tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19498419962506816462024-02-06T19:01:52.875-08:00GROUND BALL WITH EYESFinding a hole. Boosting my average. Big leagues in no time.Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-34048556494911403112018-01-17T21:26:00.000-08:002019-12-05T09:43:02.736-08:00The Hall of Fame case for Gary Sheffield<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The world is a very tribal place, and there are opinions you're <i>supposed</i> to hold because your side has agreed to them. Within the segment of the baseball community I tend to run with, one of those opinions is that Edgar Martinez belongs in the Hall of Fame, and it's understandable, because he was a tremendous hitter. The argument against Martinez is that because he was a designated hitter most of his career, his offensive numbers should be discounted. "He only played half the game." Early in his candidacy, Martinez's support was modest, and as recently as 2015 he received only 27.0% of the vote, That number rose to 43.4% a year later though, and then to 58.6% last year. Martinez currently has 81.0% of the known votes for this year (available via <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!8063&ithint=file,xlsx&app=Excel&authkey=!AAAsz3uDsmqy_Vw" target="_blank">Ryan Thibodaux's HOF tracker</a>), and while that figure may dip below 75% when the final total are announced next week, if it does he'd be a lock to get in next year. Edgar's supporters have won. What I'm wondering is, if Martinez belongs because he was <i>that</i> good a hitter, why not Gary Sheffield, who was every bit as great at the plate?<br />
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Before I go any further, let me acknowledge that Sheffield was among those named in the Mitchell Report, meaning he was found to have a connection to performance-enhancing drugs. I understand that this alone keeps many Hall of Fame voters from voting for Martinez, but if PED connections were the main thing keeping Sheffield from drawing the same sort of support as Martinez, we could expect his current percentage of the votes to be something like 80% of what Bonds is drawing (because if Bonds had no PED connections, he'd be at very close to 100%, meaning Martinez is at ~80% of what Bonds is at). Bonds is at 65.6% of the vote, so if the only difference between Martinez's support and Sheffield's were PED-related, Sheffield should be at 52% or so. Instead he's way down at 9.7%. He's in danger of falling off the ballot entirely in another two or three years. Clearly even among those who don't believe PED connections should disqualify one from Cooperstown, Martinez is viewed as having the far stronger case. What this article presupposes is, maybe he doesn't?<br />
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Here are some career numbers for both players:<br />
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<tr style="height: 21px;"><td style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; vertical-align: bottom;"></td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"H"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">H</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"HR"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">HR</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"R"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">R</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"RBI"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">RBI</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"BA"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">BA</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"OBP"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">OBP</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"SLG"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">SLG</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"wRC"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">wRC</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edgar Martinez"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Edgar Martinez</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":2247}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2247</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":309}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">309</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1219}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1219</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1283}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1283</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.312}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.312</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.418}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.418</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.515}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.515</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":147}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">147</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Gary Sheffield"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Gary Sheffield</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":2689}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2689</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":509}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">509</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1636}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1636</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1676}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1676</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.288}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.288</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.393}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.393</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.514}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.514</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":141}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">141</td></tr>
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Martinez has the better rate stats, but they're pretty close. Sheffield has the much larger counting totals. His advantage in counting stats is due in part to appearing in 521 more games than Martinez did, but if Martinez had played in another 521 games at the beginning and/or end of his career, his rate stats would almost certainly be less impressive.</div>
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Here are the same statistics, but only for the best 15-year stretch of each player's career, which for Martinez is 1990 to 2004, and for Sheffield is 1992 to 2006. This gives each player an almost equal number of games and plate appearances:</div>
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<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"best 15-year stretch"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;"><br /></td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"H"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">H</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"HR"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">HR</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"R"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">R</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"RBI"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">RBI</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"BA"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">BA</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"OBP"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">OBP</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"SLG"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">SLG</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"wRC"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">wRC</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edgar Martinez"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Edgar Martinez</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":2181}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2181</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":307}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">307</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1193}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1193</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1231}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1231</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.313}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.313</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.421}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.421</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.521}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.521</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":149}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">149</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Gary Sheffield"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Gary Sheffield</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":2103}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2103</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":434}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">434</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1295}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1295</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":1368}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1368</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.304}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.304</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.41}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.410</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":0.549}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">.549</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":152}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">152</td></tr>
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Sheffield <i>still</i> has better counting totals, and he now has the better adjusted rate stat as well, if only slightly. Sheffield was called up and put in the lineup at the age of 19. He held his own, but he wasn't yet the hitter he would become, and those years drag his career rates down. Looking at more comparable samples of the two players' work, Sheffield comes out ahead.</div>
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If you want to look at a smaller number of seasons in order to compare each of them at their best, here are each player's ten best qualified seasons by wRC+, my preferred offensive metric:</div>
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<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"wRC+"}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;"><br /></td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"1st"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">1st</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"2nd"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">2nd</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"3rd"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">3rd</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"4th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">4th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"5th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">5th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"6th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">6th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"7th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">7th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"8th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">8th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"9th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">9th</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"10th"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">10th</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edgar Martinez"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Edgar Martinez</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":182}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">182</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":165}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">165</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":164}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">164</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":163}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">163</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":161}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">161</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":157}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">157</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":157}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">157</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":154}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">154</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":142}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">142</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":138}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">138</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 21px;"><td data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Gary Sheffield"}" style="font-weight: bold; overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">Gary Sheffield</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":185}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">185</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":173}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">173</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":172}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">172</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":163}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">163</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":159}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">159</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":154}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">154</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":144}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">144</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":142}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">142</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":141}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">141</td><td data-sheets-value="{"1":3,"3":141}" style="overflow: hidden; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;">141</td></tr>
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They are very close together in most instances, with Martinez having a notable edge in their respective 7th and 8th seasons, but in terms of absolute peak, it's Sheffield who had the better seasons. While it's very close, forced to choose, I would argue that Sheffield was the better hitter.<br />
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<a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/" target="_blank">Baseball Reference</a>, <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/" target="_blank">FanGraphs</a>, and <a href="https://www.baseballprospectus.com/" target="_blank">Baseball Prospectus</a> are the three most prominent baseball stat websites in existence. Each has their own (generally similar, but somewhat different in the details) measures of performance, including some version of what can be called batting runs:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Baseball Reference has Sheffield ahead of Martinez 590 to 569.</li>
<li>FanGraphs has Sheffield ahead 566 to 522.</li>
<li>Baseball Prospectus has Sheffield ahead 638 to 566.</li>
</ul>
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Dating back to 1950, when Baseball Prospectus' numbers begin, Sheffield ranks 14th among all hitters in batting runs at Baseball Reference (Martinez is 17th), 12th at FanGraphs (Martinez is 18th), and 13th at Baseball Prospectus (Martinez is 20th). All three sites agree Sheffield provided more total value with his bat. All three sites agree Sheffield was the better base runner as well.<br />
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Martinez played third base during his first five full seasons, and is the consensus among various defensive metrics is that he was an average defender, perhaps slightly better even. That provided his team with some value, and is part of the reason that despite trailing Sheffield as an offensive player, Martinez is ahead of him in both the Baseball Reference and FanGraphs versions of WAR. (Sheffield is ahead in WARP at Baseball Prospectus, and his lead there is sizable enough that if you average out the three sites' figures, Sheffield is on top ever so slightly, 66.4 to 65.9.) The far bigger factor in Martinez moving up (or closing the gap) on Sheffield is that while he is penalized for playing 70% of his career games as a designated hitter, Sheffield is penalized even more for being a poor defensive right fielder.<br />
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Should bad defense be considered worse than no defense?<br />
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If your argument for Martinez's HOF case involves giving him a bit of extra credit for the defense he might've played had he been given the opportunity, are you also considering that his excellent longevity was probably due at least in part to the relative lack of wear and tear he underwent because he didn't have to play defense?<br />
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If your argument comes down to him having been such a great hitter, his not playing defense isn't a factor, than doesn't it stand to reason that someone who was an even better hitter also belongs in the Hall of Fame?<br />
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I have no interest in trying to litigate the steroid era. If your reason for believing Sheffield doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame is about PED use, I'm not vain enough to think after all these years I'm going to change your mind. For the rest of you though, I return to the question I asked at the top: If you believe Edgar Martinez belongs in Cooperstown, why not Gary Sheffield?</div>
