltz and Peavy), Roy Halladay is 2-1 with a 3.00 ERA. He's coming off a complete game win against the Rangers last week (One run, 110 pitches) and before that an 8-inning win against Boston. We'll see if he can continue to dominate Texas or if he'll revert to his more typical performance against them (He's only 7-5, 5.45 against them in his career).

In Los Angleles of Anaheim of Orange County (which is still a stupid name) Jon Garland faces Brett Tomko. Tomko was 4-12 last year, but has inexplicably pitched pretty well so far this year, one of the reasons that the Royals have a (gasp!) winning record. Temporarily, at least. His opponent, Jon Garland, was traded during the off season for shortstop Orlando Caberea and some cash, and while the South Side fans decried the trade at the time, Chicago GM Kenny Williams is looking like a genious at the moment. Because the moment happens to be one during which Garland is 1-2 with a 5.10 ERA. If, at the end of the summer, Garland has somehow amassed 18 wins (as he did in 2005 and 2006), Williams will have some 'splainin to do.

And finally, but not last, the late game features Oakland's Lenny DiNardo against Seattle's Carlos Silva. The former is nothing special (unless you're his mom, I guess) but the latter was signed to a 4-year, $48 million contract in December (my birthday, in fact), and obviously much is expected of him. Silva's basically a LAIM, though in SafeCo's friendly confines, he'll look a little better than that. Other than that, his one claim to fame was that he virtually never walked anybody back in 2005.

If he can keep that up, the damp northwestern air will help keep his offerings on the ground, and the good people of Washington State should be reasonably happy with their acquisition. Fortunately for him, the Athletics aren't athletic enough to hit their way out of a paper bag, but the tiniest slip in his control will make him a below-average pitcher "earning" $12 million a year, and he'll get real unpopular, real fast.

Pitchers with Something to Prove, NL Edition

Lots of big-name, or big-game, and/or big-contract pitchers will toe the rubber for their respective teams today.

(To be honest, I only thought to look for this because of Rob Neyer's blogging about Dave Pinto's comments yesterday about "Aces in Trouble", but still, it's true.)

National League:

As I write this, the games in Philadelphia and St Louis have already started. Brett Myers started the game for the Phightin's. He was, you'll recall, the best pitcher on the Philly staff as recently as 2006, but last year Charlie manuel panicked when his bullpen seemed to have imploded and made Myers (struggling at the time) his closer for the remainder of the year.

With the acquisition of Brad Lidge, Myers returned to the starting rotation this year, and while he hasn't been as bad as he was in his three starts last year, he has given up five homers in only 18 innings coming into today's game, and had a 5.00 ERA to boot. Fortunately for him, the Houston lineup has only three real hitters in it (Berkman, Lee and Tejada). The other five non-pitchers are Punch-and-Judy hitters like Geoff Blum, Mark Loretta, Michael Bourn, and Humberto Quintero. Right field is manned these days by Darin Erstad, who might be Punch or Judy, but these days, the "and" would be too generous for him.

The Reds play at Chicago, and both pitchers have something to prove there. North-Side southpaw Ted Lilly currently sports an 0-2 record and a 9.95 ERA. After having a career year in 2007 (15-8, 3.83 in 207 innings) he was due to come back to Earth a little bit, but he's practically underground right now. He has yet to get out of the 5th inning or to allow fewer than 4 runs, but his trikeouts are still there, so maybe it's just been some bad luck.

Lilly's opponent, Cincinnati rookie Edinson Volquez, has been dominant but short winded (5 and 5.1 innings) in his two starts so far. He likely would have pitched longer if not for an extended rain delay in Pittsburgh last time out, but still, most teams can't abide many 5-inning starters. Dusty Baker, in particular, has reputations both for overworking pitchers and for being reluctant to use young players. This presents Volquez with a conundrum: How to pitch well enough to keep his job in the starting rotation but not so well that Baker will ask him to throw 140 pitches every time he goes to the mound.

In New York, the Mets' Nelson Figueroa needs to prove that winning his first start since 2003 last week wasn't just a fluke. He's facing the last-place Washington nationals, who have hit .227 as a team so far in 2008, so that should help stave off his being designated for assignment for at least another week. Don't get me wrong: the guy's named Nelson. I want him to succeed. But if he's still pitching in the majors every 5th day come August, something is very, very wrong.

In Miami, the seemingly ageless John Smoltz starts for the Braves. Nobody expects the 40-year old to keep his 0.82 ERA down there all year, nor to remian undefeated. With that said, the team with the oldest rotation in baseball has to get more than it has any right to expect from John Smoltz and Tim Hudson any time they take the mound, because they're not likely to get much from the rest of the rotation (42-year old and already gimpy Tom Glavine and three youngsters you never heard of). Also, many of the better pitchers in the bullpen are on the DL keeping Mike Hampton company, so the 5-6 innings games that Smoltz has given them to this point just will not cut it.

And last but not finally, Colorado's Jeff Francis faces defending Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy in San Diego. Peavy's been lights out this year, like he was last year, but Francis, after posting the second-best VORP in team history (after Jason Jennings in 2006) has been positively awful this year. He's allowed 23 baserunners and 12 runs (including 6 homers!) in just over 11 innings of work. Granted, the Rockies have scored a "grand" total of two runs in each of his two starts, but you can't pitch like that and expect to win. I mean, unless you're Shawn Estes, right?

A Giant Offense With Miniature Bats

Yesterday I opined about the Phillies (meager) chances of scoring 1000 runs this season. Seems pretty clear that we shouldn't get our hopes up about seeing the best offense in history this year, in the City of Brotherly Boooo! or anywhere else.

But what about the other end of the scale? Is it possible that one of the worst offensive teams in history might be taking shape before our very eyes? Or more accurately, before the eyes of the good people of San Francisco?


To date, the 2008 San Francisco Giants have scored only 19 runs in 8 games, for an average of just 2.4 runs per game. Believe it or not, that's only the 3rd worst in the majors at the moment, behind (or above) Detroit at 15 runs in 7 games, and Colorado, at 16 runs in 8 games. However, the Tigers were third in the majors in Runs Scored last year, and the additions of Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria should help them stave off any attrition form Magglio Ordonez and others returning to Earth. Similarly, Colorado was 5th in the majors in runs scored last year, and they still play in a great hitter's park, so they should be fine.


But the Giants? They look more like midgets with each passing day, their win last night notwithstanding. In their 8 games, their oompa-loompa bats have not yet scored more than 4 runs, and they've only scored more than 2 runs three times (losing all three games). They've been shut out twice already.

Baseball Prospectus has them projected to score 635 runs this season, worst in the majors, and 53 fewer than the next closest team, the Seattle Mariners. The San Diego Padres are the only other team in the majors under 712 runs (Minnesota), and both Seattle and San Diego at least have the excuse of playing in severe pitcher's parks.

In the modern era (i.e. since World War II) the fewest runs scored by a team in a full, 162-game season was 463, by the 1968 White Sox. Of course, that was the Year of the Pitcher, when Yaz won the AL batting title by hitting .301, and those 463 runs were only about 16% below the AL average that year. To find a truly, historically awful offense, you have to go to the 1963 Houston Colt .45's, whose 464 runs were about 25% below the NL average. That, however, was a recent expansion team playing in a severe pitcher's park in a pitcher's era.

To get back to a more normal run scoring context, you have to look at the 1969 San Diego Padres. They scored only 468 runs, but in a league in which the average team scored 656, so they were 29% below average. They, too, played in a pitcher's park, but it was not that severe. On the other hand, they had the excuse of being an expansion team. The Mets of the mid-60's and the Pirates and Orioles of the mid 50's were also really, really awful, but not nearly as bad as the '69 Pads.

