Baseball From A-Z

MLB Network did a countdown of the best baseball player ever for each letter of the alphabet.

And I can't resist.  So, what you see here would be my list, plus the runner-up for each letter.  Where MLB chose someone different, I placed that in parenthesis.

A-Aaron, not hard, runner up is Pete Alexander

B-Bonds, even easier, runner up is Johnny Bench

C-Cobb, tough, the Rocket would be a fair selection

D-DiMaggio, Ed Delahanty's the runner-up.

E-Edmonds (MLB picked Eckersley, but he wouldn't be my runner-up, that would be Buck Ewing)

F-Foxx ( MLB picked Feller, that's a bad pick, but he'd be my runner-up )

G-Gehrig (Lefty Grove's my runner-up)

H-Hornsby (Rickey would also be defensible)

I-   Monte Irvin (MLB picked Raul Ibanez, which is an...interesting selection; it's a mediocre lot, my runner-up might be Brandon Inge)

J-Walter Johnson (easy pick, Randy is next)

K-Kaline (MLB took Koufax, which is error, Killebrew would be my runner-up) 

L-Lajoie (easy pick, Larkin's my runner-up)

M-Mays (easy pick despite how great Musial was)

N-Nichols (I missed this pick, I assume they picked Phil Niekro, that's reasonable and he'd be my runner-up)

O-Ott (There isn't an O anywhere near Mel Ott; Jim O'Rourke is my runner-up)

P-Pujols(MLB took Satchel Paige, which is unsupportable. Gaylord Perry's my runner-up)

Q-Jack Quinn(MLB took Quisenberry, 'cause they don't know who Jack Quinn was)

R-Ruth (Frank Robinson's the runner-up)

S-Schmidt (just ahead of Seaver)

T-Frank Thomas (easy, Thome's next)

U-Utley (by a little bit over George Uhle)

V-Vaughan(MLB took Omar Vizquel?  Can we take a moment?  In 7700 PA Vaughan had 70 WAR by B-Ref; Vizquel in 12000 PA had 40.I must have misunderstood the purpose of this list)

W-Wagner(MLB took Ted Williams, which I get)

X-(MLB took David Ortiz. Dopey)

Y-Young (obviously)

Z- Ryan Zimmerman(MLB took Zito, and that's reasonable and maybe even the better pick, but won't be in two years)

My Last, at Least For This Year, Thought About the Hall of Fame.

I feel like I'll never get to stop writing about steroids.

Here's the thing I haven't yet seen raised.  

For the writers who are claiming to be strict constructionists on the character clause (hey, they say, it doesn't matter that it's never, ever been used before to keep someone out before steroids... 

"I didn't get to vote against the gamblers or Klansmen or those who supported and defended segregation"

...which to use Costas's language, created numbers much, much, much less reliable than any drug ever taken...

... and the character clause certainly has never been used to put someone in, no one says that JT Snow couldn't get on base but he was a helluva guy so let's get him in because of the character clause but forget all of that because... 

"what matters is the plain language of the guidelines for voting; all I do is read that character clause and apply the law to the facts of these cases")

 my question is... 

"Do you believe there's a difference between a first ballot hall of famer and the other hall of famers?"

Because if they do - if they don't vote for Biggio this year because he's not an inner circle guy and don't feel he's worthy of that special vote - then the question is 

"show me where in the rules is the language allowing you to make that distinction."

Because it's not there.  When it comes to doing that, they don't care about the rules, they have their own sense, based on what previous writers have done, about how they should distinguish among tiers of hall of famers. The reason Willie Mays wasn't unanimous and the reason Greg Maddux won't be either isn't because there's any language in the voting rules allowing for those distinctions.  Sportswriters ignore the language of the rules and instead look to tradition.   It's only when it comes to this current generation of PED users that Susan Slusser suddenly becomes Antonin Scalia.    

They are entirely making this up; advanced metrics have made old media baseball writers totally irrelevant, and their inability to think critically has made the Hall of Fame irrelevant.  

This is from the September 11, 1985 edition of the New York Times:

Asked by the defense lawyer whether he had used the amphetamine pills, known 
among players as ''greenies,'' Berra at first said no, then later said yes. Q. Where did you get them?. A. From Bill Madlock. You could get them from Willie Stargell.