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-91887167977598098402017-12-11T16:40:00.001-08:002018-02-12T09:30:55.951-08:00Ten Years Gone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On December 3, 2007, my dad turned 56. That evening he, my stepmom, a couple others, and I had dinner at their place. My stepmom was a wonderful cook, but I don't remember what we ate. I know that we had warm, enjoyable conversations, but I don't remember what any of them they were about. If I knew what I know now, I'd have made note of what had for dessert. I'd have catalogued everything we discussed, everything my dad said. I'd have chosen my own words deliberately and with great care. But I didn't know. I didn't know how busy I was going be during the next week, finishing up papers and projects at the end of my first semester of graduate school. I didn't know that after two years relatively fairly gradual changes, my dad's condition was about to decline rapidly. I didn't know that dinner would be the last meal we ever ate together. I didn't know that conversation would be the last we ever had.</div>
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Eight days later, and ten years ago today, my dad passed away.</div>
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Time is strange. I think about my dad so often, about conversations we had and moments we shared, that it can be hard to believe it's <i>already</i> been ten years. At the same time, so much has happened in my life during that decade, and because every big moment I have is shaded by an acute awareness that I'll never get to share it with him; it often feels I've lived a lifetime since his death, and so it can be hard to believe it's <i>only</i> been ten years. Enough time has passed that on most days his absence registers only mildly, or sometimes not at all, but there will never come a point when so much time has passed that his absence stops hurting.</div>
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My dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer, in November of 2005. He would undergo multiple surgeries and rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, but we were told from the start that even with all that, he would likely only live another 8 to 12 months. Instead he lived for more than two years, and despite more and more severe limitations as that time went by, he spent most of his time in good spirits, continuing to go to work, not because he had to (he didn't), There were certainly days when fatigue or sadness got the best of him, but he never complained.</div>
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One week after my dad's birthday, having spent most of that week working to finish a number of big school projects. For more than two years, I had never gone more than three days without seeing my dad, and had gone that long only for a trip to Washington and another to Cleveland. I hadn't planned to go the whole week without seeing (or even talking to) him, but had underestimated how busy I would be all that work. As I walked out of the building, feeling the relief that the end of every semester brings every student, I took out my phone to call my dad. I saw that I had a voicemail from my aunt, left more than an hour earlier. Her message was very matter of fact: My dad was in bad shape; I get there quickly.</div>
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When I arrived, my dad was in the hospital bed he'd been sleeping in at home in the den for a few weeks. He was conscious, but unable to speak. His eyes were open, but it was difficult to know if he was hearing any of what was said to him. It seemed like his lungs were filled with fluid, so that even breathing was difficult. More than once I thought he was going to suffocate, or drown, because the effort of getting air was so great. I called my sister Jennifer in Los Angeles; I told her to get on the first flight she could. I spent hours sitting on the edge of his bed, or on the couch next to the bed. I spent the night in the room with him, nodding off when he was able to, and waking up a few minutes later when a coughing fit woke him up.</div>
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The next day I picked Jen up at the airport, fearful that he'd be gone when we got back. I remember few specifics of the afternoon. My stepmom and aunt were there the entire time. Other family members and friends showed up later, until a group of more than 20 people were there by early evening. There was food and people sharing stories in the other room, but I stayed near my dad the entire time. At some point everyone gathered in the room with him, and someone I didn't know led some sort of... I don't know what to call it. I think the idea was to create a peaceful space, to convey how loved he was, and to convey that it was okay for him to let go.</div>
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I sat on the edge of his bed throughout that, and at some time I must have put my head down and fallen asleep; the next thing I knew I was waking up with my head on my dad's chest, probably the closest any of us can ever come to returning to childhood. Jennifer was the only other person in the room. She took my spot on the edge of the bed, and I laid down on the couch. Dad's breathing was shallow, but seemed less labored. His eyes had been closed for hours. I fell asleep again, and then half an hour later Jen woke me up to say that he was gone. She and I held one another for a couple minutes, then went to tell others.</div>
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During his last 24 hours, I talked to him a lot, often holding his hand. I reminisced about my childhood and adolescence, about camping trips, games of catch, Christmas mornings. About shoveling snow together, and watching Michael Jordan score 43 points while we sat court-side because the Bulls screwed up the nosebleed seats we were supposed to have, and riding the train downtown with him when I was a boy. He sometimes gave my hand a squeeze. I don't know if he was hearing me, or if it was simply muscle memory.</div>
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In addition to thinking back on days I also told him about the rest of my life, the version I imagined anyway. Now, ten years later, I can say that I got a lot of it right. I <i>did</i> get a job teaching in Oak Park after I finished school. I <i>did</i> go to Tanzania and climb to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I <i>did</i> fall in love with and marry a woman he'd have thought a lot of and spent a lot of time talking with. I <i>did</i> become the father to a little girl he'd adore. And someday I <i>will</i> tell her about the grandpa she never got to meet.</div>
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I feel so fortunate for all of that; I have a life worth envying. This anniversary is a reminder though, that some wounds never fully heal. Even the life you always wanted can't paper over a hole so vast. My daughter will never be held by her grandpa. My dad will never hear his granddaughter laugh. In the silences between my words that last night and day I had with my dad, I painfully regretted all the questions I'd never asked, and mourned all the things I'd never know. They are countless.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-35361223200274017222017-10-30T10:00:00.000-07:002017-12-22T05:50:52.443-08:00Coda to the Best Ballplayers of My Lifetime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4aKSSKnZkSkFwHGCwMKYWThYg9Ue2KqAi5xF33-UGbJpeebJdWc9uJbRqttg8_vGcajjV3NonSHdJfqbXa_IIiSAe45YH62kBivzvUqpMbb34Vyu8PuI85msszymUHR9hxyXGqmcXXLC/s1600/Trout+and+Kershaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="446" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH4aKSSKnZkSkFwHGCwMKYWThYg9Ue2KqAi5xF33-UGbJpeebJdWc9uJbRqttg8_vGcajjV3NonSHdJfqbXa_IIiSAe45YH62kBivzvUqpMbb34Vyu8PuI85msszymUHR9hxyXGqmcXXLC/s320/Trout+and+Kershaw.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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I started <span id="goog_2039075496"></span>my countdown of <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" target="_blank">the 30 best players of my first 30 years as a baseball fan</a><span id="goog_2039075497"></span> in early 2016. It became something of a boondoggle, because I didn't have as many personal stories relating to the players as I thought I would, and so few people were reading the entries that it became difficult to find the motivation to put real time and energy into them. I imagined writing two or three entries a week; instead by the second half of it I was writing only one a month. By the time I finished, 19 months had passed. The list already felt a little off, so I've decided to redo the entire project, counting down the top 32 players of my first 32 years as a baseball fan. Just kidding, I'm never doing a project like this again. I <i>am</i> going to write this brief coda, to touch upon the changes brought by nearly two years passing between beginning and end.</div>
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I'm sure if I dug all the way into the numbers again, there'd be a couple players who were already retired when I created my list nearly two years ago, but who I'd now want to move up or down a little. A lot of these guys are so close together that even though their numbers haven't changed, that I might interpret how best to assess and compare those numbers just enough to lead to slightly different conclusions every month, were I to examine it all that frequently. I won't attempt delving into that level of scrutiny, but if I were doing it over, I think I'd lose the bottom two players from my first version, Mark McGwire and Wade Boggs (keep in mind I ignored everything that happened prior to 1986, which means I didn't include a number of Boggs' best seasons; this is also why Rickey Henderson wasn't even higher on the list), and have replaced them with Larry Walker and Carlos Beltran, both of whom I considered originally, but ultimately left out.</div>
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Walker is one of a couple players who I've developed an higher opinion of during the last two years. I think I initially was overvaluing the impact that Coors Field had on his production, mentally penalizing him in ways I shouldn't have. Injuries kept him from putting up especially impressive counting totals (not that 383 home runs, 471 doubles, and more than 1300 runs and RBI are anything to scoff at), but his rate stats are terrific, even when accounting for the era he played in, and high-altitude stadium he called home for more than half his career. His career wRC+ was 140 (meaning he was 40% better than average) which puts him in a tie for 50th best in MLB history among players with at least 5000 plate appearances. One of the player's he's tied with David Ortiz, who many expect to reach Cooperstown despite having been a DH for almost his entire career. Walker was also a very good base runner and an excellent defensive right fielder, probably second only to Ichiro during my lifetime. Walker would be on my list now.</div>
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Beltran was active these last two seasons, and during that time he passed 2,500 career hits, 400 career home runs, 1500 runs, and 1500 RBI. Those round numbers could boost his chances of making the Hall of Fame whenever his time on the ballot arrives, but he was also clearly reaching the end of his time as a productive player, and he didn't really add much to his career value during 2016 and 2017. I think he should have been on my list all along though, because I don't think I gave postseason performance enough weight originally. I think it's possible to overstate how much postseason performance should matter (Jack Morris' tremendous Game 7 in 1991 shouldn't count for as much as a hundred great regular season games), I think I came a little too close to ignoring it entirely, and because Beltran has been one of the great postseason performers in history, that decision on my part hurt him probably more than it hurt any other player. In 64 postseason games, Beltran has batted .308/.414/.612, with 66 hits, including 15 doubles and 16 home runs. Among 73 players with at least 200 postseason plate appearances, Beltran's 1.026 OPS ranks second only to Albert Pujols' 1.030. Beltran has close to half a season's worth of MVP-caliber play during the most important baseball there is. His regular season numbers put him close to making my original 30, and his postseason play should have been more than enough to make up the difference.</div>
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Those are the two guys I wished I'd included from the start. There are three players I'm happy with where I had (or didn't have) them, but who did so much during the two seasons since then that I feel compelled to comment on them now:</div>
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Adrian Beltre was 11th on my countdown, but he's had more than 1,000 more plate appearances since then, and managed to put up numbers even better than his career rates, while continuing to be a strong defensive player at third base. He reached 3000 hits, and is now up to 1,112 extra-base hits, good for 20th in history, while also having a case as the best defensive third baseman since Brooks Robinson. At this point he's passed Chipper Jones to become the greatest overall third baseman of my years as a baseball fan, and if I were doing the list over, I'd have him at #9.</div>
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The other two players whose standing has changed during the last two years are Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout, the two best players in baseball this decade. They were both fantastic when I first put my list together, but didn't feel like they had an extensive enough career yet to be included. At this point, either one of them could retire and deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame (though Trout would run into some resistance on account of how brief his career has been).</div>
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Kershaw has won three Cy Young Awards, and has finished in the top five of the voting in each of the last seven years. The highest his ERA has been for any of those seven seasons is 2.53, which was still good enough to lead the league that year. His career ERA is 2.36, which is the lowest among all starting pitchers since the Dead Ball Era ended nearly 100 years ago, and his 2,120 strikeouts before turning 30 are the fifth-most in baseball history.</div>
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Trout is only 26, and has played only six full seasons in MLB, but they have been astoundingly good. He's won two MVPs and finished no worse than 4th in the voting for any of those six seasons. Baseball-Reference has him as worth 41.6 wins above average (WAA) during his career, which is the highest figure of any player in baseball history through their age-25 season. The next five players on that list are Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Alex Rodriguez, and Jimmie Foxx, five of the 40 or 50 best players ever. That's the kind of company Trout is keeping. In my time as a baseball fan, only Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Albert Pujols have had a peak as strong as Trout's first six full seasons, and those were the top three position players on this list. There's a strong case for putting Trout's peak ahead of that of A-Rod and Pujols, and as young as Trout is, his peak has a good chance of looking even better in another year or two.</div>
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I don't know exactly where I'd put them right now, but it feels like by the time I've been a fan for 40 years, injuries are the only thing that would prevent those two from landing in the top dozen.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-61909063258006947172017-09-30T09:00:00.000-07:002017-12-09T09:00:20.942-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #1: Barry Bonds<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Even as an adult, much of life feels out of my control. A child's life is even more out of their hands. I didn't choose my family, I din't choose my home. I was incredibly fortunate in both of those regards. Others, through no fault of their own, are not. I <i>did </i>choose baseball, but I <i>didn't</i> choose to come of age during an era so many writers and fans would belatedly decide was bogus. For more than a decade now earlier generations have led a relentless effort to deny the beauty of the baseball I grew up with, but I say to hell with anyone who says the baseball I grew up wasn't as joyous as the baseball they grew up with, to hell with anyone who would put an asterisk next to any of it, to hell with anyone who would deny the transcendence of Barry Bonds.</div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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Bonds made his MLB debut in the spring of 1986, while a few hundred miles away I was falling in love with baseball during my first season of t-ball. Bonds played in his first MLB All-Star Game during the summer of 1990, when I played in my first Little League All-Star Game. He went on to win his first MVP Awards that year, firmly planting himself in my consciousness as one of baseball's very best players, and over the rest of his career he became not just <i>one of </i>the best, but <i>the</i> best.<br />
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Back then I would ooh and ahh at the numbers on the back of a baseball card. Today I have Baseball Reference, and <a href="https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml" target="_blank">Bonds' page</a> is more eye-popping than any piece of cardboard I've ever held: a single-season record 73 home runs in 2001, a pair of batting titles, league leader in slugging percentage seven times and on-base percentage ten times, 14 All-Star appearances, seven MVP Awards, nearly 2,000 runs batted in, more than 2,000 runs scored, 601 doubles, 514 stolen bases, an all-time record 2,558 walks, and of course the 762 career home runs.<br />