The California Angels of the late 60's and early 70's were very poor offenses as well, though Anaheim Stadium was a pitcher's paradise, so that helped. The 1976 Montreal Expos are a curious case because they played in a hitter's park, and yet scored only 531 runs. When you adjust for the 107 pitching park factor, that's about 24% less than average.

So, do the Giants have a chance this year?

Last year they scored 683 runs, an average of 4.22 per game, second worst in the major leagues to Washington. That was with Barry Bonds playing 126 games and creating about 100 runs, and Pedro Feliz playing 150 games and creating 63 runs. Ryan Klesko created 49 runs in 116 games, and is also gone now.
In their steads, we have...

...Aaron Rowand, who had a career year in 2007 at age 30, creating 116 runs. With some return to the norm and age-related attrition, let's say he's good for 85 runs.

...Rich Aurilia, now 36 years old, and highly unlikely to create more than about 40 runs, if he plays all year. (He hasn't been healthy enough to play more than 133 games since 2001). Alternate option Dan Ortmeier would be cheaper, but probably no better.

...Jose Castillo, who wasn't good enough to play for the Pirates or the Marlins, and probably won't even manage 40 runs created this year.

Additionally, Omar Vizquel is 41, and is already hurt, so Brian Bocock is playing shortstop. Bocock is 23, and his career minor league numbers are .239/.310/.333, so normally I would suggest that he'll be demoted soon, but if Vizquel doesn't make it back, they really don't have anyone else who can play up here.

Among the players they retained from last year, all of them are on the wrong side of 33, and are therefore likely to regress. Dave Roberts is 35 and, like Vizquel, is also hurt. Randy Winn is 34 and is unlikely to hit .300 again. Ray Durham is 36 and is coming off a year of being plagued by injuries. Bengie Molina (now 33) is a decent hitter, for a catcher, but is likely to see some age-related decline as well. The kids they have on the roster (Fred Lewis, Rajai Davis) aren't really that young, and probably won't get much of a chance to play unless the expensive veterans really flop. Even if they do, the only real benefit to the Giants would be that they're cheaper, not much better.

As bad as the Giants are, however, I don't think they'll be 200 runs worse off than they were last year. They might have trouble scoring 600 runs, but in this day and age, even a terrible team can score 3.5 runs per game.

Phillies Chances to Score 1,000 Runs? None and None.

Baseball fans do love their history, though some of them don't really know it all that well.

Heck, some people who work in baseball don't know their history. And I don't just mean the 20-something security guard I met at Yankee Stadium on Saturday who did not know that the Yankees used to play in Baltimore. (No offense to him, by the way. Most New Yorkers think the universe starts and ends at the George Washington Bridge.)

I'm talking about important people. (Again, no offense to that security guard, who was created in the image of God, just like the rest of us, and is therefore of preeminent importance...just like the rest of us.)

I mean people like Charlie Manuel, the field manager for the Philadelphia Phillies. Manuel was quoted before the season began as saying that he thought the 2008 Phillies could score 1,000 runs or more. His argument, essentially, was that they scored a lot of runs last year (892, leading the NL) and that they had some missed time by Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. He thinks that Howard and Utley and Jimmy Rollins and others on the team have the potential to be even better than they were last year. He thinks that they could become the first team since the 1999 Cleveland Indians, for whom Manuel was the hitting coach, to score 1,000 or more runs.

Or at least he thought that in Spring Training. I didn't, so I didn't bother to mention it in my Phillies Preview, though I did think they'd be one of the better offensive teams in the NL. To date, in the regular season, the Phillies have scored only 32 runs in 7 games, a pace of only 740 runs. Better pick it up a little, guys.

But seriously, could they score that many runs? The sort answer is:

No.

Doesn't get much shorter than that.

Want to know why? That's easy. Nobody ever has.

Well, that's not technically true. The 1930 St. Louis Cardinals scored 1004 runs, but no other National League team since the 1890's has scored 1,000 in a season. Those Cardinals managed that feat in a league that averaged 5.68 runs per game. At that rate, in today's 162 ganme schedule, an average team would score 920 runs. The 1930 Cards had 12 guys (including all eight regulars) who got at least 100 at bats and hit .303 or better. As a team, they hit .314. That was only 3rd in the NL that year. They had three Hall of Famers in their prime in the daily lineup (Chick Hafey, Jim Bottomley and Frankie Frisch). They had three guys who hit at least .366 on the bench(!)

The best mark in a 162-game season goes to the 2000 Colorado Rockies, who scored 968 runs. This, too, was largely a product of the run environment in which the team played. The national League that year averaged exactly 5.00 runs per game, which means that the average team scored 810 runs. However, Coors Field in Y2K was an insane hitter's park, the most severe in history, I think, increasing run scoring by about 25%. That means that a average hitting team would have scored 911 runs playing half its games in Coors Field. Their 968 runs were only about 6% better than average.

The best hitting team in history, taking league and ballpark context into account, is probably the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers. They scored "only" 955 runs, but they did it in a roughly neutral hitter's park (Ebbets Field), and in a league that averaged 4.75 runs per contest, about what the 2007 National League averaged. They scored about 28% more runs than an average team that year. Put the 1953 Dodgers in a neutral park in the 2007 National League, and they'd have scored about 977 runs. Still 23 shy of Charlie Manuel's prediction. With a little help from Citizens Bank Park (which increases runs by about 5%), they'd easily break the record, scoring about 1025 runs. In Colorado, even though it has been significantly tamed in recent years, tack on another 35-40 runs.

So what would have to happen for the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies to score 1,000 or more runs?

Assuming that Citizens Bank Park doesn't suddenly morph into a severe hitter's park, and that the trend toward normal offensive levels in the post-steroids era doesn't reverse itself abruptly, the Phillies will have to score about 25% more runs than an average NL team would, which is a huge number. Not only do they need to get virtually every game out of their stars Howard, Utley and reigning NL MVP Jimmy Rollins, they need just about everybody on the team to vastly out-perform their projected offensive levels.

The simple fact that they play ing the National League, with a pitcher hitting about twice a game or more, makes it all but impossible. The last team to score 1,000 runs, the 1999 Indians, did not have to watch their pitchers hit twice a game. In 1930, the Cardinals' pitchers collectively hit .213 and scored 51 runs. Last year, Phillies' pitchers hit just .155 as a group and scored 28 runs, and that was the best in the majors for a pitching staff.

But what might we expect, or need, from the rest of the lineup?

Baseball Prospectus uses percentiles in their projections, showing not only what a player is likely to do (his 50% projection) but also what he might do if he "kicks it up a notch" or, conversely, gets kicked. His 50% projection essentially means that about 50% of the players similar to him did better than that and 50% did worse. The 75% projection would mean a performance that's better than 3/4 of the players they deemed to be similar in that year.

As far as I can tell, you'd need just about everyone in the starting lineup to meet or exceed his 90th percentile projection, and for everyone on the bench to hit at least their 75% percentile, in order for the Phillies to score 1,000+ runs. That team would look like this at the end of the season:

Starters     PA    R    2B   HR  RBI   BB    SO   SB   AVG   OBP   SLG
Victorino   570   105   29   18   66   46    67   28  .315  .377  .501
Rollins     730   131   43   26   88   59    75   34  .318  .377  .532
Utley       646   122   39   34  103   68   100   10  .328  .408  .596
Howard      711   139   33   59  147  113   184    2  .302  .417  .665
Ruiz        454    72   27   13   57   42    56    7  .303  .374  .480
Feliz       487    67   26   21   74   28    67    2  .289  .332  .492
Burrell     536    97   26   33   86  101   121    2  .283  .420  .583
Jenkins     392    64   20   22   70   35    88    3  .300  .369  .559

Bench
Werth       289    49   14   10   33   41    69    7  .275  .385  .469
Taguchi     233    37   12    3   22   18    25    5  .297  .358  .405
Coste       252    33   12    7   32   15    39    1  .276  .325  .431
Dobbs       313    50   17   11   41   27    49    5  .288  .352  .484
Helms       241    36   15    9   35   19    43    1  .296  .357  .501
Bruntlett    95    13    5    1    7   10    16    4  .281  .371  .414
Snelling    143    21    8    4   16   17    29    2  .288  .383  .494
Total      6092  1036  326  275  860  635  1010  152  .301  .359  .501

There would need to be another 350 or so plate appearances for the pitchers as well, which might mean aonther 25-30 runs. Those are just guesses on the percentages at the bottom.