Q. So Willie Stargell gave you amphetamine pills? A. Yes. Q. When did Willie Stargell give you amphetamine pills?


A. When he was playing with us. It could be on any given day when I asked him for one. On days when I would ask him, yes.


That's Dale Berra testifying in federal court that Willie Stargell gave him speed.


Willie Stargell's in the Hall of Fame. If there was a national debate about his candidacy - if Willie Stargell was hauled in front of Congress to apologize to the parent of some kid who got crazy hopped up on speed and killed himself (or who couldn't stop singing "I'm so Excited") perhaps someone could find the youtube clip of that testimony.

John Milner testified that as a young Met, he took a liquid amphetamine, "red juice" from Willie Mays's locker. Dwight Gooden wrote in his autobiography that 10 Mets regularly took speed; David Wells wrote in his bio that players had "season long stockpiles" of speed; in Ball Four, Jim Bouton talked about players getting jars of 500 pills. Even sainted Hank Aaron admitted to using them "one time" in his autobiography.  That's one more illegal drug use than Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of your lifetime, has admitted to.  

Illegal drugs. Illegal performance enhancing drugs. 

Here's what I want to see the next time there is a former athlete on television wearing his righteous pants - I want him to tell me every drug he's ever put in his body. All of them.

In fact, I want Tom Verducci to tell me the same thing.

Has he ever popped an adderall to crank out another finger wagging essay?

Did he take a bennie as an undergrad to finish a term paper?  Because if he did - didn't he hurt the curve for some other student who wouldn't break the law?  Isn't his career (like Arnold's and Sly's) aided by drug use at the expense of others?  Where is the justice?  

And more than that - I don't really want them all to have to say it on TV - I want them saying it under oath.  

 Because that's the trap they set for Barry Bonds - let's bring every athlete and sportswriter in front of a grand jury and ask them about any drug they've ever taken ever - either they'll open up the windows to their lives or we got 'em. Let's ask about teammates and co-workers. I want to see the bodies hit the floor. What did you know and when did you know it?

 I want everyone in the Hall of Fame, and every ex player now in the media, to have to discuss how many  drugs they took.  Did you take amphetamines?  How many?  Did you take painkillers?  Did they enhance your ability to perform?  I want every writer to reveal the drug use of every Hall of Fame player he covered. Make them all go on the record.  Cal Ripken played in 2632 consecutive games somehow, breaking an unbreakable record of a New York Yankee considerably more noted than Roger Maris, and he played with Brady Anderson, a man who he called his best friend.

In 1996, Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs and slugged .637 in 579 ABs.

In the almost 6000 ABs he had before and after, he had a total of 150 additional home runs and he never slugged as high as .480 in any other season. In a 15 year big league career, over 20% of his career value, by WAR, came in 1996.  Did Brady take illegal drugs but not give any to his best friend, Iron Man Cal?  Did Cal aid and abet Brady Anderson's illegal drug use?  Billy Ripken's on MLB network all of the time - what does he know about Brady Anderson?  

And what about Nolan Ryan?

When he was 42 years old, big, broad backed Nolan Ryan won 16 games with a 3.20 ERA,.

At 43 years old, he won 13 with a 3.44 ERA, and at 44 years old - the old man had an ERA under 3.00 and a 12-6 record.  Barry Bonds was long, long gone before he turned 44.  Could Ranger executive Nolan Ryan have really maintained himself as a power pitcher so deeply into his 40s without the use of a little enhancement?

He did all of that in a hitters ballpark. Arlington. As a Texas Ranger.

He played with Palmeiro. And Sosa. And Kevin Brown. And Juan Gonzalez. And Pudge. And Ruben Sierra (ever looked at his career numbers?) And Brian Downing. And Kevin Reimer.  What do we know about those guys?

And Jose Canseco. He got there in '92. Did Canseco bring the steroid culture from Oakland?

Or did he find one already flourishing in Texas?

Rickey Henderson, his body rippling with muscle, was a Bash Brother with Canseco and McGwire and he's sitting there in the Hall of Fame right now.