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My first clear memory involving Bonds is of him losing out to Terry Pendleton for the 1991 NL MVP. I don't know where I would have seen or heard it discussed as a questionable choice, or exactly why I personally would have thought it was wrong, but I did. Perhaps it was hearing Little League coaches declare "a walk is as good as a hit" so many times. By age 11 I was already thinking about guys getting on base, rather than just thinking about batting average.<br />
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A year after that I was at my mom's apartment, having stayed up late on a school night to watch Game 7 of the NLCS. The Pirates were only one out away from advancing to the World Series when a player I'd never heard of named Francisco Cabrera lined a single to left field; Bonds was unable to make a good enough throw to prevent the game-winning run from scoring, the Pirates lost their third straight NLCS, and Bonds' reputation for being a postseason choker was cemented (even though he'd reached base safely 12 times during that series). Bonds left the Pirates to sign with the Giants a few weeks after that game, the first time I'd seen an MVP change teams.<br />
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As the story goes, Bonds saw the adulation given to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa when they both broke the single-season home run record in 1998, and (frustrated that he'd never been shown that sort of affection) decided to turn himself into an even greater power hitter than he'd already been. Bonds says he used legal supplements and a new workout regimen, with illegal PED use only happening later after a trainer lied to him about certain substances he provided Bonds with. Others believe he knowingly went directly to steroids. By his standards, 1999 was actually a down year for Bonds, but his production rebounded in 2000, and then he entered the most dominant four-year stretch in baseball history.<br />
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In 2001 Bonds broke the single-season record for home runs, with 73, as well as the mark for walks, with 177. To hit so many home runs under any circumstance is incredible, to have done it in a season when pitchers worked around you at a record clip is all the more remarkable. Little did I know that the 2001-level of working around him was only the beginning. The following year he drew 198 walks, and in 2004 that number rose to 232, including a record-shattering 120 times intentional walks. His on-base percentage was .609, another record, and one that looks like a typo.<br />
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My favorite Bonds moment from those years wasn't any of the record-breaking ones. Instead it's from the second day of the 2002 season. I was at Brothers, a mediocre bar in Iowa City where my college friends and I spent a lot of time for some reason. I was a few weeks away from graduating. Bonds, coming off those 73 home runs the season before, had homered twice on Opening Day. I'm not sure if the game was actually on at the bar, or if they were just cutting in to show his at bats, but in the first inning he launched one into the seats. The Dodgers intentionally walked him after that, but the next time he came to bat, they decided to pitch to him, and he blasted another one way over the fence. Just 13 innings into the season, and he had already hit four home runs. I remember the overwhelming giddiness I felt as he trotted around the bases, because absolutely anything seemed possible. No other moment from more than three decades of following baseball has given me the same sensation.<br />
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During those four years, Bonds had a batting line of .349/.559/.809. He set new single-season records for home runs, walks, intentional walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. He led the Giants to within a win of their first World Series championship in 48 years, batting .356/.581/.978 in 17 postseason games that October, with a postseason record 8 home runs. He was voted NL MVP all four times. He passed 700 career home runs, putting him in the neighborhood of the biggest record in American sports.<br />
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By August 7, 2007, Bonds had tied Henry Aaron's all-time home run record. I was working as a waiter and bartender during graduate school at the time, and was cleaning up after a dinner shift that night when Bonds came to bat in the 5th inning. The game was out west, so it was late in Chicago. The only people still at the restaurant were me, the manager, and a couple of the line cooks. Even though it felt inevitable, when Bonds ripped a 3-2 pitch deep into the seats, I was struck by the momentousness of the occasion. It had been 33 years since Aaron broke Ruth's record, after Ruth had held the record for more than half a century. There was no telling if I'd ever see anyone break that record again.<br />
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My awe was interrupted a few seconds after Bonds crossed home plate by my boss: "Whatever... He's still a cheater." Bonds was blacklisted at the end of that season, the only player ever to hit 28 home runs and lead the league in on-base percentage, but find himself unable to get a contract offer. It's been ten years since Bonds played his last game, and the passage of time has done little to soften the disdain many feel for him. I understand the disdain, and I know all the arguments against Barry Bonds, both the PED use and his surly attitude toward the press and some teammates. I could give a longer response to them, but the short answer will suffice: I don't care.<br />
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Barry Bonds was the greatest ballplayer I've ever seen.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-35997904504562799352017-08-31T13:51:00.000-07:002017-10-13T19:27:57.377-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #2: Roger Clemens<div style="text-align: justify;">
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It's been more than two decades since Greg Maddux became my favorite pitcher and eventually my favorite player, but when I was younger it was Roger Clemens whose poster adorned my wall. He was on the mound, holding a baseball that was also a rocket, because that was his nickname. (Do they still make posters like that one, which were everywhere when I was young? If not, kids today are really missing out.) The poster must not have been officially licensed, because he wasn't wearing his Red Sox uniform. I'm not exactly sure what drew me to Clemens, but given that he won the Cy Young Award each of the first two years I was paying any attention to baseball, and he struck out a million guys, and had that cool nickname, it doesn't seem especially surprising. When I was 12 years old he appeared on <i>The Simpsons</i> as the pitcher for the team of ringers Mr. Burns put together for the big power plant softball game, which probably brought my Clemens fandom to its peak. The 25 years since then brought a gradual but precipitous decline of that fandom, eventually reaching a point where that <i>Simpsons</i> episode is about the only thing I still like about him. Still, the man could really pitch.</div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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Clemens is often cited as one of baseball's great Texans, and his fiery demeanor is said to stem from that status, but Clemens was born and raised in Ohio, only moving to Texas when he was partway through high school. In any case, he was a tremendous young pitcher, winning All-American honors in each of his two seasons at the University of Texas before being drafted by Boston in the first round of the 1983 draft. Clemens immediately dominated in the minors, posting a 1.33 ERA with 95 strikeouts in 81 innings of work during the rest of that summer. Less than a year after being drafted, he was already making his MLB debut, and in 1986 he had a tremendous season, winning not only the first of his eventual record seven Cy Young Awards, but also American League MVP honors. Fitting, because that started a seven-year stretch when Clemens wasn't just baseball's best pitcher (and by an absurd margin), he was baseball's best player. From 1986 through 1992, Clemens averaged more than 250 innings a season, with a 2.66 ERA and 1673 strikeouts.<br />
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Those were the years that put him on that poster, that put him on <i>The Simpsons</i>, that put him on a seemingly certain path to the Hall of Fame before he even turned 30. During the next few years, Clemens missed some time with various injuries and ailments, and was generally more good than great. I don't know how hard the Red Sox tried to re-sign Clemens when he hit free agency after the 1996 season, but at the time my sense (and I think the general sense) was that they were happy to let him move on. His numbers in recent years hadn't been as impressive as they were earlier in his career, and this wasn't surprising, because he was now 34 years old. I was surprised to see that he led the American League in strikeouts in 1996, and was 7th in ERA and 5th in innings pitched. FIP didn't exist in 1996, but we know now that he led lowest FIP in the league that season, so there's a viable argument that he was actually the best pitcher in the AL in 1996. Even if you buy into that line of thinking though, Clemens' 1997 was a whole other thing.<br />
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Clemens signed with the Blue Jays and promptly had the best season of his career, leading the league in innings, strikeouts, ERA, ERA+, WHIP, and FIP. I started following baseball in 1986, and Clemens' 11.9 WAR (per Baseball-Reference) is the highest figure by any pitcher for a season since then. He won his fourth Cy Young, then his fifth the very next season. By that time I'd stopped cheering for Clemens, and felt mostly indifferent, which is a weird way to feel about two of the most impressive back-to-back seasons ever. Following 1998, Clemens signed with Yankees, and that took me from indifference to distain in an instant. He had a number of great seasons after that, winning a Cy Young with New York and then another with Houston in 2004, when he was 42 years old, making him the oldest ever to win the award, a staggering 18 years after he'd won his first.<br />
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I don't recall quite why I lost interest in Clemens during the early to mid 90s. Some of it was probably him not seeming quite as great as he had before, some of it was Greg Maddux feeling more relatable to a kid who pitched well enough to make the All-Star team but never threw very hard, some of it was... I don't know. It was good timing though, because during the late 90s and into the 2000s, Clemens became an increasingly difficult player to defend. There's the PED stuff, but that's not what I'm talking about.<br />
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The most famous incident on the field took place during the 2000 World Series, when Clemens picked up a broken shard of Mike Piazza's bat and flung it at (or in the general direction of) Piazza as he ran toward first base. He repeatedly got into screaming patches with opponents as well. He made a derogatory comments about Japanese and Korean people, and reportedly angered a number of teammates and coaches over the years. Cito Gaston, a respected manager for many years, called Clemens a "double talker" and "a complete asshole." Late in his career Clemens rarely traveled with his teammates, only appearing for games in which he'd be pitching. More significantly, away from baseball he's been a serial adulterer, including one with a women he began grooming when she was only 16 years old.<br />
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Clemens retired with 354 wins, 4672 strikeouts, and a 3.12 ERA despite playing much of his career during an era dominated by offense. He made 11 All-Star teams and won a record seven Cy Young Awards. There is a very strong argument for Clemens as the greatest pitcher in baseball history. The only other arguments involve putting him behind guys who pitched more than a century ago, when baseball was a pretty different game in a variety of ways, or discounting Clemens because of the performance-enhancing drugs. I don't especially care about the PED stuff, and as evidenced by his placement on this ranking, I clearly don't deny his greatness, but when I think of Clemens now, it's as an asshole.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-46274463939587566072017-07-31T22:19:00.000-07:002017-08-15T10:20:11.517-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #3: Greg Maddux<br />
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Since I began this blog more than five years ago, I've gotten to write for and manage maybe the most substantial Cleveland Indians fan site on the internet, and to accept an award honoring Let' Go Tribe as Cleveland's best sports website. My name has appeared in Sports Illustrated and a number of newspapers, including the New York Times, and has been mentioned on Baseball Tonight and during a couple of MLB broadcasts. Probably none of that would have happened if while perusing the sports section on the morning of Monday, June 8, I hadn't decided to have a third bowl of cereal. During my first and second bowls, I'd been reading coverage of the previous day's NBA Finals game, in which the Bulls had obliterated the Jazz 96-54 (still the most lopsided Finals game in history), but by the third bowl of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch I had turned to the baseball page. My Indians had beaten the Reds 6-1, led by a strong outing from Dave Burba, who also became the first Tribe pitcher to hit a home run since before the designated hitter was introduced in 1973. I was checking other box scores when I saw that Greg Maddux had shut out the Orioles and thrown only 99 pitches.</div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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A shutout on fewer than 100 pitches seemed notable, special. If it had been any other pitcher, it probably wouldn't have captured my interest, but Maddux was my favorite. If I had checked the newspaper more carefully the very next morning, I'd have seen that Bartolo Colon pitched a shutout on just 96 pitches, and I might have figured the accomplishment wasn't as special as I'd first thought. Instead, my checking for them was sporadic initially, and I noticed only a couple more of the ones that were pitched that year. When I got more diligent about it in 1999, there were only three of them all season, solidifying the idea that they were rare. It was September of 2000, when Greg did it in back-to-back starts that I wondered if perhaps this was something he did more often than anyone else, and when I began to thing of these games as Madduxes. All the cool things that have happened for me because of this blog really happened because of that extra bowl of cereal, and because of Greg Maddux.<br />
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Perhaps because my own modest pitching accomplishments in Little League happened without the benefit of ever being able to throw very hard, I was drawn to Maddux's ability to make the ball dip, dive, and turn as it completed its journey from his hand to the plate. I remember being at Wrigley and seeing Maddux pitch in 1992. My dad took me to a game one night after he got home from work. I remember that the Cubs were playing the Mets, and that Maddux pitched a complete game. He went on to win the Cy Young Award that season. It would be 12 years before I saw him pitch in person again.</div>
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Since the Deal Ball Era (generally recognized as 1901 through 1919), the best ERA+ (a statistic which accounts and adjusts for the era and particular stadiums a pitcher performed in) for a starting pitcher is 291, by Pedro Martinez in 2000. Second on the list: Maddux's 271 in 1994. Third on the list: Maddux's 270 in 1995. By adjusted ERA, Maddux had two of the three best seasons in the last century, and he did it in back-to-back years. In those two seasons he won the final two of his four consecutive Cy Youngs. He finished among the top five of the voting in five other seasons as well.<br />
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Maddux was known as one of the most intelligent players ever to play the game. There are all sorts of stories from former teammates about him correctly predicting that a foul ball was about the come screaming into the dugout, things he supposedly saw coming just from looking at how the batter was standing and knowing what pitch the pitcher was going to throw. He's said to have intentionally allowed batters to hit the ball hard off him in low-stakes moments, in order to lure them into expecting the same pitch down the road, so that he could get them out with a different pitch in a more important moment. Those stories are unprovable, but they speak to Maddux's reputation among fellow players.<br />
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From 1992 through 1998, Maddux averaged 239.1 innings per season, despite losing more than a dozen starts to the labor battle that caused an early end to the season in 1994, and a late start in 1995. His ERA during those years was 2.15, and that was as offense was exploding to historic levels. Maddux's ERA+ for that stretch was 190, meaning he was 90% better than an average pitcher. In the 70 years since baseball integrated, there have been only 9 instances of a players posting an ERA+ of 190 or better while throwing 239 or more innings in a season. Maddux <i>averaged</i> those numbers for seven years.<br />
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Maddux was also known as a practical joker. Among the more famous of his pranks was a recurring one: He would frequently stand next to a teammate in the shower and strike up a conversation, distracting the other man from the fact that Greg was peeing on their leg. More recently, Maddux wore prosthetic makeup and a body suit to fool current NL MVP, Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant:<br />