Anyway, I don't have to tell you that this would be an absolutely incredible team, and that it can only exist in Phantasy-delphia, where the Phans don't boo, the cheese steaks are free and don't contain any cholesterol, and every batter gets to have a career year simultaneously.

Not only would H.U.R. reach their full potential. Those three are in their prime, so any one or even two of them having their best years simultaneously (as Rollins and Utley did last year) is not totally out of the question, but all three of them? Again?!!??

Pat Burrell would need to out-do his career batting average by 25 points at age 31. Thirty-three year old mediocrity Pedro Feliz would need to hit almost 40 points above his career mark, without losing any power. Geoff Jenkins, 33 himself, will need to hit .300 for the first time in this milennium. Carlos Ruiz, who just made it to the show at 29, will have to buck every convention of baseball scouting history and hit over .300 in a full season. Shane Victorino will need to double his usual power level while increasing both his patience and his average, and can't let his speed be sacrificed.

And everyone on the bench needs to play well enough that they would force the issue of whether or not they deserve more playing time. That is, if everyone on the Phatasy-delphia Phillies wasn't having a career year. Which, as you'll recall, they are.

In the AL, with another All-Star playing as a DH, they might be able to do it.

But they aren't, and they don't, so they can't.

In short: It ain't gonna happen.

Cincinnati's Johnny Cueto: Quite-O Debut!

*Attention Orioles' Fans: Read my analysis of Chris Waters' debut HERE.


Not that Rob Neyer's ego needs any more massaging, but his blog entry today about the Reds' young phenom, Johnny Cueto is spot-on.

When I did my preview of the 2008 Reds this spring I intended to give Cueto more ink, but I figured that unless they were desperate, the Reds would start him in AAA, so I didn't bother. Good thing they were so desperate.

With regards to Cueto's MLB debut game last week (7 innings, one-hit, no walks, 10 strikeouts), Neyer refers to Bill James and some research the guys at Baseball Prospectus may did last year, indicating that the fact that a pitcher had a really good start like that does not necessarily mean that he is, or will be, a great pitcher. It just means that everything went right for him on that day, pretty much. Don Larson is a perfect example of this, of course, a guy who had a pretty lackluster career record who just happened to pitch a perfect game in the World Series one time.

But then Neyer appropriately points out that this was not just any start, it was the kid's major league debut, and at just 22 years old, it's hardly fair to compare him with 29-year olds or 34-year olds who have some major league experience.

So I didn't.

Instead, I looked up everyone who pitched at least seven innings and struck out at least ten batters in his major league debut. This brought the list down to just 14 pitchers, including Cueto.

The others are:

Pitcher      Yrs  Wins     IP     ERA+   Notes
Tiant         19   229    3486    114    Won 20+ 4X, 3X All-Star
Marichal      16   243    3507    123    HoF, 9X All-Star
Wakefield     16   168    2627    108    Still going at 41...
Astacio       15   129    2197     97    Won 17 in COL in 1999
May           16   152    2622    102    Won 10 or more 8 times
Aase          13    66    1109    103    Good RP for 10+ years
Richard       10   107    1606    108    Stroke at 30 ended career
Shirley       11    67    1432     96    1st round pick, only spot starter after rookie season
McDevitt       6    21     456     94    Beat Bucs in last game in Brooklyn MLB history
Morehead       8    40     819     89    Pitched in '67 WS
Woodard        7    32     667     91    Hurt a lot; Mitchell Report alleges he bought HGH
Harang         7    63    1006    108    Current Reds' ace
Matsuzaka      2    16     216    110    Won Game 3 of 2007 WS
Average       11   101    1689    107
Non-Dice Avg  12   108    1802    107  

That's an interesting list. Among the 14 pitchers, we've got one Hall of Famer, a borderline guy in Luis Tiant, and a bonafide star in J.R. Richard whose career ended early because of a stroke. We've also got Tim Wakefield, who's no all-star, but has been eating innings and winning a dozen or more games per year for more than a decade (whenever he's predominantly a starter, that is). Pedro Astacio was probably better than you think, but didn't look like anything special because he spent half his career toiling in the worst run environment (Colorado in the late 90's) in history. Don Aase was a relief ace for a few years, and Rudy May was useful if not spectacular.


On average, I think most pitchers would love to hear that they'll probably stick around the majors for 11 or 12 years, win 100 or more games with a better than average ERA, don't you think? I took Dice-K out of the second set of averages because this is only his second year, which consists of exactly one start at this point. Harang has at least been around long enough to establish himself, pitching every fifth day of the Cincinnati Reds schedule for the last several years. Those accomplishments alone would put him in pretty rarefied air, though it will take us a decade to know whether it happens or not.

One thing that bodes well for him is the fact that he struck out so many batters in his MLB debut. Cueto's Game Score of 81 is very good, of course, but it's hardly anything all that exciting, even for a debut performance. Looking at others who have debuted since 1956, which is as far back as the searchable archives at Baseball-reference.com can go, there have been 29 pitchers with a game score of at least 80, including Marichal, Woodard, Tiant, Morehead, May and Astacio.

Also, we see...

* Jeff Russell, eventual relief ace and two-time All-Star,
* Dave McNally, 4-time 20 game winner and three-time All-Star,
* 2002 NL Rookie of the Year Jason Jennings,
* Mike Norris, who should have won the 1980 AL Cy Young Award (though he was never anywhere near that good either before or after that season),
* 14-year veteran Mike Remlinger,
* 13-year veteran Kirk Reuter,
* 12-year veteran Lew Krausse, and
* 11-year veteran Danny Cox

Hard to complain about any of those guys' careers, though only Russell and McNally were very good for any length of time.

However, with those guys, we also get nobodies like Jim Cosman, Mark Brownson, Jeff Pico, Billy Rohr, Dick Rusteck, Kevin Morton, and Charlie Beamon, none of whom lasted more than three seasons in the majors, and many of those were not full seasons. A few others on the list burned out in 4-8 years and never did much while they were still around.

But because game scores depend on runs and hits allowed, not just strikeouts, there could have been more luck or coincidence involved in those guys' MLB debuts. Cueto, on the other hand, retired almost half of the batters he faced on strikes, meaning that he wasn't relying on his defense, or the weather, or the ballpark configuration to get his outs for him.

So what does all this mean? Well, for one thing, it means that Johnny Cueto's expectations are that much greater now. Sure, he was awesome in Spring Training, but some of those guys are back bagging groceries for a living now, so we shouldn't take those spring numbers too seriously. But the Arizona Diamondbacks won the NL West last season, and though their offense is nothing special in and of itself, it is still a major-league offense, and given its youth, it should only be getting better.

Cueto's dominance of them in his first major league game last year bodes very, very well for his career.

Saturday at Yankee Stadium

Got to go to the Yankees-Rays game on Saturday.