You want to rip off the band aid, indignant, righteous sports writers, then let's do it.  Let's ask Jordan.   Let's ask Tiger. Let's ask Ray Lewis.  

If we get to speculate - if we get to just decide that Bonds and Clemens and Bagwell and Piazza, clear, no doubt, Hall of Famers took magic pills and these are the consequences - if we get to speculate  - then dammit let's go.  Let's get in some speculation.

What did you do and when did you do it?

2013 NFL Divisional Round Picks

Can I just say look at last week to see my thoughts?

In the AFC, here was my projection for this round:

Ravens at Broncos
Texans at Patriots

I'm likely to favor Denver by 10 and NE by 7.  If one of those games were to go the wrong way it would be Houston upsetting NE.

That remains the case; Denver's now a ten point favorite and that's a stay away, but gun to my head I'd take the Broncos.  If you wanted to make a play, take Houston getting 9.5 (I'm not making that pick edit, I'm making that pick) or better yet wait until it gets to double digits, which I would guess will happen.  New England's better, they should win, but the disparity doesn't match the Denver/Ravens game.  

Just as I did before the playoffs began, I have the two favorites winning outright, I won't pick either ATS, but if I had to, I'd take Houston getting the points and Denver giving them.  The AFC looked pretty clear going in, still looks pretty clear, and my anticipation is I'll be saying the same thing in a week when I pick the Broncos.

And here's what I wrote about the NFC.

Seahawks at Atlanta
Packers at Niners

Does Seattle beat Atlanta?

Atl Offense: Burke 13, FO 12, PFR 2.0 - so Seattle's offense is solidly better
Atl Defense: Burke 18, FO 12, PFR 4.5 - so Seattle's defense is better.

The Seahawks are better, not by a lot, and given the Falcons home field, that's a pick em game.  I'm going to  take the Seahawks, but you could go the other way, and I might by gametime.

Do the Niners beat the Packers?

49er Offense: Burke 3, FO 5, PFR 3.5 - it's close, you'd give a small edge to the Packers, but it's small.
49er Defense: Burke 3, FO 2, PFR 6.7 - the Niners defense is better.

San Francisco's better, I'd favor them (and by them, I mean us) by 6.

And that remains the case; I still think the Seattle game's a pick 'em, and that means I will make an ATS pick - it's Seattle, getting the 2.5.  I'll keep my straight up pick of the Seahawks, 'cause there aren't any ties in the playoffs.  Seattle's better - solidly better than the Falcons, but Atlanta's rested, healthier, and has home field.  That's enough to call it a toss up, and I'll say the toss goes to Seattle (no, I'm never picking any coin flip).

My Niners are favored by 3 and I said we were 6 points better, meaning that's another ATS I'm willing to pick, Niners giving the FG.

In other words, you could have just read last week's picks and moved on with your lives.  

The Occasional Tendown: January 6 2013

Dear Internet:

I'd like to see an exhibit in Canton called "Legendary Head Coaches with Tattoos of their Hall of Fame Quarterbacks as Ladies" Paul Brown with a Lady Otto Graham on his neck like Breezy's beaten up Ri-Ri tat.  Landry with a Staubach tramp stamp. This..



...that's Lombardi with Bart Starr's lips.  Just kissing his coach's armpit into eternity.  David Maraniss was right, pride did used to matter.

147 is here. This is Tendown 148.

1. What Should Matter to You More Than It Does - Climate Change


There is no controversy over climate change.  There are facts and those who reject them, either for political reasons, because those facts don't fit within a make believe religious worldview, or because the people who reject them lack critical thinking skills.

2. What Should Matter to You More Than It Does - Corporate Profits Are Extraordinarily High and Wages are Extraordinarily Low




The red line - profits. The blue line - wages.

Our biggest economic issue isn't taxes, it isn't spending, it isn't the fiscal cliff, it isn't even unemployment, as terrible as that is - you give me one economic bullet, it should be aimed here, your paycheck is too small given how much profit the company for whom you work is producing.  That's due to a lot of different factors, the right wing attack on the ability to unionize being high among them.   Conservativism is fundamentally about power, it's about authority - whether it's a made up god or daddy in the home or permanent war or everyone should have a gun or love it or leave it or you should just take whatever the boss man is generous enough to dish out.  Conservativism=Authoritarianism.