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From 1988 through 2007, Maddux never pitched fewer than 198 innings, and incredible two-decade stretch of durability. He pitched more than 5,000 innings, he recorded more than 3,000 strikeouts. Pitcher wins are pretty stupid, but I'll mention Greg's 355 of them anyway, because they are the most by any pitcher whose career began after World War II. He won 18 Gold Gloves, as in addition to incredible movement and command of his pitches, he was a tremendous fielder. He pitched in numerous All-Star Games and postseasons. He pitched a record 13 Madduxes. He co-starred with teammate Tom Glavine in probably my favorite commercial ever:<br />
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On August 1, 2004, I went to Wrigley alone to scalp a ticket and see Greg try for his 300th career win. He was 38 years old by then, still good but no longer great. That's how he pitched that afternoon, good, not great. He allowed three runs in six innings, but the Cubs didn't take the lead until after he'd been removed from the game. I was watching on TV when he picked up the milestone win six days later in San Francisco. He pitched a few more seasons after that, and was eventually elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame with one of the highest vote totals in history.<br />
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Maddux wasn't my childhood baseball hero. He wasn't even the first pitcher I really liked, but he grew on me and grew on me, so that by the end of his career he'd become my favorite. That my small amount of fame is due to a thing I named after him, he'll almost certainly always be the player I'm most attached to. He wasn't <i>quite</i> the best player I've ever seen, but he was close, and he's the smost special to me.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-34847252261803696332017-06-30T23:11:00.000-07:002017-12-10T06:52:38.479-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #4: Randy Johnson<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Randy Johnson's career path was unlike that of any other pitcher. Actually, that's not true, his path was <i>like</i> that of a few others, but his version of that path was a wildly exaggerated version, which is pretty apt for a man six feet and ten inches tall, who played much of his career with a mullet and a mustache, and who once accidentally killed a bird with a pitch. Johnson was a second-round pick by the Expos, and he soon showed why a team would select him so high in the draft, as he struck out ten guys for every nine innings he pitched during his first full season on the farm. The next year his strikeout rate climbed even higher, to 10.4 per 9 innings, but his walk rate was an unsightly 8.2 per 9 innings. That was the worst mark in the Southern League, but the allure of his strikeouts proved difficult to resist, and by the following September, Johnson had made his MLB debut with Montreal. Not long after that he was dealt to Seattle as part of the Mark Langston trade that highlighted the Expos' ill-fated postseason push in 1989. It was with the Mariners that he first made a name for himself, but greatness took a while.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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I see now that Johnson made the AL All-Star team in 1990, but I'm not entirely sure why, because there was nothin eye-popping about his numbers at the break. By season's end the most notable thing was that he'd lead the league in walks, something he would do again in each of the following two years, in which he posted the two highest walk totals by any pitcher in the last three decades. In 1992, Johnson led the league in walks for the last time, and led the league in strikeouts for the first of what would eventually be nine times. Despite all the strikeouts, it still hadn't been a great season for him, and having just turned 29, Johnson ended 1992 with a career record of 49-48, with a 3.95 ERA. His appearance stood out, but his overall performance was very practically the definition of average. From the age of 29 on though, Johnson posted the best numbers of any pitcher ever, winning another 254 games and shaving almost a full run off his ERA, even as offense exploded around baseball.<br />
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After the 1998 season, Johnson signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, then coming off their first season as an expansion team. Johnson immediately went on one of the greatest four-year stretches ever. He helped Arizona win 100 games in its second year, and after a small step backwards the following year, in 2001 the Diamondbacks returned to the postseason, and won what I consider the greatest World Series of my lifetime. Johnson pitched a shutout in Game 2, picked up a second win in Game 6, then came back the very next night to pitched the final 1.1 innings of Game 7. From 1999 through 2002, Johnson pitched over 1000 regular season innings, with a 2.48 ERA (187 ERA+) and a staggering 1417 strikeouts. Modern baseball is often considered to have begun in 1901. Since. Johnson's strikeout totals during those four incredible seasons rank 5th, 8th, 3rd, and 10th in modern history. Johnson won the NL Cy Young Award every one of those years (and also won the AL's Cy Young in 1995).<br />
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Johnson was a very good pitcher through the age of 44, when he was still good enough to record 173 strikeouts and post a 3.91 ERA. The year after that he won his 300th career game, becoming the most-recent member of that exclusive club. Odds are someone else will get there someday, but it could be a while. The active leader is Bartolo Colon, who's 65 wins away and looking much less capable at the age off 44 than Johnson was. Next is CC Sabathia, who is 72 wins away at the age of 36, and has won only 23 games in the last 3+ seasons. The math for Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, or Madison Bumgarner to get there is plausible, but none of them are within 120 games, so there's a lot of time for the math to change. Wins don't deserve the high standing they have within the world of pitching metrics, but picking up 300 of them will always be an accomplishment of great significance.<br />
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It's hard to argue that the 6'10" Johnson was overshadowed, but because his career overlapped so much with those of Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez, and his best seasons coincided with the highest-scoring era in MLB history, even with the five Cy Youngs and 97.3% of the vote in his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot, it feels like he didn't quite get his due. Randy Johnson is one of the dozen great pitchers ever though, and either the best or second-best lefty. (Lefty Grove is the other candidate for that crown, and one's opinion of baseball before integration is likely to inform their stance on which of those two southpaws was greatest.)<br />
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Johnson felt like a mythical figure to me, almost inhuman. He terrified opposing hitters, and probably a few children over the years. Other players took a while to find their way, but no one did it like the Big Unit.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-74942682442452524422017-06-18T07:15:00.003-07:002017-06-18T07:15:40.247-07:00Father's Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After graduating from college, I returned home for a few months until I could figure out the next step. Around the time I moved back in, a pair of cardinals built their nest in a bush in our backyard. Soon there was a pair of speckled eggs. Before long they hatched, and over the next couple weeks the babies went from hatchlings to fledglings. On Father's Day the two of them ventured from the nest for the first time, hopping around in the yard as their parents kept a watchful eye and did whatever it is birds might do to help their young. Dad and I stayed at a distance and watched as they flapped and flailed around on the ground, slowly showing signs of figuring out how to use their wings. In the middle of the afternoon a squirrel killed one of them. The mother and father moved closer to their surviving chick, the better to prevent a similar fate from befalling it. Dad and I got closer too, and a couple hours later we celebrated in the fading daylight when that little bird took proper flight.</div>
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In November of 2005 my dad came to Los Angeles, where I'd been living with my sister for a few months following the dissolution of my relationship with my college girlfriend. The plan was to stay in town for a couple days, then take a week or so road-tripping back to Chicago together, going to the Grand Canyon and other destinations along the way. When Jennifer and I picked him up at the airport though, it was immediately clear that something was wrong. My sister was also in the process of moving. We were staying at her new condo, but a few things were still at her apartment, and I said I wanted to go back there and do one last check for my things. Truthfully, I knew nothing of mine was still there, but I had to get away because it felt like everything was caving in. We went to a hospital later that day. I was standing next to my dad when a doctor told him he had a tumor the size of a meatloaf on his brain.</div>
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By the summer of 2007 he'd already outlived the prognosis he was given at the hospital in Los Angeles, and had accomplished a lot more than anyone expected, continuing to go into work as much as possible, tending the flower beds at a park near his home, and keeping track of his and my stepmom's records while she began the even more tragic drift into early-onset Alzheimer's. That said, it was clear his time was running out. One day a week I babysat the young son of a friend of mine. Luca was not quite two years old the afternoon I brought him to my dad and stepmom's condo to escape from the blistering July heat. When we went in my dad was napping on the couch in the living room, but he woke up when I saw down in a nearby chair with Luca on my lap. Exhausted from chemo, my dad never got up, and he spoke very little, but he watched us. I knew right then that moment was as close as I would ever get to introducing a child of my own to my dad. I'm sure he knew it too.</div>
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It is somewhat foreign to consider your parents as someone's children. Of course even as a young child I understood that my grandparents were my mom and dad's parents, but that was sort of a back of the brain awareness. Primarily they were Grandmas and Grandpas, there to provide me with places to celebrate holidays and spend weeks in the summer, to sometimes let me get away with things my parents wouldn't. (It was years later before I could think of my parents or grandparents as actual people in their own right, with lives, interests, and concerns beyond just me.) By the time my dad was my age he was divorced, with a daughter away at college and a 9-year-old son who lived with him half the week and slept in a tent. In a lot of ways he was far more grown up at 37 than I am, but I realize now he almost certainly wasn't as grown up as I imagined him to be. I'm sure that at least occasionally he felt like a confused kid, the way I sometimes do now.</div>
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Imogen was born a little more than three months ago, and so today is my first Father's Day as a dad. And it is my tenth Father's Day since losing my dad. The gulf between those two facts is all-encompassing. Imogen's entry into this world has been the greatest joy of my life; my father's exit from it remains the greatest sorrow. Rare is the day there isn't something I wish I could ask him, tell him, show him. He is my phantom limb, the one I wake up in the night and reach for.</div>
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I wonder if for all her life, Imogen will wake in the dark and reach for me.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-37049032972687486862017-05-31T11:49:00.000-07:002017-12-10T06:52:48.674-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #5: Alex Rodriguez<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane."</i><br />
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I don't know if Alex Rodriguez owns a plane or not, but he certainly could, having earned more than $400 million as a ballplayer, plus whatever endorsement money he collected over the years. He debuted at a very young age, was great almost immediately, and looked likely to challenge many of the most storied records in the game. What a weird, pathetic path his career eventually wandered though. I spent years strongly disliking him, rooting against him and the teams he played for, but by the end he'd been vilified beyond any reasonable measure, and if he weren't categorically disqualified from pity, I think I'd have felt sorry for Alex Rodriguez.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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Three MVP awards and three other finishes in the top three of the voting, two Gold Gloves, ten Silver Sluggers, fourteen All-Star teams, two record-setting contracts, 696 career home runs, 3115 hits, 2021 runs scored, 2086 runs batted in, 329 stolen bases.<br />
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Rodriguez made his MLB debut with the Mariners at the age of 18, and played in his first All-Star Game when he was 20. Because he was so young when his career began, he became the rare star to reach free agency before even entering what was likely to be his prime. That paved the way for his 10-year $252 million deal with the Rangers. He wasn't enough to move the last-place Rangers into the postseason though, and after just three years they decided to trade him. In one of baseball's bigger what ifs, a deal with the Red Sox was vetoed by the union because the trade involved Rodriguez agreeing to give up millions of dollars, and so instead he was eventually traded to the Yankees. He was the best shortstop in baseball, but he agreed to move to third base so that New York could protect the ego of Derek Jeter, a great player but also one significantly less great than Rodriguez.<br />
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Shouting at an opponent in an attempt to trick him into missing an easy pop fly, swatting at an opponent's glove in an attempt to dislodge the ball, whispers that clubhouse attendants found him difficult, paintings in his home of him as a centaur, photoshoot shots of him kissing himself in mirror, PED rumors followed by PED denials followed by failed tests, followed by PED admissions and promises that his use was a thing of the past, followed by more rumors, more failed tests, and a season-long suspension.<br />
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His talent and willingness to move off his position should have been endearing in New York, but after the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead against Boston in the 2004 ALCS, then lost in the ALDS in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and missed the postseason entirely in 2008, Rodriguez became the scapegoat for what was considered a disastrous five-year stretch by fans spoiled by so many World Series crowns. The Yankees did win the World Series in 2009, with Rodriguez playing better than anyone in the postseason, but it wasn't enough to really change the perception of him.<br />
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The suspension that caused him to miss the entire 2014 season seemed to end his chance of breaking the all-time home run record, but he came back to hit 33 of them in 2015, his highest total in seven years, and suddenly it seemed like he might get there after all. The Yankees though didn't want him to, because they'd agreed to pay him substantial bonuses for each milestone home run he hit for them, and they believed those home runs no longer had enough marketing value to the team to be worth the bonuses. 2016 was a struggle, and he saw his playing time substantially diminish. In August he abruptly announced he would retire a few days later. Yankees manager Joe Girardi didn't even put Rodriguez in the starting lineup for most of his remaining games, and despite his wish to play in the field again, Girardi allowed him only a single at bat at third base. He received applause from fans who'd spent much of the previous decade booing him, and his career was over.<br />
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For me, Rodriguez was a villain for most of his career. I can't say for sure why I first turned against him. I vaguely recall not liking him when he was with the Mariners, but I can't think of a single reason why I would have felt that way. I know I was among those turned off by his contract with Texas, because at that point in my life I was still stupid enough to think there was something wrong with someone being well paid to do something better than anyone else could do it. When he joined the Yankees, my dislike for him was amplified, because to hell with the Yankees.<br />
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My most vivid memory involving A-Rod was during Game 2 of the 2007 ALDS between his hated Yankees and my beloved Indians. Stupidly, I hadn't not gotten the night off from the restaurant was I was working my way through grad school. It was not the most attentive night of service I ever provided as a waiter, due to the game being on the TV over the bar. At some point, for reasons I'm no longer sure of because Rodriguez went 0 for 4 in that game, I was standing at the bar next to a waitress named Yvonne. At a moment when things were not going well, she said something along the lines of, "That A-Rod sure can hit," leading me to loudly respond as a stormed away from the bar, "Fuck A-Rod, and fuck you!" It is to Dave the manager's credit that I wasn't fired for it, because dozens of people heard me.<br />