I try to attend at least one Yankee game or two a year with my mom and my wife. Used to be I could afford to go to a few games a year but to get half-decent seats these days, I can usually only spring for one or two a year, especially if I have to buy through a ticket broker, as I did for today's game.

On the plus side, because I bought through a broker, when they didn't have the seats I was supposed to get (Field Box 83, Row D) they were required by policy to give me seats at least as good as the ones I was supposed to get. So I actually got seats in Row A, not Row D, right on the field. In this case, the box happened to be along the first base line, right where the foul line meets up with the stadium wall.

Right here:

On the minus side, the stadium security guard who sat near us said that someone bought those same seats for last night's game for about 1/3 of what I paid. Oh well.

As for the game itself, it was a great day to go, no matter where you were sitting. After raining all week, the weather let up and gave us a very nice day Saturday. It was about 60 degrees and sunny at game time, and we didn't really start to even notice the cold until about the 6th inning, when the sun ducked behind the right field tier. Hard to complain about that too much, especially given how cold it was when we came to this same game last season.

The seats were pretty good, or pretty close, anyway. We were behind the protective netting during batting practice, so we couldn't get a ball, but I was close enough that I could have gotten an autograph from Joba Chamberlain if I'd wanted one.

I didn't want one, and he wasn't really signing for very long anyway, but he did take a few minutes to make some kids happy before the game, which was more than any of his teammates were doing, so I'll give him credit for that.

Of course, the trouble with the seats was that we had a security guard sitting right next to us for the whole game, and kind of blocking the view, not to mention the fact that any time a runner was on first base, there were several people between us and the batter, effectively blocking our view: the runner, the first base coach, the first baseman, holding the runner on, the umpire, and the aforementioned security guard. Good thing I'm so tall.

Still though, I was able to get a decent shot once in a while, like this one of Shelly Duncan's single in the second inning, which loaded the bases for the Yanks with only one out. Sadly, as would turn out to be the case for much of the afternoon, the Yankees could not capitalize on this opportunity, and failed to score.

Much of the game followed this theme. The Yankees had nine hits, two walks and a reached-on-error (Matsui, when his fly ball to the RF warning track was lost in the shadows and dropped by Rays' right fielder Johnny Gomes) - twelve baserunners - but only three runs. I all, the team left nine men on base, but missed 21 opportunities to score.

One of these, perhaps the most disappointing, occurred in the home half of the eighth. The Yankees had a surprising amount of trouble with Edwin Jackson, just 5-15 with a 5.76 ERA last year, and managed only one run off him in his six innings. His replacement, journeyman Dan Wheeler, pitched a perfect seventh, but when they brought in Trever Miller, the Yankee bats came alive. Bobby Abreu, Alex Rodriguez and Wilson Betemit (playing for Jason Giambi, who had been removed in the fifth for a sore left groin) rapped consecutive singles, loading the bases with nobody out.

After Robby Cano struck out, Jorge Posada hit a 2-run single to make it 6-3. Unfortunately, Matsui then worked the count to 0-3. Not exactly what the Yankee Stadium faithful had in mind. The last pitch of the at-bat was a borderline call that had everyone in the House That Ruth Built to Last Exactly 85 Years and No Longer booing the umpire, but as you can see from the picture on the left, it was definitely a strike. Matsui sets up in the back of the batter's box, as most power hitters do, but that ball is above the plate at the moment this photo was taken. It's dropping down because it's a curveball, but it's a strike as it crosses the plate.

Shelly Duncan then grounded out to kill the rally, once and for all. The top of he Yankee lineup gave new closer Troy Percival little trouble in the 9th.

The real story of the day, though, at least for the Yankees, was the return of Andy Pettitte, who had been on the DL with back problems for two weeks, this after reporting to Spring Training late due to the Clemens/ steroids/ McNamee/ HGH scandal stuff. Pettitte has not been an overwhelming pitcher for a long time, but he was particularly rusty on Saturday, allowing eight hits and two walks in only five innings of work. He struck out three batters, but also hit Carlos Pena twice, and allowed a homer to Johnny Gomes, a three-run jack in the 5th that all but ended Pettitte's day. He threw only 86 pitches, but most important, perhaps, he was not immediately placed back on the DL after the game, so hopefully he's healthy and just needs a few starts to get some of his finesse back.

As a team, the Yankees' biggest problem is not the pitching though, Ian Kennedy's disastrous start on Friday night notwithstanding. The elephant in the room is the offense, except the only thing offensive about their hitters this year might be their smell. The team has scored 4 runs or fewer in every game this year, and are averaging just under three runs per game. Through Sunday, they had batted .239 as a team with a 658 OPS and five of the nine regulars were hitting .217 or lower.

Ironically, after six games of the 2007 season, the Yankees had not scored fewer than 4 runs in a game, and were averaging almost seven runs per game. With that said, however, they had the exact same 3-3 record that they have right now, and they did manage to make the playoffs for the 13th consecutive season, so maybe we shouldn't be too worried about the offense just yet.

Yankees Need to Address Melky Problem

The New York Yankees start their season today.

Again.

Or at least they’ll try.

After getting rained out in what should have been their last first game of the season in the old Yankee Stadium, they’ll take another stab at it tonight. Fortunately for me, however, the unanticipated delay gives me a chance to discuss an issue that I have come to see as being of paramount importance to the 2008 Yankees’ chances, if not to the very future of the franchise.

Melky Cabrera.

The New York Yankees’ young center fielder is going to kill the Yankees.

OK, not exactly kill them, not yet anyway, but it’s just a matter of time before he does. For all the hype he brings, the “Got Melky?” T-shirts, John Sterling yelling “the Melk-Man delivers!!!” and etc., Cabrera really just isn’t all that good. Worse yet, he’s not likely to become good.

Cabrera, you have been told, “won” the starting center field job from Johnny Damon in 2007, but really, it was Johnny who lost it. He hit only .229 with four extra base hits in April, and though he bounced back a bit in May, his injuries thrust him into an even worse slump in June (.226 with no walks or power in 91 plate appearances that month). By the time he started hitting again, it was too late.

Melky, for his part, was nothing special either. He hit only .200 in sporadic duty in April, and then .254 in May, with a few walks but not much else. But he improved significantly in June, just as Damon was going back in the tank, and then got hot in July and August, just as the Yankees began gaining ground on the Red Sox. He averaged an RBI or a run scored per day that month. Though he tanked in September (hitting .180 with a .220 slugging percentage, thanks to only four doubles and no homers or triples in 100 at-bats), Damon hit well that month, and anyway by then the Yankees’ postseason berth was pretty secure, so nobody noticed.

For the season, Melky hit a respectable .273 with a .327 on-base percentage and a .391 slugging percentage. That gave him a .719 OPS that ranked 53rd among the 57 outfielders who qualified for the batting title in 2007. His Secondary Average and Runs Created per 27 outs both also ranked 53rd, while his Isolated Power was 50th. Near or below him on most of those lists were Corey Patterson, Vernon Wells, Juan Pierre, Coco Crisp, Andruw Jones, Delmon Young and/or David DeJesus. Those guys are all center fielders as well, except for Young, who could be a center fielder if it weren’t for the presence of B.J. Upton and Rocco Baldelli on the Devil Rays’ roster.

Jones and Wells are both very good hitters who had awful years in 2007, but who should bounce back. Crisp has been plagued by injuries since he was traded to Boston two years ago, but he still manages to be a prolific and effective base stealer (60 steals, but caught only 10 times in 2006-07) and an excellent defensive player. Pierre isn’t much for defense, but he has speed to burn, and is an excellent base stealer. (The value of that skill, however, can hardly make up for his poor hitting, and he may be losing his job in LA because of it.) Patterson, too, steals bases often and well, and has shown a little power in the past, though he didn’t much in 2007, and had an off year on defense as well. Young is still, well, very young (21) and hit for some power in the minors (51 homers at three levels in 2004-05) so I suspect that the power will come for him, especially if he learns to lay off a bad pitch once in a while.