Don't listen to the people on television who say corporate taxes are too high.

3. What Should Matter to You More Than it Does - Lead
Worth your read - is Mother Jones discussing lead.:

We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level. Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes [19]. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.

4. What Should Matter to You More than it Does - Gerrymandering
True or False: More Americans voted for the Democrat for President than the Republican in 2012?

Easy, right - true.

True or False: More Americans voted for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates in the current Senate?

Also true, good.  One more.

True or False: More Americans voted for House Republicans than Democrats - and that's why the Republicans control the House?

Nope.  

It's the Democrats - by almost 1.4 million votes.  Democrats need to beat Republicans by 7% of the vote to take the House.  

5. What Should Matter to You More than it Does - They Locked a Woman Up for 11 Days for Swearing at the Clerk of Courts Office.  11 Days.

She had no prior criminal record.

6. What Doesn't Really Need to Matter to You But I Dig It
Kids in the Hall Sketches never seen in the US.

7. My Favorite Piece This Week


Who Won 2012?

8. Ebert's Top Ten
From this list,  I've seen Flight and Beasts of the Southern Wild.  I'd still say Moonrise Kingdom is the best film I've seen from 2012.  I don't have a ton of interest in the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

9. I Did Enjoy Good Will Hunting
Here's an oral history.

10. Match of the Year

I've seen 4 star matches since last we spoke.

Daniels v. AJ - 4 TNA Dec
The Shield v. Danielson/Kane/Ryback - 4 WWE Dec
Edwards/Richards v. O'Reilly/Fish - 4 ROH Dec
Steen v. Generico - 4 1/4 ROH Dec
Richards v. Callihan - 4 1/4 PWG Oct
Steen v Ricochet v. Elgin - 4 PWG Oct

I think I've seen every significant 2012 wrestling match - my list of the top 25 is here.

The match of the year - Ibushi v. Omega from DDT in August

The next time we talk will be the day of the NFC Championship Game, when the 49ers will be a step away from the Super Bowl.

That's all for this time.  I'll be back next time, if there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim

The 2012 San Francisco Giants Postseason Part 3

Part 2 is here.

I picked the Tigers in 7.

I’d like to say I picked the Tigers in 7 because, as a Giants fan for each of the conscious days of my 42 years  I either take pains to appear objective in prognostication or am looking to fake out the Baseball Gods, but I did pick the Giants over the Rangers two years prior. 

I picked the Tigers because they were nominally the better side; their stars and scrubs roster composition is designed for postseason success.  Detroit came into the World Series with both the best bat (Miguel Cabrera) and the best arm (Justin Verlander) in all of baseball.  I picked the Tigers because the Giants had been fortunate; the team that rallied from 0-2 in the Division Series and then 1-3 in the NLCS wasn’t more likely to be the team that showed than the unit that fell behind in those respective series.  I picked the Tigers because the Giants were, intentionally, heading into the contest with less than their optimum roster. In the NLCS Tim McCarver said the Giants leaving Melky Cabrera off their postseason roster made it a "non-story"; another story to tell would be "Giants intentionally leave second best hitter off the roster without a baseball reason for doing so" which sounded like a pretty important story.  I sit in the front row in both the “chemistry isn’t important” and “PEDs aren’t that big a deal” schools of thought so I was disinclined to accept either the argument that a drug free Melky wasn’t an upgrade over Aubrey Huff or that his return to the club would cause Brandon Crawford to start kicking ground balls out of distraction that a teammate that he was unhappy with was on the end of the bench. 

And I picked the Tigers because the pitching matchup planned for Games One and Five was maybe the biggest mismatch in recent World Series history.

Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball; he had a 7.5 WAR (Baseball-Reference version) in 2012 and an 8.2 the previous year; 8 WAR is a Most Valuable Player Quality season, meaning in back to back years, you could have safely tossed Verlander an MVP vote without issue. 