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When Yankees fans and New York writers turned on Rodriguez, I initially enjoyed it, but eventually those criticisms became so misguided and over the top that I began to defend him. He was a better player than Jeter, a better player than anyone for the Yankees since Mantle. I'm glad he didn't break any of the big records, but few players in history have played the game as well as he did.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-41272718084720960992017-04-28T22:17:00.000-07:002017-04-29T06:53:52.202-07:00The Maddux on a Baseball Card<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If you've read much of my writing, you're likely aware that when I was a kid, baseball cards were a huge deal to me, really taking off when Topps released its classic 1987 set, <a href="http://cconnect.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/1987-Topps-Traded-Greg-Maddux-RC.jpg" target="_blank">the one with the wood paneling trim.</a> I say they were a huge deal when I was a kid, but it's not as though I ever entirely let them go. Last summer in fact, I spent hours over the course of my weeks off from teaching loosely organizing the thousands and thousands of cards I had in a couple of large cardboard boxes in the basement. First I sorted them by sport (because I had a few football and basketball cards as well, along with some Star Wars and Marvel superhero cards too. Then I sorted the baseball cards by brand. There were Donruss and Fleer, Bowman and Score, Upper Deck and O-Pee-Chee. By far the largest pile was the Topps one though. My first love, and always to remain my greatest. And because of that, when I came upon something new today, I beamed with excitement the way I would have when I pulled a Kirby Puckett or a Bo Jackson from a pack as a kid.</div>
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Topps has an app called BUNT, that's digital trading cards. You get some coins every day that you open the app, and then there are different packs you can buy, with hundreds of different players. There are some cards that are harder to find, that there are only a few hundreds copies of. Out walking Scout: open the app and pull a few cards. Bouncing Imogen to try and get her to sleep: check and see if there's anything new. Standing in line at the grocery store: Hey, did my trade offer get accepted? Topps has a similar app for the other great love I've retained from my childhood, Star Wars, and I spend maybe even more time on that one. So many Han Solo cards.</div>
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The other thing to know is that Thursday night Masahiro Tanaka pitched a Maddux, MLB's first since last August. Jonah Keri, Craig Calcaterra, Jay Jaffe, and Rob Neyer all mentioned it, and as they always have been, they were each generous about mentioning me as well. The official MLB account tweeted about it to their 7+ million followers. (And as they always have, they declined to mention me at all. Someday, MLB, someday!) Then this morning I received a notification that Joe Posnanski had followed me on Twitter. My friend Zak texted me <a href="https://medium.com/joeblogs/how-bryce-detonates-11348a635118" target="_blank">Joe's latest post,</a> in which he referred to the Maddux's "brilliance." Better yet, he wrote that he'll soon be talking to Greg Maddux and will ask if he knows about the Maddux, and what he thinks of it. Mention by five of my absolute favorite writers had been a great enough feeling already, but learning that one of them would soon be talking to the namesake himself about it... It was maybe the most satisfying day I'd had as a baseball blogger. The day couldn't get any better. (Okay, it could and did, you know that's where I'm going with this.)</div>
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I jumped on BUNT on my way home from work; they'd released a new card, the one you see at the top of this post: <i>Masahiro Tanaka records first "Maddux" of the 2017 season</i>. Obviously I had to open some packs and get myself one. Sure, it was digital, not the cardboard I'll always feel a true affinity for, but still. Zak asked if there would be a physical version of it. I told him I doubted it, but then found myself wondering, and went to check. It turns out there <i>is</i>. Last year Topps began to make special limited edition cards that aren't in the sort of packs I bought at gas stations and convenience stores as a kid; instead <a href="https://www.topps.com/collectibles/trading-cards/topps-now.html/" target="_blank">they can be ordered online for 24 hours after their initial release.</a> Topps Now, they call it.</div>
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The digital copy I have on my phone right now is cool, but the copy that arrives in the mail next week, that'll be a keepsake, something to go with the copies of <i>Sports Illustrated</i> and <i>New York Times</i> with my name in them. Something to go with my Greg Maddux rookie card. <i>My</i> creation on Topps cardboard... seven-year-old Jason wouldn't believe it.</div>
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-41588368113990833272017-04-27T09:15:00.001-07:002017-04-27T09:15:57.494-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #6: Albert Pujols<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Albert Pujols was born the same year as me. Same month, in fact. On Opening Day in 2001, he became the first person younger than me to appear in the Major Leagues. He is by far the best player born in 1980, and while it's too early to know for sure, there's a strong chance he'll go down as the greatest player born at any point in the 80s. (Not that anyone actually keeps track of such a thingThat Pujols is now one of the league's elder statesmen is a reminder that I'm getting older too. I take some comfort in knowing that while 37 is old for baseball, it's only the early stages of middle age for the rest of the world. He was a star from the beginning, and I was aware of the proximity of our births from the beginning, so for his entire career, he's felt like something of an analog to me, if a somewhat more rich, famous, and successful one.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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At the beginning of Pujols' career, he and I were both riding high. He was a unanimous NL Rookie of the Year winner in 2001, as I was beginning my senior year of college, by far my favorite of the four years I spent matriculating. He finished in the top four of the NL MVP voting each of this first four seasons, leading MLB in runs scored and RBI during that stretch. Meanwhile, I graduated, moved back to the Chicago area, and worked a fantastic job that didn't pay much but provided more than enough for me to live in a cheap apartment with close friends and generally have a blast. Near the end of 2004, while Pujols was in the process of winning NLCS MVP honors, I moved to Portland with the girl I'd been dating since Albert's rookie season. The world felt full of wonder and possibility.<br />
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Soon after though, Pujols and I began to diverge.<br />
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In 2005 Barry Bonds missed almost the entire season due to injuries, giving the rest of the league an opportunity to compete for the MVP, and Albert capitalized. Me though, I was living through the disintegration of the relationship I'd moved across the country for. I went to Los Angeles to stay with my sister in hopes that time and distance might fix things, but they didn't. Then two weeks after the last strings holding that together were severed, I picked my dad up at the airport and knew immediately that something was very wrong. Hours later he was diagnosed with brain cancer.<br />
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Pujols led the Cardinals to a World Series crown in 2006, a year I have a hard time remembering many details from. I spent a lot of time sitting with my dad, some days better than others. He lived for more than two years after the initial diagnosis and operation, three times as long as we were told to expect. He accomplished a great deal in those two years too, refusing to stop going to work, refusing to slacken his commitment to his community, refusing to let anything see him feeling bad for himself. I tried hard not to let anyone see me feeling bad for myself either, but didn't accomplish all that much. Mostly I treaded water.<br />
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Pujols kept hammering baseballs, and by the end of 2011, each of us 31 years old, he'd assured himself of a spot in the Hall of Fame someday, with 445 home runs and a .328 batting average, with more extra-base hits than all but two players in MLB history through that age. He and the Cardinals also won another World Series that fall. Albert was a free agent at the conclusion of that season, in line to get one of the largest contracts in sports history. Many expected him to re-sign with St. Louis, cementing his legacy as the city's most beloved athlete since Stan Musial, but instead he signed with the Angels, a ten-year deal worth $254 million.<br />
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Pujols' first season in Anaheim was the worst of his career, and he posted his lowest batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and total number of home runs and walks. He'd still been a good player, but not the transcendent one he'd been in St. Louis. Things were even worse in 2013. While his former teammates were on their way to winning another National League pennant, Albert missed significant time due to injuries for the first time in his career, and saw his slugging percentage drop another 79 points below the new low he'd established the year before. He's rebounded a bit since then, but never to anything approaching his previous glory.<br />
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Meanwhile, the same week Albert played his first game with the Angels, I asked a beautiful woman out on a date. In the five years since then, the two of us moved in together, got engaged, adopted a dog, married, and bought a house. Last month we welcomed a baby girl to the world. They have been the best five years of my life.<br />
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While there's a good chance his numbers would have declined in much the same way if he'd re-signed with the Cardinals, it felt like he'd made the wrong decision. If nothing else, Cardinals fans would have had the earlier seasons to fall back on when considering him, whereas in Anaheim he's always felt a bit like a disappointment. After leading baseball in WAR from 2001 through 2011, Pujols tied for 82nd from 2012 through 2016, and while it's still early this season, so far he's been a below average hitter, and hitting is the only thing he's really asked to do at this point.<br />
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I've been dwelling on his decline, which isn't fair. This series is about celebrating the best players of my lifetime, and I'm near the very top of that list now. Few players in history have approached Albert Pujols' accomplishments. He posted an OPS better than 1.000 in eight different seasons. Only five players topped that number. He maintained an OPS of 1.050 during the first ten years of his career. The last player with a figure so high during his first ten seasons was Ted Williams. Pujols is the second-best hitter of my lifetime, and he hasn't been just a hitter either: During his prime he was a good base runner and the best defensive first baseman in baseball.<br />
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I wish he would have stayed with the Cardinals, just because I prefer that narrative. We can't control anyone else's narrative though. Sometimes we can barely control our own. I hope that when his career ends, our paths converge and run in the same direction again, so that I might wish him well in retirement without dooming myself.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-82923201063802274122017-03-31T22:33:00.004-07:002017-03-31T22:34:00.882-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #7: Pedro Martinez<div style="text-align: justify;">
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As a child, I was drawn to position players. Home runs, stolen bases, diving catches... those were the things that captured me, and those are things position players do. When I went to a game, or sat down to watch one on TV, I wanted a high-scoring slugfest. In my ideal scenario, the guys standing on the mound as baseballs were whacked all over the stadium hardly mattered. As an adult though, it's the opposite. I now want to a see a pitchers' duel, two guys matching each other, scoreless frame for scoreless frame. If I'm not watching the Indians, I'm watching whichever game offers me the best possible arms. Greg Maddux, who I consider my favorite player ever, played a big role in that, but when I think about planning my day around being able to watch a guy, it's Pedro Martinez who comes to mind. And if my life depending on a ballgame, and all I could control was who would pitch, it's Pedro Martinez I'd hand the ball to.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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Pedro Martinez wasn't at his best for as long as some of the other greatest arms in baseball history, but while it lasted, I think Pedro's best was the best ever. From 1997 through 2003, Pedro posted an ERA of 2.20.<br />
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Since the end of the Dead Ball Era, exactly two other pitchers have had a seven-year stretch with such a low ERA (minimum of 1200 innings): Greg Maddux from 1992 through 1998 posted a 2.15 ERA, and Clayton Kershaw during the last seven seasons posted a 2.18 ERA. That's it. Maddux started his run before offense exploded Kershaw had his run after the offensive peak had passed. Both of them pitched all seven of those seasons in the National League, an easier task for pitchers (in large part due to the absence of a DH). Pedro posted his entire run during the peak decade for offense in Major League history, and six of his seven seasons came in the American League, pitching his home games at hitter-friendly Fenway Park. During those seven years, Maddux and Roger Clemens were the only other pitchers to have a single season with an ERA as low as 2.20. They each did it once; Pedro averaged it for seven years. He struck out the second-most batters per inning during that time, and gave up the second-fewest home runs per inning, while also placing in the top ten for fewest walks per inning.<br />
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ERA+ accounts for era and ballparks. Kershaw's ERA+ during the last seven year: 170. Fantastic. Maddux's ERA+ during his run: 190. Otherworldly. Pedro's ERA+ during his run: 213. My vocabulary isn't impressive enough to put an appropriate word to that.<br />
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In the year 2000, Pedro pitched 217 innings and had an ERA+ of 291, the highest in baseball history for a starting pitcher. If you believe ERA and ERA+ are flawed tools for measuring a pitcher because they include things somewhat outside his control, such as the quality of the defense behind him, and you prefer to use FIP instead, then the best season since the Dead Ball Era belongs to... Pedro Martinez, who had a FIP of 1.39 the year before, in 1999, when his ERA+ was 243, <i>only</i> the fifth-best figure since the Dead Ball Era.<br />
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Cable television and Martinez joining the very popular Red Sox combined to make most of those seven years much easier to follow than almost any non-Chicago pitcher had been during my life to that point, and when the game itself wasn't available for viewing, Pedro would often be the lead story on Baseball Tonight, making it easy to see the highlights. Starting in 1994, I always went to Comiskey to see the Indians when they were in town, and to Wrigley if Maddux was going to be pitching. Pedro became another "I have to be there" for me; I saw him start in Chicago three or four times, and once in Boston.<br />
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The Pedro game that stands out the most for me wasn't a start. In Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS the Indians faced the Red Sox in a win-or-go-home matchup. The Tribe scored eight early runs. Then Pedro entered from the bullpen. I watched in a mix of horror and awe as he pitched six no-hit innings against my favorite team. Those Indians are the only MLB team in my lifetime to have scored 1000 runs in a season; Pedro annihilated them.<br />
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Martinez's last great season came when he was 33, and his last game came only days after he turned 38. His career counting totals are impressive, but not nearly the same way as those of some of the other guys on this list. Because of all that, I can't rank him any higher than this, but I've never seen anyone pitch any better than peak Pedro.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-16291335821577719302017-02-28T14:57:00.002-08:002017-02-28T14:58:51.891-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #8: Ken Griffey Jr.<div style="text-align: justify;">