But Melky’s different. He’s decent at a lot of things, but not great at anything. He hits for a respectable average. He walks a little. He doesn’t strike out too much. He steals a few bases (13 for 18 in 2007). The jury’s still out on his defense. (Baseball Prospectus rated him as +14 Fielding Runs Above Average last year, but Bill James’ +/- metric says he was 22 plays below average last year, so who knows?) Regardless, it’s clear that he doesn’t stand out in anything, and that may be a problem.

A quick look at the ten most comparable players to Cabrera, (according to Bill James’ Similarity Scores) through their age 22 seasons, reveals some interesting names:

Sixto Lezcano
Max Carey
Chet Lemon
Rick Manning
Harry Heilmann
Roberto Clemente
Cliff Heathcote
Carlos May
Les Mann
Jimmy Sebring

That’s an interesting list. Three of the ten (Carey, Heilmann and Clemente) are Hall of Famers and Chet Lemon and Carlos May were All Stars two or three times each. Not a bad list of comps, all things considered. But remember, these similarity scores are through age 22 only. Part of the reason that Melky’s in such good company is the very fact that he was a regular player at ages 21 and 22, when most players are still in AA or AAA. The fact that he didn’t totally fall flat on his face in the majors at such a young age automatically bodes well for his long term success.
But what about in the short term? Lezcano, Lemon, Heilmann, Heathcote and May all got hurt and missed significant time during their age 23 seasons. That’s probably just a weird coincidence, but you can’t ignore the fact that the more you Play, the more likely you are to get hurt.

Carey, Heilmann, Heathcote and Mann all played in the Dead Ball Era, at least through their age 22 seasons, so any apparent increase in power for them (like Heilmann starting to hit 15-20 home runs every year) likely had more to do with the change in the nature of the game itself than to any real improvement in skills.

Carey was basically a slap hitter and an extremely prolific base stealer (738 of them, 9th place all time) who didn’t hit .300 in a full season between age 22 and age 31, when the Dead Ball Era was ending. Heathcote was decent but unspectacular for about 15 seasons, amassing 500 at-bats in a season only once, at age 28.

Les Mann had his best season at age 22, in the Federal League in 1915, so that hardly counts. He promptly returned to mediocrity in the National League when the Federal League folded. He held on long enough to parlay some success as a part-time player at the end of the Dead Ball Era into a few more years of work, but was never anything to write home about.

As for the others on the list…

Sixto Lezcano: Got a jump in his power at age 23 and hit 15-20 homers a year when he was healthy. At age 25 he hit .329 with 28 homers and 101 RBIs and finished 15th in the NL MVP voting, but never came close to those numbers again and was out of baseball by age 31.
Chet Lemon: Started to hit for some power at age 22, and hit .300 or better three times in the late 70’s and early ‘80’s, though only once in a full season. He was a productive regular or semi-regular through age 33 and retired at age 35, after a couple of down seasons. The Yankees could do a lot worse than to have Melky turn out like this.

Rick Manning: Played for 13 seasons (1975-87) but never hit more than 8 homers in any of them. After hitting .285 and .292 at ages 20 and 21, he never did better than .270 in any other year of his career. He stole some bases, but not always well, and walked once in a while, but not enough to make up for hitting .250 with no power. The Tribe finally got tired of waiting for him to turn into Tris Speaker and traded him to the Brewers in 1983, when he was 28. By the middle of 1984 he was relegated to spot starter/pinch hitter status, and by 1987 he was retired.

Roberto Clemente: A terrific talent, and a deserving Cooperstown enshrine, but he didn’t start hitting for power until he was 25, and then he got some MVP votes every year for a decade. Still he had that great arm and a swing that produced doubles and triples even when he wasn’t hitting homers, so there was a little more reason to believe that Clemente would turn out like that than there is for Cabrera, I think.

Carlos May: May had hit .280+ with power at ages 21 and 22, and though he lost some of the power, he gained in batting average every year from age 21 to age 24, when he hit .308 and made the All-Star team, all the time with lots of walks. At age 25 he hit 20 homers, drove in 96 runs and got a few MVP votes, but after that his career spiraled downward quickly. His power and batting average both disappeared simultaneously, and with them, his playing time. He lost about 100 at bats at ages 27 and 28, then about 150 at age 29, when he hit .236 with a sub-Neifi .623 OPS, and then retired.

Jimmy Sebring: Played in the early 1900’s for the Pirates and Reds, as a regular at ages 21 and 22, but played less than half of a season, badly I might add, at age 23, and then disappeared except for a cup of coffee at age 27. An anomalous data point, at best, given the abbreviated career and the time in which he played.

Bill James’ Similarity Scores, however, are not the only tool for comparing players. Baseball prospectus, for example, has its own methods of comparing players, and they’re a bit more comprehensive than James’ approach, which is based entirely on stats. BP has a list of 20 “comps” to Malky Cabrera for 2007, and these are, in order:

Carlos Beltran
Coco Crisp
Pete Rose
Brian McRae
Rick Manning
Nick Markakis
Reggie Smith
Rondell White
Jim Wohlford
Hosken Powell
Mark Kotsay
Tito Francona
Bernie Williams
Marquis Grissom
Carl Yastrzemski
Shannon Stewart
Ellis Burks
Peter Bergeron
Tom Umphlett
Lee Mazzilli

Most of those guys had long careers, 10 years or more, though some of them were only marginally useful during much of their long careers. Others are in the midst of their career now, so we don’t know how they’ll turn out, though some of the players have been around long enough (Beltran, Stewart, Kotsay) that we have a pretty good idea of what they are.

It should be noted, however, that none of these guys is substantially comparable to Melky. BP indicates that for their scores, which are graded on a 0-100 scale, a score of 50 or higher means a player is substantially comparable to another player. A score of 40, I suppose, is only moderately comparable. Melky’s closest comp, Carlos Beltran, scores a 40, and everyone below that is between 30 and 36. By comparison, Bobby Abreu’s closest comp, Carl Yasztremski, also scores a 40, as does Beltran’s #1 comp, Tom Tresh. It’s like taking the SAT all over again!

1. BELTRAN: TRESH ::

a. POSADA : DAVIS
b. CRISP : McRAE
c. CABRERA : BELTRAN
d. ABREU : YASTZREMSKI
e. CORPULENCE : AUSTENTATIOUS

When in doubt, you always answer “b”, right?

So I don’t really know what to make of those comparisons, except that we should probably take them with a grain of salt. Still, if you look at the players on that list, and particularly how well they did at age 23, Cabrera’s current age, you can get an idea of how they turned out. The average, age-23 WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) among those players was about 3.6. Twelve of the 20 players on the list came close to or exceeded that mark at age 23, or at least demonstrated such ability before that, even if they had a down year at age 23. These were:

Hitter      Yrs. OPS+   Age-23 WARP
Beltran      11  116     1.5
Williams     16  125     3.3
Kotsay       12  100     2.6
Manning      14   84     2.8
Rose         24  118     4.4
Markakis      2  114     6.8
Smith        17  137     7.4
White        17  108     4.6
Yastrzemski  23  129     8.4
Burks        18  126     6.3
Umphlett      3   65     3.9
Mazzilli     14  109     6.6
Average*     15  116     4.7

*I threw Markakis out of the average calculations because this was only his second year, though it was a very good one. In case you’re curious, if you throw Umphlett out, too, the numbers go up to 16.6 years, 117 OPS+ and 4.8 WARP.