Barry Zito’s WAR was 3.  Not during 2012.  Not during 2011 and 2012.  Barry Zito’s total combined WAR in all of his 6 seasons as a San Francisco Giant was 3. 

Half a season of Justin Verlander> Barry Zito’s entire Giants career.

I picked the Tigers in 7. 

I also voted for Dukakis.  These things happen sometimes.

The left fielder whose name dare not be spoken, 2012 version, was the MVP of the All Star-Game, and that gave San Francisco its first home World Series Game One in 50 years.  It was a game that saw Pablo Sandoval, maybe one of the dozen most popular Giants over that half century, put his name in the record books.

In the bottom of the first, with two out and an 0-2 count, Sandoval took a 95 mile per hour Verlander fastball over the center field fence.  Neither team allowed another baserunner until a third inning Angel Pagan double off the third base bag; that was followed by a run scoring Marco Scutaro single, and after a visibly irritated Verlander received a visit from the Tigers pitching coach – Sandoval hit another 95 mph fastball over the fence, this time to left field. 

If you’ve read parts one and two of this series (and come on, why haven’t you?) you’ve seen one of my themes has been that objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are – when you’re ahead in a baseball game, even with what might “feel” like a relatively limited lead, 3-0 through 3, the chance that you will lose that baseball game is really small.  In this case – 10%.  You remember the comebacks, but baseball is a data rich endeavor; and from that position in a baseball game, we’ve got a good statistical understanding that the team that’s ahead wins 90% of the time.

And that’s what happened.  Barry Zito, who would be the winning pitcher in Game One, singled home Brandon Belt in the 4^th; and with Verlander out of the game in the 5^th, Pablo Sandoval became the 4^th man in World Series history to homer three times in the same game, hitting an Al Alburquerque slider over the center field wall.

4 men in a hundred and eight years. Ruth.  Reggie. Pujols. Panda.

That made it 6-0, the final was 8-3.  Cy Young got beat by Sayonara and the Giants were up 1-0.

The Giants lied to us prior to Game 2.  Madison Bumgarner’s the fourth youngest game winning starter in World Series  history but he had been brutal down the stretch and a playoff ERA of over 11 got him shelved in the back end of the NLCS.

But the Giants said they made a mechanical adjustment and he was ready to go.  Anytime you ignore a couple of months of declining performance in favor of vague pitching coach promises that things are “all fixed” you’re going to be handing cash to your sportsbook.

Bumgarner went out and struck out 8 in 7 scoreless innings; the Giants gave up just two hits and beat the Tigers 2-0.  Apparently he’s all better now. 

Other than the second, in which Prince Fielder got thrown out at the plate and the Giants left the bases loaded (Tigers pitcher Doug Fister’s memory of the inning may be spotty, he took a line drive off the head) neither club had a runner reach scoring position until the Giants broke through in the bottom of the 7^th.  Fister’s last pitch thrown was a leadoff single to Pence; Drew Smyly came on, walked Brandon Belt, and then loaded the bases on a slowwwwwww bunt single that hugged the third baseline.  We only got one, on a Crawford double play, but a 1-0 lead headed to the 8^th inning gives you a 77% chance to win a baseball game.  We picked up the second run an inning later on 3 walks and a sac fly; and hitless innings from Santiago Casilla and Sergio Romo gave the Giants a 2-0 win and a 2-0 lead.

A 2-0 World Series lead is sort of a big deal.  It had happened 50 times prior to 2012 and 40 times there was no comeback.  14 of the past 15 teams to go up 2-0 won the World Series.  We headed to Detroit solidly, solidly in the driver’s seat.

Back in the modern deadball era, in 1966, the Baltimore Orioles threw back to back shutouts in a World Series.  It hadn’t been done since.

The San Francisco Giants drafted 20 year old Ryan Vogelsong 14 years ago.  Our top pick that year was Nate Bump; in 2011 after 13 minor league seasons and almost 1100 minor league innings pitched, Bump was still pitching for Lehigh Valley. 

Now is the time when I'd say something like "it's hard to make it in the Show" but that's a little more Ring Lardner than I can get away with. 