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This seems like a subjective thing, I know, but Ken Griffey Jr. was <i>the</i> ballplayer for my generation. The #1 overall pick in 1987, Griffey made his MLB debut on Opening Day in 1989, when he was still a teenager. He was a huge deal right from the start, popular enough that in just his second season, he was voted by fans to be a starter for the All-Star Game, making him the second-youngest position player ever to be so honored. (Only Al Kaline was voted in at a younger age, and by just one month.) By the end of his age-30 season, he'd hit 40+ home runs in seven different seasons. Before Griffey, no one so young had done that more than five times. He made breathtaking plays in center field, the kind every kid pretended to make when he was at Little League practice or alone in his backyard, and won ten consecutive Gold Gloves during the 90s. He finished in the top five of the AL MVP vote five times, winning the award in 1997, and having an excellent case for it in 1993, 1994, and 1996 as well. He was chosen for the All-Century team, despite not yet having turned 30. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016, having received a record 99.32% of the vote. Only a fool would leave Griffey off their ballot.<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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Griffey was a big deal to me from even before his MLB debut on Opening Day of 1989. Upper Deck was a new baseball card company then, and a month or two before the season began they released their first set. Griffey, wearing a Mariners hat that had to be airbrushed onto the photo because pictures of him in a Mariners uniform didn't even exist yet, became the marquee card of the set, more sought after than any other card of that era. Kids thought they'd be buying their first house with the money they'd get from selling all their Griffey rookies someday. I never managed to open one in a pack, though not for lack of trying, (and at $1 a pack, Upper Deck counted as a major purchase at the time, when most other brands were still something like 40 cents), and could never convince anyone to trade me one, probably because I didn't have a nice enough bike to offer in exchange. Near the end of high school I heard about a website called eBay. It took a few minutes to set up an account. $47 and a few nervous days of waiting for the mail later, I finally had what I'd spent nine years missing.<br />
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In 1992, Griffey was one of the nine players tracked down by Smithers to play for the Springfield Nuclear team in the landmark episode of the Simpsons, "Homer at the Bat." (Something I wrote <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2013/02/springfield-nuclear-pennant-winning-team.html" target="_blank">one of my favorite posts ever</a> about) He was the youngest member of Mr. Burns' team by five full years. Sadly, Griffey got hooked on nerve tonic and missed the big game.<br />
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In 1994 Griffey had already hit 40 home runs when the labor stoppage wiped out the rest of the season. By the end of 1999 Griffey had hit 398 home runs, and still hadn't turned 30, giving him more long balls at that age than any player in history. He seemed a good bet to eventually break Hank Aaron's all-time record. Even though he'd said he wanted to be traded, I was shocked when it actually happened, and he was sent to Cincinnati prior to the 2000 season. The second half of Griffey's career couldn't live up to the first half, which is why he's "only" one of the top 50 or so greatest players ever, instead of one of the top 20.<br />
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Griffey often wore his hat backwards, and it's funny now to think back on how controversial that was at the time. Some said it was a sign he wasn't taking things seriously enough, but it inspired a ton of kids to do the same thing, and made Griffey an early hero in the newest version of the generational war that had probably been going on since humans first lived long enough to give much thought to different generations. The backwards hat became such a part of Griffey's identity that when he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2016 there was a strong push to include it on the official portrait for his plaque. Ultimately he and the Hall agreed on a front-facing Mariners cap, but during his induction speech, Griffey took out a cap and put it on backwards, bringing huge cheers from the crowd.<br />
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He had the most beautiful swing in baseball, and used it to hit sizzling lasers and majestic moonshots, home runs to every part of the stadium. He made breathtaking plays in center field, the kind every kid pretended to make when he was at Little League practice or alone in his backyard. He epitomized cool. Griffey wasn't my favorite player and it turns out he wasn't quite the best player (though he seemed it at the time), but he was most definitely <i>the</i> player.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-69476892251528251702017-01-31T22:43:00.001-08:002017-01-31T22:44:02.443-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #9: Chipper Jones<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Larry Jones Jr.'s father was a baseball coach, and when the boy took to baseball at a young age, his family saw it as a sign that he was a "chip off the old block," which is why they began to call him Chipper. Two players still to come in this countdown are the sons of former Major League players, and a number of others on the list had a father or other close family member who played college or semi-pro ball. I wonder how much more likely a child is to become a great player if they grow up with someone who was a great player. And whatever the difference is, how much of it is the actual genes, how much of it is having someone in your life who can teach you the skills, how much of it is the connections that family member may have, and how much of it is having someone who's trying to bend your life in that particular direction?<br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></span></i></div>
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My dad took me to games, and played catch with me, and brought me to the batting cages every once in a while. He was happy to have me playing baseball, but I think he'd have been just as happy to have me playing soccer, or learning the piano, or to paint, or ay number of other things. He just didn't want me doing nothing. Our neighbor and the father of two of my friends, Mr. Coughlin gave me a few pointers along the way, but mostly I remember getting basketball advice from him ("You're dribbling the ball at your waist; you need to keep it lower."), which may explain why one of his sons is now the basketball coach at our high school. Mostly my baseball ability came from whatever my coaches were able to pass along, and from whatever knack for the game I may have had. I managed to make my hometown's travel team, and I sometimes wonder if it had been a bigger priority to me, if I'd had a little more of a push from the right people, if I might have been able to play college ball at a small school or something.</div>
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I also think of this in the context of knowing that in the next month or so, I'm going to become a dad. (To my wife, who may or may not be reading this: Don't worry, I don't plan to harass our children into becoming professional baseball players.) Even without children of my own, I've spent time over the years considering the parent who pushes too hard, but I've also begun to worry about pushing my children too little, not necessarily in terms of playing baseball (or any sport), but in terms of doing <i>something </i>and sticking with it. I have a sense that it shouldn't <i>feel</i> like I'm pushing them at all, and I wonder about how one finds that sweet spot.</div>
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Jones was drafted with the first overall pick in 1990**, and made his MLB debut late in 1993, but missed all of the 1994 season after tearing his ACL during spring training. He came back in 1995 and led all National League rookies with 23 home runs, 87 runs scored, and 86 RBI. He finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting behind Hideo Nomo, who was considered a rookie, but had played professionally in Japan for five years. The Braves won the World Series that October, with Jones batting .364 in the postseason, including two home runs in his very first postseason game. The following year he made the All-Star team for the first of eight times in his career.<br />
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**<i>The Braves wanted to select Todd Van Poppel, but he'd said he wouldn't sign with them, so they took Jones instead. Van Poppel posted an ugly 5.58 ERA in 907 innings spread over 14 years. Sometimes it's nice to have someone save us from our own bad judgement.</i></div>
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Jones had a number of excellent seasons, and there isn't one stands clearly above the rest, but his best year was probably 1999, when he became the first third baseman in Major League history with 40+ doubles and 40+ home runs in the same season, posted a .319/.441/.633 batting line, and won the NL MVP. That was the only season he ever finished higher than 9th in the league in home runs, but he finished his career with 1,055 extra-base hits, which is the most by any infielder in National League history. His 1,619 career runs scored are the most by any third baseman (meaning players who played more than half their career games at third base) in MLB history, as are his 1,623 RBI (though Adrian Beltre could pass him in RBI in 2017) and his .930 OPS.<br />
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Jones was great when he was young, he was great in the middle years of his career, and he was great when he was old. He won his only batting title in 2008, batting .364 at the age of 36. Since 1957, when Ted Williams and Stan Musial each did it, Jones, Barry Bonds, and Tony Gwynn are the only players to bat .350 or better at the age of 36 or older. Jones had a fantastic on-base percentage of .470 that same season; the only other players his age or older in MLB history with an OBP so high were Bonds, Williams, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker.<br />
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Jones reached the postseason with the Braves 12 times, but they didn't win another World Series after his first trip in 1995. His 94 career postseason games are the most for any National League player, and his name is scattered liberally throughout the postseason leaderboards. Among 223 players with 100+ plate appearances in the postseason, Jones' .411 on-base percentage ranks 9th, and none of the 8 players ahead of him had as many plate appearances as he did.<br />
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Along with his general excellence and his postseason success, something that jumps out about Jones is that he did it all while playing for just one franchise, a rare thing anymore. Only five players on this countdown were with the same team their entire career, and Jones ranks the highest of those five. (Apologies to Cal Ripken, whose entire career would rate slightly ahead of Jones', but whose first few seasons came before I was paying any attention to baseball.)<br />
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Push a child too hard, and you run the risk of burning them out, turning them against whatever it is you're pushing them towards, maybe turning them against you. Don't push a child hard enough, and you run the risk of them missing out on the opportunities and joys that can come from reaching one's potential, not only (or most importantly) in sports, but in any area. As a teacher I've seen students falling on both sides of that fine line. I'll soon begin to try and figure it out as a father. Larry Jones, Sr. found that sweet spot, and any parent ought be delighted to raise a child who finds even a fraction of the success in their chosen field that Chipper Jones found in his.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-59499773671562690722016-12-20T14:54:00.002-08:002016-12-20T14:54:20.545-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #10: Jeff Bagwell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Did Jeff Bagwell have too little power, or too much? Some believe his numbers just weren't impressive enough; he hit "only" 449 home runs, leaving him a couple solid seasons short of 500, which itself isn't even an automatic ticket to Cooperstown anymore. Not enough power for a first baseman. Others believe his prodigious blasts mean he must have been on steroids. Too much power, very suspicious. There's nothing that really links Bagwell to any banned substance; his name wasn't on any of the lists of reported users that have been released over the years. He was strong though, which is all it takes for some to think you were up to no good. His numbers weren't good enough! On the other hand... He must have been cheating! Bagwell has been stuck between a rock and a hard place; I can't think of another player whose status has been hit so hard by both sides. I don't know how to convince anyone who thinks Bagwell was cheating, except to say you could think that of anyone. As for the people who don't think Bagwell's numbers were quite good. Look again, and maybe look just a little closer.</div>
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<i>This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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Bagwell was famously part of arguably the worst trade in baseball history. He'd been drafted by the Red Sox in 1989, and he did well in the minors during the next fifteen months. At the end of August in 1990, Boston was in contention for the AL East crown, and wanted to add some help to their bullpen, so they sent Bagwell to the Astros in exchange for 37-year-old reliever Larry Andersen. Andersen pitched well during the final month of the regular season, then gave up two runs in three innings while Boston was swept out of the ALCS, and with that, his time with the team was over***.</div>
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Meanwhile, Houston put Bagwell into the starting lineup on Opening Day in 1991. He went on to win the National League's Rookie of the Year Award, making the trade look like a steal for Houston, and it just got better and better for them, as Bagwell was listed on MVP ballots in 10 of the next 12 seasons, and won the award in 1994, when he had a .750 slugging percentage, the highest by any qualified player since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1927.</div>
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*** <i>Andersen made his MLB debut in 1975, and his last appearance came nearly 20 years later, in 1994. Along the way he pitched in 699 Major League games, plus another 14 in the postseason. He was never an All-Star, but was an above-average reliever for most of his career, and from 1986 to 1990 he posted a 2.55 ERA, ranking 7th among pitchers who averaged at least 50 innings a season. Despite all that, beyond his family and friends, and people who listen to him call Phillies games, when Andersen is thought about at all these days, for many people it's as a footnote in someone else's story. That seems sad, but is it? If you wrote an autobiography, most of the people you've ever met or known wouldn't be mentioned at all. Seen in that light, meriting a stray footnote or two isn't too bad. I think my own footnotes sometimes: old friends I haven't seen in years, people I used to work with, lab partners from high school. When I think of them, I wonder if they ever think of met. I also wonder if there's anyone I've forgotten about, but who still remembers me.</i></div>
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Bagwell collected 2,314 hits in his career (including 488 doubles and the 449 home runs I mentioned at the top), along with 1,401 walks, posting a career batting line of .297/.408/.540. Among the more than a thousand players with 4,000+ plate appearances, Bagwell's on-base percentage ranks 36th, and his slugging percentage ranks 32nd. OPS+ and wRC+ are metrics that take a player's offense and adjust it for the context of the era and particular ballparks he played in, allowing for more reasonable comparisons of players across history. Bagwell had a career OPS+ of 149, which ranks 35th, and a wRC+ of 149, which ranks 29th.</div>
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Bagwell also ran the bases well (He and Barry Bonds are the only players ever to hit 40+ home runs and steal 30+ bases in the same season two separate times.) and defensive player. Baseball-Reference has Bagwell among the top 20 first-basemen for both base-running and fielding. Bill White and Mark Grace are the only others in the top 20 for both those categories, and neither of them was anywhere near Bagwell's class as a hitter. Hitting, running, fielding... put it all together and Bagwell ranks among the top half dozen or so first basemen ever.</div>
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The early returns from this year's Hall of Fame balloting show support for Bagwell having climbed above 75%, making him a strong bet to be voted in next month, in his seventh year on the ballot. Better late than never, but as great as Bagwell was, he shouldn't have had to wait.</div>
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The afternoon before Game 5 of the World Series, I went for a run. The weekend before I had skipped the Frank Lloyd Wright Race, my hometown's annual 10K, for the first time in years, because my right knee has been bothering me a little, and I didn't want to aggravate it. I'm not in race shape, but I always go for at least a short run on the weekend. My plan that day was to do four miles. The night before, the Indians had won Game 4, giving them a 3 to 1 lead over the Cubs. It was possible Sunday night would bring the Tribe its first crown since 1948. As my wife could tell you, I'm generally pretty optimistic, not prone to worrying, instead believing things will get done, things will work out. My favorite baseball team is my exception. When it comes to the Indians, I expect the worse. I wouldn't believe they'd win the World Series until it happened, not one pitch sooner, but they were as close as a team could be, needing to win just one more game, and with three chances to do it. They were on my mind when I set out that afternoon, and I found myself pulled towards the house I lived in when I first fell in love with the team, now more than 30 years gone by.</div>
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<i>"And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. </i></div>
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<i>Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning—— </i></div>
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<i>So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."</i><br />
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- The final lines of<i> The Great Gatsby</i>, by F. Scott Fitzgerald</div>