The following eight players did not demonstrate the ability to produce at least a 3-3.5 WARP season by age 23:

Hitter      Yrs. OPS+   Age-23 WARP
Crisp         6    94     1.4
McRae        10    92     1.9
Wohlford     15    84     2.9
Powell        6    79     2.5
Francona     15   107     1.3
Grissom      17    92     2.4
Stewart      13   107     1.2

Bergeron      5    56    -1.1
Average      11    93     1.6

Crisp’s career is hardly over, as he’s only 28 this year, but there’s little reason to believe he’ll ever be a star. McRae was a useful player for a while, supplementing his modest hitting skills with his speed, but was washed up at 31.

Francona took a while to get going, thanks to the Korean War, injuries, and managers with the Browns/Orioles and Tigers who never gave him a shot, but when he finally got to play in Cleveland, he did not disappoint. He parlayed the success of hitting .363 at age 25 into four more years of regular work, but by 30, he was basically a spot starter and pinch hitter.

Though he didn’t do much before age 24, Grissom was very good for about 6 years, a 5-tool player, and was useful for another 5 years or so after that. Stewart’s no star, but he’s had four of the 5 tools (no power, really) at one point or another in his career, so teams keep giving him a chance. He’s probably got a year or two left as a fourth outfielder before he can’t hit for enough batting average to keep his job anymore.

For Yankee fans, the really scary names on that list are Jim Wohlford, Hosken Powell and Peter Bergeron, not to mention Umphlett. Wohlford was never really a good hitter, and made a career for himself as a defensive replacement. In other words, these days, he’d never make it. Powell, like Bergeron, never hit, and didn’t last long. Umphlett looked solid as a rookie, getting the only RoY vote that didn’t go to Harvey Kuenn in 1953, but fizzled out quickly after that. Melky has, it seems, already demonstrated superior talents to any of those three, but not vastly superior, and therein lies the problem.

Most of the guys on the list of Cabrera’s comparables who turned out to be any good had done something to establish themselves by this age. Rose and Beltran each won a Rookie of the Year Award at age 22. Francona and Reggie Smith each finished 2nd in the RoY voting at the same age. Yaz was getting MVP votes at age 22, and was an All-Star and serious MVP candidate at 23. Ellis Burks hit 20 homers and stole 27 bases at age 22. And Melky?

Well, he’s got those T-shirts!

In my mind, that’s just not enough. Granted, he’s still young, so he’s cheap, and the Yankees should have plenty of offense, it would seem. But the Yankees do not have the luxury of overlooking a spot in the lineup. Not this year, in which they expect two aging veterans and three sophomore starting pitchers to help carry them into the postseason. Not in a year when Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez are bound to suffer significant declines from their 2007 production levels. Not in a year in which the Red Sox look like they’re well equipped to defend their World Championship.

So here’s the plan: The Yankees still have four outfielders, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Abreu and Cabrera, plus Shelley Duncan on the bench. They don’t have much in AAA, but they could probably get by with Jason Lane or Greg Porter as the 5th outfielder. Damon’s under contract for this and next year and is blocking Cabrera, but his contract and his health (or lack thereof) make him essentially untradeable. Abreu and Matsui are both still productive, so that makes Cabrera the odd man out.

He’s young enough and cheap enough that other teams will want him on his “potential” alone, not to mention the fact that he’s not eligible to be a free agent for three more years. That, and maybe some other mid-level minor league swag, might be just enough to fetch a decent starting pitcher in mid-summer, before the trading deadline.

Some other team, conceding that they need to go into re-building mode, might give up a superfluous pitcher making a little too much money, especially a lefty like Jarrod Washburn or Mark Buehrle, who might do well in Yankee Stadium. Guys like Derek Lowe, Jon Garland or Ben Sheets, in the last years of their contracts and unlikely to be re-signed, could become available if their teams are out of contention in July.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am NOT saying that the Yankees should mortgage their future for a fleeting shot at the 2008 postseason. I am saying that Melky Cabrera is NOT the future, not if he doesn’t start getting really good at something. His pitiful spring (.222 with one extra-base hit – a double - in 63 at-bats) does not bode well for him.

A centerfielder with a good arm but questionable range is destined to be a right fielder, and there are no right fielders who can’t hit 10 homers in a season, or hit .320, or steal 30 bases, or something. If Cabrera wants to be in the future plans for the Yankees – and really, who wouldn’t? – then he’s got to start hitting like a future star.

It’s high time for the Melk-Man to deliver.

Canseco's Juice is Running Out...

Rob Neyer's got a blog entry today about Jose Canseco's new book. Apparently someone named Joe Lavin got a copy from a bookstore a little sooner than anticipated, though it would surprise me if some of the usual book-reviewing types had not already been given a copy.

Of course, River Avenue Blues thinks that the original is a satire anyway, a fake. Looking at the original column, I don't see how it can be anything but a fake. Lavin says that Canseco includes a profane, personal attack/insult to Alex Rodriguez at the end of one chapter, which is something I can't imagine a publisher allowing, or even a ghost writer, as Jose had last time with Steve Kettmann. I doubt he's so refined his writing skills in the last three years that he no longer needs a ghost writer, and I can't imagine that even the most ineperienced one would let something like that through.

Lavin says that Canseco was upset that he didn't get mentioned more in the Mitchell Report, quoting him as saying "I was Mitch-slapped!" There is no way on God's green Earth that Jose Canseco is clever enough to have thought of that on his own. And if his ghost writer suggested it, he would have just looked at him quizically, like your dog looks at you when he can't figure out what you've done with the rest of the coookie you were eating, the one that's now "hidden" in your other hand.

Lavin says that Canseco attests to having taken two lie detector tests, and that the results are in the book. This is ridiculous. I've seen the movies. I know how these things work. The results of a polygraph test would take pages and pages of space in a book. You get readings of heart rate, pulse, body temperature, stuff like that, and it all comes out on a running chart on which there are lots of jagged lines, none of which are meaningful unless you know

A) What questions were being asked when those particular readings were taken

2) What the readings looked like when he was asked innocuous questions with either true or false answers, and

iii) How much of a difference in those readings is significant.

He could have published the results of a seismograph machine from somewhere under the San Francisco Bay and 99% of us would never know the difference. In other words, you have to be a trained polygraph reader, and even then, the experts can disagree. Which is one of the reasons these things are not admissible in court. (The other being that all judges are psychic and can tell when you're lying, anyway!)

Toward the end, Lavin says that Canseco describes a lengthy conversation with CBS's octogenarian news anchor Mike Wallace about he potential benefits of HGH, and Levin ends his column as follows:

Yes, apparently, Mike Wallace could be juiced. It makes sense. How else to explain how Wallace has stayed on top of his game well into his eighties? No word yet on whether Andy Rooney is juiced too.

This is tongue-in-cheek, here, folks. Wallace took a lot of flak last year for his interview with Roger Clemens, in which he clearly was NOT at the top of his game. He's a big name, certainly, but he's a soft touch these days, and a personal friend of Clemens, which was exactly why Roger chose him for the interview. He violated two of the three classic journalism blunders, the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well known are 'ask tough questions' and 'make sure you can remain objective'.

And besides, even if Mike Wallace did want to learn about HGH, do you think he would actually risk talking to Jose Canseco about it? He may be old and crotchety and not much of an interviewer anymore, but the man is not stupid. Jose Canseco wrote a book three years ago, and is publishing another one in which he supposedly divulges confidential information form personal conversations with people who trusted him at the time...why would Wallace confide in this guy?

Getting back to Canseco, I read and reviewed his book Juiced as well, and found it mostly pretty interesting, but that was because it was chocked full of what were (at the time) mostly new revelations.