Vogelsong was in the same Single A clubhouse with Giants farmhands like Damon Minor and Joe Nathan; in the same Double A clubhouse with Scott Linebrink and Cody Ransom; in the same Triple A clubhouse with Calvin Murray and Ryan Jensen.  Lot of Ghosts of Giants Past, Well Less Past and More Ghost of Giants Never in Vogelsong's real view mirror. 

And then he was gone - sent to Pittsburgh in 2001 in the Jason Schmidt trade. 

When your prospects leave, particularly in what turned out to be an incredible heist, you lose track of them quickly; one day Vogelsong's someone you're keeping track of in Shreveport, and the next he's just another guy bouncing around. 

Nashville.
Lynchburg.
Altoona.
Indianapolis.

3 seasons in Japan.  And not great seasons.  Ryan Vogelsong was 11-14 with an ERA over 4 in over 200 innings pitched before returning to the States in 2010 to get kicked around AAA in both Salt Lake and Lehigh Valley.  33 year old Ryan Vogelsong hadn't thrown a pitch in the major leagues in five years when he returned to the Giants organization in 2011.

Ryan Vogelsong had been gone a decade.  He missed our losing Game 7 of the World Series; he missed our getting knocked out of the playoffs on a home plate collision; he missed Barry Bonds breaking both the single season and career home run records; he missed the bottoming out of the organization at the end of the first decade of the 2000s and he missed the first World Series Championship in the history of San Francisco. 

Almost all of the pivotal moments in recent Giants history - and Ryan Vogelsong, who first signed a Giants contract when Bill Clinton was President, has no connection to any of them.

In 2011, Ryan Vogelsong had his career year; he had more value (by WAR, B-Ref version) in 2011 than the entire rest of his career combined, and tonight, with the Giants having already won four elimination games in this year's postseason, Ryan Vogelsong struck out 9 (his career high) and won his second game of the NLCS.

Ryan Vogelsong is 34; I don't know what level of reflection he allows himself tonight - if he'll think about Altoona or the Hanshin Tigers - if he'll think about that 20 year old kid who signed his first contract in 1998 and what would become of him.  I know in my own life during moments of unexpected, seemingly life altering triumph who I've most wanted to tell is an earlier version of me; to tell him to hang in there, to keep punching, that a day would come where I'd approximate the person I wanted to be.

I don't know if Ryan Vogelsong does any of that.

Ryan Vogelsong (backed up by Tim L:incecum and Sergio Romo) shut out the Tigers in Game 3 of the World Series; taking him to a postseason 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA.  

All of the runs were scored in the Giants’ second on a Hunter Pence walk, Gregor Blanco triple, Brandon Crawford single.  It was 2-0 good guys and that was that – Detroit threatened periodically, two on in the third, loading the bases with one out in the fifth, but Vogelsong held firm.  Lincecum came on with two out in the 6^th and didn’t give up a hit in his 2 and 2/3, capping off a season saving postseason bullpen run of 1 earned run in 13 innings with 17 strikeouts. 

They’ve been doing this World Series thing for a hundred eight years; a team had never come back from a 3-0 deficit.  The Giants entered Game 4 having not trailed in 54 consecutive innings. 

The second streak ended, the first did not.

San Francisco took the lead early on a second inning Pence double/Belt triple.  A wind aided two run Cabrera homer gave Detroit its first lead of the series in the third.  Three innings later it was Buster Posey retaking the lead for the Giants by hitting a Max Scherzer changeup just on the good side of the left field pole; a lead that Matt Cain gave up in the bottom half on a Delmon Young solo shot.’

3-3 in the 7^th.  3-3 in the 8^th.  3-3 in the 9^th.

12 years ago LSU beat Stanford in the College World Series on a single to left by Brad Creese in the 9^th inning to break a 5-5 tie.  Ryan Theriot was the winning run, sliding home from second base.

Theriot was the DH in Game 4 and after a leadoff single and a sacrifice bunt, he stood on second base with the man who took his job, NLCS MVP Marco Scutaro, at the plate.     

Scutaro singled to left.

Theriot slid home.

Sergio Romo struck out the side in the bottom of the tenth, and for the second time since moving to San Francisco in 1958 and the second time in three years, the Giants were World Champions.