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I began by heading south, towards the train tracks that divide Oak Park, and a few minutes in, I decided not just to run by the place I lived when I became an Indians fan, but to run by <i>every</i> place I've lived in Oak Park, because they all speak to some part of my fandom, and some part of who I am today. I went under the tracks on Harvey, turned left on Pleasant, and then, just over a mile into the run, I turned right on Lombard, taking me by the apartment where I lived with my mom for half of every week for a few years. My mom had a print of a painting by a French Realist named Jules Breton, called <i><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/The_Song_of_the_Lark_%28Jules_Breton%2C_1884%29.jpg" target="_blank">The Song of the Lark</a></i>. Is the sun in that painting rising or setting? How does one know Either way, something other than the sun holds the woman's attention. The year I graduated from junior high, 1994, the Indians were having their best season in years. They had a very real chance at winning the division and making the postseason for the first time in my lifetime, and quite a while before my lifetime. Near the end of the summer a labor dispute ended the baseball season early, taking the postseason with it, and my mom moved to Minnesota. Things should not be taken for granted.<br />
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<b>Dad's Apartment on Washington</b></div>
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Just two blocks farther south, I went by the building where my dad had an apartment, before he remarried. I mostly remember three things about living there: 1) The day we moved in, I was running up and down the long hallway that ran from the living room in the front of the apartment, to the kitchen in the back. Someone who lived downstairs came up and yelled at us. It was the moment I realized an apartment was not the same as a house. 2) The lunch my dad packed me was always the same: two Kraft singles on white bread, a bag of chips, a twin-pack of Nutty Bars, and an Ecto Cooler. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but it seems worth mentioning. 3) Dad often watched an hour of <i>M*A*S*H </i>in the evening; I was allowed to watch the first episode, then it was bedtime, unless they were showing a two-part story that night, in which case I could convince him to let me stay up. My eventual lack of a bedtime altogether owes a debt to Hawkeye Pierce and the brave men and women of the 4077th. Some nights we'd put on a ballgame. The Cubs had only just begun to play night games, and they didn't have many of them. There was no way to watch the Indians. Being a fan back then was limited to checking scores and the standings in the newspaper, and collecting their baseball cards.<br />
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<b>Our Apartment on Cuyler</b></div>
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I turned right on Washington, cut over to Cuyler, and went farther south, past the building my family lived in when we first moved to Oak Park, when I was only a few months old. I don't have any memories of living there, because we'd moved again by the time I was three. In fact, I don't even know which building it was, because there are three on that block that look alike, even pictures that exists from our time there don't give me a definitive answer. I wasn't aware of baseball yet, and anything I know of that time in my life comes from the stories of others. I was just a very small human whose sister dressed him up in goofy clothes for the entertainment of her friends. Jennifer also used to give me things that made me happy, all so that she could take them away and bring me to the verge of tears, because she liked the face I made when I was just about to cry. This now seems like good preparation for someone who'd eventually become an Indians fan.<br />
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<b>704 Highland</b></div>
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Two miles into my run, I passed Longfellow Center, where I worked during high school and summers during college, and then Longfellow School, where I spent my elementary years. Across from the school is 704 Highland, the house where I lived when I became a fan. The backyard there is where I first played catch with my dad. My favorites were the high flies my dad would sometimes send into orbit above me. Once, just before a road trip, I misplayed one of those satellites, and caught it with my face instead of my glove, leading to a lot of tears and an unhappy car ride to Iowa. My dad took my to games at Wrigley and Comiskey, but neither of my parents cared much about following sports or had a particular rooting interest. It was Mr. Coughlin, father of my friends J.P. and Sean, who really fostered by interest in baseball. Mr. Coughlin always called me "Jason W. Lukehart;" I never knew what the W stood for, but I always liked it. J.P. was a year older than me, and began playing t-ball a year before I could. When I was six, Sean and I were placed on the same team as J.P., which is how I joined the Indians.<br />
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<b>708 Highland</b></div>
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Before we lived at 704, we lived right next door at 708. I don't know why we made moved one house over. I don't recall very much from the first house I lived in; what I remember most is lying on the floor of the sun room at the front of the house, learning to read. Sometimes I was with Mom, sometimes on my own. I remember the world of Richard Scarry, populated by animals who put in an honest day's work at practical jobs. Years later I'd branch out to the Hardy Boys, Calvin and Hobbes, Tolkien, and sports books. I found that I didn't really like any of the fictional sports books that were so popular in those days, such as Matt Christopher's ongoing series; I preferred the ones that recapped the previous season, or previewed the upcoming one, or highlighted the Cy Young winners of the 1970s. I loved learning about real players on real teams, from real history. I loved the words, but I also loved the numbers in those books, and the numbers on the back of my baseball cards; I loved that sometimes the numbers told their own stories.<br />
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<b>My Apartment on Scoville</b></div>
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At the end of the block I turned right on Van Buren, cut over five streets, turned left, and passed the apartment where I lived during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 baseball seasons. I spent most of that time in a relationship I knew wasn't right for me. I was quietly concerned about how life was going to turn out. The Indians finished each of those years with a losing record, at least 15 games out of first place. It was a time marked by the decline of Grady Sizemore, the team's young former-superstar. Sizemore was born two years after me, and there was something disconcerting about watching someone younger than me fall apart. I could only hope young arrivals such as Michael Brantley, Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana would someday get the team turned back around. With my own life, I decided to exert more control. I ended that relationship and asked out the intriguing girl I'd met at a friend's Halloween party, I began training to run the Chicago Marathon, and I started a blog. I finished the marathon in 3:59:21, I moved in with that girl (and eventually married her), and my blog got me mentioned in Sports Illustrated and the New York Times, and on Baseball Tonight. It also led to a gig writing for Let's Go Tribe, giving me contact with other Indians fans for the first time in my life.<br />
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<b>Maple Park</b></div>
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I was now three miles into my run, but I decided that touring my life in Oak Park and as an Indians fan, the houses and apartments weren't enough. I had to go to Maple Park, in the very corner of town, next to the cement factory atop which a plastic Santa Claus has stood vigil every day since before I was born. I remember only one thing about my first day of t-ball: Coach Jerry told me never to wear shorts to practice again. I came to love Jerry, who once a season ended practice early and bought the entire team ice cream from the Good Humor truck. The Coughlins and my other friends on the team all cheered for the Cubs, but for me that t-shirt jersey, INDIANS in block letter across the front, my very own number on the back, it made an impression. If J.P. had been on the Red Sox, or Mariners, or Tigers, I might now be a Boston, Seattle, or Detroit fan. Those were very bad years for the Indians of Cleveland, but very good years for the Indians of Maple Park, and I became a very good player. In my final year of t-ball, when I was eight years old, we made it to the South Side title game. The winner of that game would face whichever team won the North Side crown, to decide the village championship. The day before the game, I could barely muster the energy to sit up. My mom took me to the doctor, where we learned I had chicken pox. The next evening my dad took me to Maple Park, and a safe distance from everyone else, we watched the game. My replacement at third base made two errors. We lost by one run. It's been 28 years, but I still think about it. I'll die believing that if not for that varicella-zoster virus, we'd have won. It was my first experience with the strain of caring intensely about a game you can only watch.<br />
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<b>732 South Elmwood</b></div>
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I took the pedestrian bridge back across the expressway that cuts through the south side of town, and made my way back to Elmwood, the street I've lived on for more of my life than any other. 732 South Elmwood is where I moved my dad and I moved when I was ten, a couple months before he remarried. My stepmom Mary, and her children Colin and Alison already lived there. Colin, seven years older than me, shared my love for sports. We used to invent games to play, including a one-on-one football battle that was eventually banned after my head struck a radiator. Alison was a tornado in the early years of our family, a teenage girl experiencing the full range of teenage girl emotions. She often raged against her mom and against my dad, but she always looked out for me, holding me blameless in the ruination of her life she believed our parents marriage had wrought. Not long after the wedding, we got cable TV. Suddenly I could watch a lot more baseball games, sometimes even the Indians. Not long after that, the Indians became a force, one powered by the likes of Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, and Manny Ramirez. Colin had a TV in his bedroom, and that's often where I would watch sports, tucked into the small space between his bed and the wall, a spot that felt secure. Not even that space could protect me against Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. After the Indians blew their ninth-inning lead and then lost in extra innings, I sat down in the shower and cried.<br />
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<b>The Apartment on Elmwood</b></div>
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Three blocks north of that house is the apartment where I lived with friends after college. I'd been spoiled by eight straight winning seasons for the Indians, and as that era ended, I found myself looking for other ways to enjoy baseball. We played something called MLB Showdown, sort of a cross between baseball card collecting and Dungeons & Dragons. We started a fantasy baseball league. I temporarily moved a bit more of my baseball emotion from loving the Indians to hating the Yankees, who'd won four World Series during the Indians' eight good years, while the Tribe had won none. Yankee Death Day, the day they were officially eliminated from any chance at winning the World Series, became a holiday for me. My roommates were big baseball fans too. Chris loves the Brewers, which serves to remind me that things could be worse. Zak loves the White Sox, so it was probably for the best that by 2005, when Cleveland and Chicago battled into the final days of the season for the division crown. I'd moved out west. The White Sox won that battle, then won the World Series. A month later, I was borne back to the very same apartment. The following spring, Chris, Zak, and went to Cleveland. I saw the Indians play at home for the first time. They lost. In 2007, I moved out of that apartment for a second time, into the city to live by myself for the first time. A few weeks later, when the Indians blew a 3 to 1 lead in the American League Championship Series, I was alone.<br />
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<b>Mom's Apartment on Erie</b></div>
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The last old home on my tour was the tan brick apartment building my mom first moved to after she and my dad separated. My parents' divorce was not as traumatic an experience for me as such a thing is for many kids. In part this was probably because I never had to see or hear the two of them fight, and I was allowed to grow up without either of them ever badmouthing the other to me. That isn't to say there wasn't any strain inside me though. Not getting to be with my mom and dad together anymore was sometimes disappointing, and because my sister had gone away to college, she wasn't there anymore either. Both of the apartments my life was now split between were in Oak Park, so I didn't have to change schools, but I wasn't in the same neighborhood as my friends anymore. Everything had been pulled apart. I moved on from t-ball to baseball, so I was no longer playing for the Indians. If my bond with the team was going to break, that was the most likely time. I was in need of the familiar though, and held tightly to my favorite team.<br />
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<b>The Tallest Tree in the Biggest Park</b></div>
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My dad was very involved in Oak Park, serving as campaign manager for multiple winning village council and village president tickets, working with the fair housing center, serving as president of the Oak Park Arts Council, and more. To be the son of John Lukehart in Oak Park was to be a child constantly waiting, watching their dad talk to someone. I used to hate it. Eleven years ago this month, my dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a relentless form of brain cancer. The initial change in his health was swift and terrifying for me; the next two years were slower, less terrifying, but more dispiriting. He died a few days after his 56th birthday. The intensity of those two years created very vivid memories, which shoved a lot of my earlier ones somewhere deeper, harder for me to access. Old pictures, the sculpture he kept in his office at work, the dining room table that came with him from Iowa.... Those things help me push the sight of him lying in a hospital bed out of my mind. Not long after he died, a small plaque was placed at the base of the tallest tree in Scoville Park, the most prominent park in town: "JOHN LUKEHART," it reads, "DEDICATED TO A DIVERSE COMMUNITY." When I need to, I run through Scoville Park, and as I go past his tree, I reach down and touch his name.<br />
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<b>Our Home</b></div>
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I'd run more than nine miles by the time I made it back to the house my wife and I bought last year. It probably needs a new furnace, and mice sometimes get in, but we have a big yard, a sun room that glows in the afternoon, a window that our dog sits in, waiting for us to come home. This house is where I watched Game 5 of the World Series the evening after my run. The Indians took an early lead, but eventually lost. I got a text message from my mom, telling me she found herself cheering for the Indians. "I just like their faces and mannerisms," she wrote. I know better though. My life is mostly out of her hands now, but she'll forever want few things as dearly as she wants me to be happy. This house is where I watched Game 6, two nights later. The Indians got blown out. I went out to sit on our deck, noticing the board that sticks up, wishing I could ask my dad if he thinks it just needs some minor work, or if the whole thing is going to give way. This house is where I watched Game 7. The Indians fell behind immediately, but battled back. They fell behind again, then battled back again. The game went to extra innings, the first World Series Game 7 to do that since 1997. You may recall that I cried at the end of that one. To come so close, and then fall short.... It hurts.<br />
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I've lost the thread of this writing. That run was more than three weeks ago, and a lot has happened in the world since then. I felt something important that day, footsteps taking me back through my life, but the words in my head that afternoon now feel just out of my reach, and I'm not sure how to end this.<br />
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The boy watching helplessly at Maple Park as his team lost the big game, he's still inside me. So is the boy crying in the shower about something he couldn't control, and the one lying awake, trying to understand why things fall apart, sometimes even the ones you most want to hold together.<br />
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Before all of that there was the boy thrilled to put on his first uniform, the boy eating ice cream in the grass after practice, and the boy posing for a picture, his pants coated with a satisfying layer of dirt. All of that happened here in Oak Park, my blue lawn and my light at the end of the dock.<br />
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After all of that, after the final game ended, I wondered if it'll be another 19 years before the Indians get that close again. I wondered what will happen in the next 19 years. I went upstairs and took a quick shower (this time without crying), then climbed into bed. The sound of my hometown celebrating something many had been waiting a long time for would not abate for some time. I lie awake, dwelling on the past. Elizabeth was not quite asleep either, and at some point she gently pulled my arm around her and pressed my hand against her stomach. At first I felt nothing.... then it was there, tiny kicks against my palm: the future.</div>