This new one, whether Lavin actually read it or not, appears to be just an effort by Canseco to make a few bucks by jumping on the bandwagon. Though it should be noted that he started this whole thing by pushing that bandwagon down the hill three years ago. At the time, many of his accusations were based on first hand experience of injecting or supplying other players, though now it just sounds like he's accusing anyone who's a big name and might make a splash for his book to get some press.

I've already got a couple of other books to review, both of which seem like they'll be more interesting and better written than Canseco's new offering, and I won't even get to them until I've gotten through Baseball Prospectus 2008 and drafted my fantasy team. I expect that Canseco's sequel to Juiced will be a lot like The Matrix: Revolutions and everything Erik Hinske's done since he won the 2002 AL Rookie of the Year - a lot less interesting, and only still there because there's a lot of money involved.

2008 Cincinnati Reds Preview

It's been a long time since the Cincinnati Reds were any good. The team has not finished a season with a winning record since Y2K, but even that team was not exactly "competitive", finishing 10 games back in the NL Central, and nine back in the Wild Card race. They did win 96 games for a Wild-Card tie with the Mets the year before that, which they lost, but the team has not been in the playoffs since 1995, when they won their division handily.

The Cincinnatis were once the proudest franchise in baseball. Of course, that was 1868, and there were no other professional baseball teams. Once the rest of the country caught on, the Cincinnati club, well, them, not so much...but lets not be picky.

They had some pretty good moments in the 20th century, too, but in this one? They've won more games than only six of the 30 MLB teams (and only 2 of 16 NL teams): the Brewers, Orioles, Tigers, Pirates, Royals and Rays, in that order. And the Tigers have actually turned themselves around recently. But the Reds, despite a great fan base, a new ballpark, and as rich a history as any team in baseball this side of the Bronx, haven't done diddly-squat in this milennium.

But that could all change in 2008.

Not so much because the Reds are any smarter or better than they have been. Just because the NL Central division is, by all accounts, up for grabs. With apologies to the 2006 World Champion Cardinals, no team in the division has won more than 85 games in either of the last two seasons, and the teams that have competed did not do much to upgrade themselves over the winter.
Not that the Reds did. But their young talent may be at a point where it can help them in the ways that free agency and trades, due to their exhorbitant prices, cannot.

Starting Rotation:

The pitching staff is headed up by Aaron Harang, who has been, believe it or not, one of the best starters in the major leagues for the last three seasons. I know, it's hard to fathom that a guy who has averaged fewer than 15 wins and a 3.77 ERA in that span should be allowed to lay claim to such a title.

However, when you consider that he's been on lousy teams and has had to pitch half his games in the Great American Phonebooth, it starts to make sense. Only eight pitchers in MLB have totaled at least 650 innings and an adjusted ERA of 120 or better, and among them, Harang is 3rd in Innings, 2nd in complete games and strikeouts.

With that said, his 120 ERA+ is the worst of that small bunch, and it's not likely he'll ever be any better than this, but he's a solid workhorse, and nobody should be surprised if he racks up another 225 innings with an ERA around 3.75 or so. And if the Reds hit like their projections suggest they will? He could win 20 games.

The #2 man in the rotation is Bronson Arroyo, who is also an unspectacular workhorse, though one who's much better than his 9-15 record in 2007 would suggest. If he can give the Reds another 200+ innings with a slightly better than average ERA, they'll have no reason to complain.

Free agent signee Josh Fogg, despite a lackluster resume, has pitched well this spring and should easily make the rotation in the #3 hole. After that, it's anybody's guess. The incumbent rotation members, Matt Belisle, and Homer Bailey, have done nothing this spring to secure themselves jobs. Bailey had racked up an 8.44 spring ERA that got him sent back to the minors, and Belisle has been even worse.

In their place, most likely, will be young hot-shots Edinson Volquez (5 runs and 3 walks in 13 innings, with 19 strikeouts so far this spring) and Johnny Cueto (3 runs in 13 innings, with 12 K's and 4 walks). Young pitchers are a volatile commodity, and it would be foolish to expect these two to go Fernando on the league, but it would be even more foolish to send them back to the minors to start the season. If they can meet projections for this year, i.e. a roughly league average ERA and pitch 25-30 games, the Reds' potent offense could get them some wins.
It's dangerous to read too much into spring stats, but 19 strikeouts and three walks is impressive no matter the context. And really, these guys have got to produce this year if the Reds are to contend. If they don't, Cincinnati cannot reasonably expect Jeremy Affeldt or (if he ever comes off the DL) Eric Milton to carry them to the playoffs.

And the minor league well is pretty shallow. The pitchers who got the bulk of last years starts for the AAA Louisville team are mostly either gone (Mike Gosling, Elizardo Ramirez, Phil Dumatrait, Victor Santos), injured (Bobby Livingston) or ineffective this spring (Bailey, Tom Shearn, Richie Gardner). There's not much left.

One (small) ray of hope, however, comes in the form of Matt Maloney. (Predicted Bermanism: The Maloney Ranger, which would be much better if he actually pitched for Texas, but what can you do?) Maloney came to the Reds from the Phillies in the Kyle Lohse trade last year. Maloney nearly won the pitching "triple Crown" in the Sally League in 2006, finishing 16-9 for Lakewood with a 2.03 ERA and 180 strikeouts in 168 innings. He was doing well in Reading in 2007 when he was traded, and then got a couple of starts for the Reds' AA team before he was promoted to Louisville and did well there too. He finished 2007 with a combined record of 13-10 with a 3.64 ERA and 177 strikeouts in 170 innings.

Most important, perhaps, he dropped his walk rate from 3.90/9IP to just 2.85/9IP, a huge improvement in control. Unfortunately, he's been awful this spring, so he'll likely have to re-prove himself in AAA before they give him a shot in the majors. Bullpen: Newly-signed Closer Francisco Cordero brings the sexiest name Cincinnati has had in that role since Rob Dibble, not to mention a much sexier face than David Weathers.

Of course, even Amy Winehouse could meet that requirement, even with that weird fungus consuming her face. I mean, I know my momma told me if I can't say anything nice I shouldn't say anything at all (or was that Thumper?) but seriously, this guy is not attractive.

Anyway, Cordero has had success, averaging more than a strikeout per inning since 2003, when he took over closer duties in Texas. He's not exactly automatic, as his ERA has been well over 3.00 two of the last three years, and close to three in two more years since 2003, but then you don't need perfection to be a closer. Just ask Joe Borowski.

Cordero strengthens the Reds' bullpen if only because he adds another quality arm to it, and therefore decreases the number of important innings that have to be assigned to pitchers like Jeremy Affelt. That's not worth $46 million dollars, of course, but it's worth something.
Weathers becomes the main righty setup man, and though Mike Stanton is penciled in as the main lefty right now, he's going to be 41 on June 2nd, and he had a 5.93 ERA last year. It would be nice to see him pass Jesse Orosco to be first all time in relief appearances, but he'll need about two more seasons for that, and I don't see him lasting out this season, much less two.

More likely, the main lefty out of the pen will eventually be Affeldt (if he can keep his 2007 successes going), or some combination of youngsters Bill Bray and the vaguely-dirty sounding Jon Coutlangus. Righties vying for time in the pen should include 25-year old Jared Burton, who went 4-1 with a 1.84 ERA after the All-Star break last year, Todd Coffey, who's been excellent this spring despite a 5.82 ERA in 2007, and anyone who doesn't make the rotation.

Additionally, it seems that Gary Majewski is working his way back after a year in which he was either injured, or filming a movie about The Three Musketeers, I'm not sure which.

The Reds' bullpen should be greatly improved over 2007, in which the team's 5.10 ERA in relief was no relief at all, worst in the NL by over a quarter of a run and 4th worst in the majors.

Simple regression to the mean by the likes of Majewski and Coffey should help, as will the departures of Kirk Saarloos, Eddie Guardado, Rheal Cormier, Victor Santos and Mike Gosling, who all posted very high ERAs. Mike Stanton will be gone if he's not any better than last year, as this is the last of his contract, which should also help. The pitchers taking their places should help to keep the likes of Bill Bray and Marcus MacBeth in the minors if they're not ready for the Show, as it seemed last year.

Starting Lineup:

The expected lineup on Opening Day is:

1) Corey Patterson, CF
2) Brandon Phillips, 2B
3) Ken Griffey Jr., RF
4) Adam Dunn, 1B
5) Edwin Encarnacion, 3B
6) Scott Hatteberg, 1B
7) David Ross, C
8) Jeff Keppinger, SS
9) Aaron Harang, Pitcher

The Reds do not have a bonafide leadoff hitter, but Patterson is the closest thing, at least in the mind of new field manager Dusty Baker. He frequently employed Patterson in this manner when they were both Cubs, and he's planning on doing it again. Unfortunately, if Patterson falters, Ryan Freel is seen as the next best option. Both players posted an adjusted OPS just slightly above 100 in 2003, and neither has done it since. This is, as they say in France, not good.
Of course, batting order does not matter nearly as much as batting quality, and the Reds are flush in quality hitting prospects, with both OF Jay Bruce (Baseball America's #1 overall prospect in 2008) and 1B Joey Votto. If Baker can be convinced to give these guys a chance, and thereby displace their veteran competition (Patterson and Scott Hatteberg, respectively), he might find that his team is the better for it.

If Baker understood OBP as he ought to, he'd probably try Edwin Encarnacion (.359 and .356 each of the last two seasons) in the leadoff spot instead. Griffey and Dunn are both much better at getting on base, but both hit for consistent power as well, and are therefore more valuable hitting 3rd and 4th. Brandon Phillips won't hit 30 homers again, but 15 or even 20 probably are not out of reach. PECOTA's got him hitting .274/.325/.444 with 20 homers, which sounds about right.

Ken Griffey's not the superstar he used to be. Heck, "Junior" is 38 now, and has not played a full, healthy season since 1999. When he plays, however, he can still hit, patiently and with power, even if he's not likely to ever crest .290 again. PECOTA suggests that he'll hit about .268 with 20 homers in 417 plate appearances, but also warns that he's got a better than 1-in-4 chance of losing a bunch of playing time due to injury.

When that happens, Jay Bruce should get to play, and may impress. He's hit for average and power in the minors (over .300 with 26 homers at three levels in 2007) and will take a walk, but is young and raw and will strike out a lot in the majors, as most young players do. Only 21, he's got some time to develop, but again, if the Reds are to compete this year, they need him to come into his own pretty quickly, and to supplant the at-bats that Patterson or Freel would have gotten, not to take Griffey's playing time when he sustains his annual injury.

Behind Griffey in the lineup is seamhead favorite Adam Dunn, who walks a ton, homers a ton and strikes out a ton and a half. He's hit exactly 40 homers each of the last 3 seasons, so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he hits...oh, let's say 39 this year.

I suggested that Encarnacion could be a good leadoff option, which is based moistly on the fact that the Reds don't really have a good leadoff option, but he's the closest thing, this side of Keppinger. PECOTA has him projected to hit 23 homers this year, though, and I doubt that Baker would want power like that leading off. However, Encarnacion never hit more than 17 homers in the minors, and that was in the Midwest league, where power is cheap, so I'll believe that when I see it. In any case, he's developed into a solid major league thirdbaseman, and at only 24 year sold, should only get better.

Hopefully, Baker has enough sense to let Joey Votto play every day instead of Scott Hatteberg, whose time as a useful starter, if indeed there ever was such a time, has clearly come and gone. Granted, he hit .310 last year with his typical patience (and his typical lack of power), which could fool Baker into thinking he'd be a good option to start, but he's 38, and that was the first time he'd really been "good" since, well, ever.

He posted a 116 OPS+ in 2002, but had not been over 109 since, until he posted a 120 mark last year. He set single season career highs in batting average, OBP, slugging, OPS and OPS+, all at the age of 37, though he did not get enough plate appearances for the season to qualify. Is it really likely that he's going to be anywhere near that good again? I don't think so, and neither do the guys at Baseball Prospectus, who have him slated to hit .278 with 7 homers.

Votto, meanwhile, should hit about .280 with 25 homers if he gets to play daily. Unfortunately, Votto's hitting only .158 this spring while Hatteberg is clipping away at .382, so it very unlikely that Baker has seen enough from his young prospect (ranked #4 in the Reds' system and #44 in all of MLB) to give him the first base job at this point.

Catcher Dave Ross barely cracked the Mendoza Line last year, hitting just .203 after he surprised the hell out of everyone by hitting .255 with 21 homers in 2006. He'll share catching duties with seasoned (read: OLD) veteran catcher Javier Valentin, making something of a Hitting/Catching platoon instead of the classic Righty/Lefty thing. Except that Valentin isn't much of a hitter anymore either. He's just better than Ross.

If one of them gets injured, minor league veteran Ryan Hannigan can step in, but he's no long-term solution, as he doesn't have enough power to light one of those new-fangled LEDs, much less to keep an opposing pitcher honest. This will be a trouble spot for the Reds all year.

Phillips' double play partner is currently slated to be Alex "No 'S'" Gonzalez, who hit .272 with 16 homers for them last year, but is more likely to hit something like .255 with 10 homers this year, assuming he's healthy enough to play. The Reds might be well served to let Jeff Keppinger get a shot this year at short, as PECOTA thinks he'll hit .305/.364/.418, which would also make him their best option for a leadoff man.

Keppinger's done nothing but hit everywhere he's played: .325 in Lynchburg, .337 in Altoona, .362 in Binghamton, .337 in Norwich, .300 in another stint in Norwich, .354 in Omaha, .368 in Louisville, and then .332 with the Reds last year, and always walking more than he strikes out. So why is he listed second to a proven mediocrity like "No 'S'" on the ESPN.com's Reds Depth Chart? Perhaps because he doesn't do much else. He's not a great defensive player, doesn't steal, doesn't hit for power...but if you can hit .300 in the majors, even without much in the way of secondary skills, there's a job for you somewhere. Between second, third and short in Cincinnati this year, he should get every opportunity to prove himself.

Bench:

Almost everyone on the bench has already been mentioned, given that there are so many position battles in the Reds' camp this spring. The ones who lose out (hopefully Hatteberg, Patterson, Freel, Valentin, and Gonzalez, if he's healthy) could be joined by the likes of Norris Hopper, Andy Phillips, or Paul Bako, but none of those is likely to get much, if any, playing time. The Reds' bench should be pretty strong, but that's only because they have a lot of question marks in the starting lineup and seem to have stocked up on guys who could be good fall-back options.

Summary:

There are too many question marks on this team right now for me to have much confidence about it going into 2008. They've got a lot of talent, but there are so many things that obviously have to break just the right way for them. Mostly they need their old players to not get hurt and their young prospects to all pan out at once, neither of which is likely to actually happen.
My best guess: we get a chance to see flashes of brilliance from each of the youngsters, but only Votto and probably one of the young pitchers, let's say Volquez, really does anything significant. Griffey gets hurt, Bruce isn't ready yet, Patterson and Freel combine for 550 at-bats (and 400 outs), and the Reds finish 82-80. A big jump from their 4th place finish in 2007, but not ready for the bigtime yet.

Look for them to take the NL Central by storm in 2009.