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-1932441988912450762016-10-31T22:49:00.000-07:002017-07-27T06:54:30.689-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #11: Adrian Beltre<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20.79px;">Why do we love the ones we love? Some of the people we love, they loved us first. Loving them back felt natural without us ever really thinking about it. I don't remember a time when I didn't love my parents and my sister. There may be ups and down, but love is the blackboard, whatever else goes on it only chalk dust. Some of the people we love, it's through the accumulation of shared experiences and survived battles. Most of my closest friends are people I've known for decades. Those relationships have had their share of tumult, but we've come out on the other side, and now it's hard to imagine those bonds ever being broken. Some of the people we love, </span></span>almost immediately they're<span style="font-family: inherit;"> exactly the person we needed. I met my wife when I was seven years removed from really having my feet under me, at a moment when another relationship, one that had never been quite right, was in the process of disintegrating. It took some time for me to find the courage to ask her out, but within weeks of our first date I had the ineffable something I'd been missing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can remember a time before Adrian Beltre, so my love for him is not like the love for my family. He's never played for my favorite team, so I can't say we've ever struggled together towards a common purpose <i>or</i> struggled against one another as a way of measuring ourselves, so my love for him is not like the love for my wife. For any number of reasons, my love for him is not like the love for my wife.</span> I suppose some loves are less explicable than others.<br />
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<i><span style="line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and </span><a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; line-height: 20.79px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Beltre made his MLB debut on June 24, 1998, not even three weeks after I graduated from high school. He was only a few months older than me, making him the first player roughly my age to reach the Major Leagues. More than 18 years later, he is still playing, one of just <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-last-active-mlb-players-from-1990s.html" target="_blank">seven players who debuted during the 1990s and were still active in 2016.</a> Given that he's still performing at a high level, there's good reason to think he'll be the last remaining player from the 90s, and from the 1900s as a whole as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn't love Beltre for being my age though, because I wasn't even really aware of him at the time. In the summer of 1998, it took a lot more than a .215 batting average and seven home runs to grab my attention. Beltre was with the Dodgers back then, and it wasn't until his last year with the team, six whole years later, that he really made himself. That came in 2004, when Beltre went from a previous career high of 23 home runs, all the way to 48 of them, tying Mike Schmidt's record for most in a season while playing third base, and tying Gary Sheffield's Dodger Stadium record by hitting 23 of his home runs in Los Angeles' home ballpark, which has long been notorious for favoring pitchers. This wasn't whatever one might consider empty power either, as Beltre batted .334 and played tremendous defense. That season has an argument for being the greatest in baseball history by a third baseman. Only Barry Bonds' setting single-season records for on-base percentage and OPS prevented Beltre from winning the MVP.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was certainly impressed by Beltre that year, but I don't recall falling in love with him. He signed a big contract with the Mariners that offseason, and promptly went back to being the roughly average hitter he'd been before his one huge season at the plate. His outstanding defense meant he still had plenty of value, but having just hit 48 home runs, when he averaged barely over 20 of them during his five seasons in Seattle, he was labeled something of a disappointment. I wasn't among those who dogged him during those years, but I don't recall falling my infatuation beginning then either. After a offensively barren 2009 in Seattle, in which (at the age of 30) his OBP and context-adjusted numbers like wRC+ cratered, and he struggled to stay healthy, he signed a one-year deal with the Red Sox in order to try and rebuild some value. It worked. He led the AL in doubles, made his first All-Star team (nope, he didn't make it in 2004), and was listed somewhere on almost every AL MVP ballot, and signed the second very big contract of his career, this time with the Rangers. Playing well for the Red Sox is not what endeared me to Beltre though, I don't think.</span></div>
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So I tend not to think it was his time with Los Angeles that drew me to him, I tend not to think it was his time with Seattle, and I tend not to think it was his time with Boston. Yet, as best I can recall, I've loved him for at least as long as he's been with Texas, which has been more than six years now. Somewhere along the path is a breadcrumb I've missed, the one that explains where my affection came from, and when it began. I retrace my steps, but it seems birds have removed the piece of information in question, and I'm left to wonder just when it was I came to care so much about a guy I'm not sure I've ever actually even seen play in person.</div>
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My best guess is that it initially came from feeling he was underrated, and spending a lot of time making and defending his case as a Hall of Famer to be. <span style="font-size: 14.85px;">A</span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">t some point though, his counting totals reached high enough levels that many who for a longtime largely overlooked him have taken notice. I no longer feel compelled to spend so much energy on that battle though, because he's won it already, with career numbers that make him a lock. </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">He's up 2,942 career hits, which means that unless something disastrous strikes, he'll reach 3,000 next year. He could reach 500 home run in 2018 or 2019, since he's hit 445 of them so far, along with 591 doubles.</span></div>
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He might still be underrated though, because I think even most of those who'd support his HOF candidacy would do so under the belief that he's been a compiler, not a truly great player. He has ten different seasons with 5+ bWAR though, and the only other players during the last three decades who had that many were Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, <span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Randy Johnson, </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Greg Maddux, </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Albert Pujols,</span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">and </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Alex Rodriguez</span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">. At the risk of giving away the ending to this project, in some order or another, those are going to be the top half dozen players on my list. Putting it that way, it's possible <i>I'm</i> underrating Beltre. In fact, I <i>know</i> I am, because these ranking were made to cover 1986-2015, the first 30 seasons I was a baseball fan, but my pace at writing these entries has become so glacial that the entire 2016 season has gone by. If I included it, Beltre would be even higher than this.</span></div>
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In addition to my early recognition of his greatness (before it became cool), I also appreciate Beltre's weirdness. <span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Beltre hates it when people touch his head, which of course prompts teammates and opponents to go out of their way to do exactly that. </span><a href="http://bosoxgifs.imgur.com/beltre_head_rubs/" style="font-size: 14.85px;" target="_blank">(A collection of such incidents just from his one year with Boston can be found here.)</a><span style="font-size: 14.85px;"> He's hit a home run on a swing that dropped him to one knee more than once in his career, he playfully gets angry at his teammates about things, he goofs around on the bases between pitches, and has a number of other quirks that could rub one the wrong way in the hands of a less compelling player. With Beltre, at least for me, they're all incredibly endearing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.85px;">And I guess that's what I hadn't quite been able to put my finger on about my affinity for Adrian Beltre. Like with my family, I didn't give a moment's thought to my feelings about Beltre until those feelings were strong and positive. Like I have for my friends when it was someone other than me giving them a hard time, I've stuck up for Beltre when someone else was giving him a hard time. Like those of my wife, Beltre's unique idiosyncrasies charm me. </span><span style="font-size: 14.85px;">Beltre was the first player close to my age to play in the Major Leagues, and there's a good chance that when he retires he'll leave behind a league in which every player is younger than me. I would love him for that too, being the last player who could make me feel like I might still have it.</span><br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-45028380685421754962016-09-30T23:50:00.001-07:002016-09-30T23:50:21.221-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #12: Frank Thomas<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">Frank Thomas was the best hitter the American League has had in the thirty years this project is focused on. He finished his career with a batting line of .301/.419/.555 and a wRC+ of 154, a figure which puts him among the top 20 in baseball history. He hit 521 home runs and 495 doubles. He scored 1494 runs and had 1704 RBI. He hit massive home runs, and he combined that awesome power with patience and plate discipline held by few players in history, which helped him draw 100+ walks in ten different seasons, a total topped by only Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ted Williams. In 1993 and 1994 Thomas became the first player since Roger Maris in 1960 an 1961 to win back-to-back American League MVP Awards. There should be no doubt about Thomas' excellence as a hitter. Having said that, allow me to also say this:</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">There's no player I've hated more than Frank Thomas.</span><br />
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<i><span style="line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and </span><a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; line-height: 20.79px;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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It was Monday, August 14, 1995. This was the summer after baseball's labor stoppage led to hundreds of missed games and a canceled postseason. I was 15 years old, soon to begin my sophomore year of high school. A couple friends and I went to Comiskey for a White Sox/Angels game.<br />
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">The Angels took an early 7-0 lead, helped by home runs from Jim Edmonds and Chili Davis, but Chicago came back and eventually took the lead. In the top of the ninth though, Sox closer Roberto Hernandez allowed California (Remember when they were the California Angels, not the ridiculous Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? Those were the days.) to tie the game, and in the top of the tenth, Greg Myers (who managed to spend 18 years in MLB without ever getting 400 PA in a season) hit a go-ahead home run. All-Star closer Lee Smith came in for the Angels, making it an 11-10 loss for the White Sox, dropping them to 24.5 games behind my beloved Indians, who were steamrolling the American League that summer.</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">I'd never been a big autograph hound, but my friends were, so we planned to wait around outside the stadium for a while to see if he could bump into anyone. We met Lee Smith, whose </span>save that night was the 463rd of his career, more than any player in history at that point. (Who could've known a guy named Mariano Rivera, struggling mightily as a starting pitcher for the Yankees that summer, would go on to blow Smith's record away.) Smith talked with us for a while, thanked us for coming to the game. Chris Snopek, who'd made his MBL debut just two weeks earlier, was at least as excited to be signing autographs as we were to be getting them. Ozzie Guillen came out, cellphone at his ear. We were too young and too stupid to realize how rude it would be to interrupt him, so we went right ahead did. It turned out he was talking with his home, which made me feel a little bad. I felt a lot worse when the phone fell from his shoulder and broke. If it bothered him, he kept it to himself, which was kind.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">We eventually wandered over to the fence around the players' parking lot. There were a number of other fans there at first, but a few at a time they drifted away until the three of us, three younger kids, and two dads</span> were the only ones still there. Frank Thomas hadn't come out yet, and we figured he was worth waiting a while longer for. Sure enough, after a few minutes more, there he was, the Big Hurt, reigning two-time American League MVP, maybe 100 feet away. A valet went to get his car.</div>
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<span style="line-height: 20.79px;">It would've taken him no more than three minutes for him to walk over, sign half a dozen autographs for the kids pleading his name, tell us to stay in school, and get back to his car. He didn't make any move towards us, or even acknowledge that we were there. </span>The valet returned, but instead of getting into his car, Thomas opened the trunk and pulled something out. We couldn't tell what it was at first; one of my friends suspected it was baseballs that he'd already signed. It wasn't a box of baseballs though, it wasn't a box at all. It was a small container and a rag. Thomas proceeded to spend the next five minutes carefully wiping down his car, all while we watched, dumbfounded. It seemed a strange thing to do on a hot, humid night, with the drive home still ahead of him. When he finished, Frank tossed the stuff back in his trunk, climbed into his car, and sped off into the night.<br />
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I was livid at the time, indignant in the way only a 15-year-old can be. I swore up and down that I would write letters to the Tribune and Sun-Times, outing Thomas as a colossal jerk. In my younger years, I found it helpful to be able to attach incredibly strong emotions to things. The things I liked, I loved. The things I didn't like, I hated. In that way, Thomas served a productive purpose for me, giving me a figure to aim at without being able to do any actual harm to anyone.<br />
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It's been more than twenty years since that night; I can't say I still hold a grudge against Thomas. In part my having gotten over it is that I want to believe I've been forgiven too. I know I was sometimes casually cruel to other kids when I was young, and sometimes a real son of a bitch to my friends through my teen years and into my twenties, telling myself we were all having fun when I must have known not everyone was, and I quietly hope no one hates me for it.<br />
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Frank Thomas was 27 when he took that rag to his car while half a dozen children screamed his name, a year older than I was at the time of what I consider my last serious transgression against a friend, when I reacted poorly to the proposition of one friend of mine beginning to date another, and in effect went back on an offer to let one of the friends live with me for a few weeks. There's not an explanation that really justifies my behavior in that situation. I was frustrated at feeling like an important friend had pulled away from me, jealous that I was single at a time when I really didn't want to be, but I should have been better.<br />
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I'll go to my grave without knowing why Frank Thomas did it, but at some point I reached a place where I became more prone to giving people some benefit of the doubt. Joe Posnanski tells a story from the time he spent with the legendary Buck O'Neill. They were at a ballgame together, and a grown man caught a foul ball that a nearby child might otherwise have caught. Posnanski was disgusted by the man's behavior, while O'Neil offered, "Maybe he's got a boy of his own at home... Maybe his kid is sick." I try harder than I used to to view the world as Buck did. That night had been a tough loss for the White Sox, months into what had long since become a tough season. It had a been game, played in a stifling August heat. Frank was probably tired. Maybe a few minutes caring for his car was a moment of calm for him before a long drive home, where perhaps a boy of his own was sick in bed.<br />
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Of course it's possible there was none of that, and that he really was just being a bastard. And if that's the case, so be it, because I've gotten much more satisfaction from the story than I ever would've gotten from a scorecard with Thomas' signature on it.<br />
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The man was handy with a bat, and he was handy with a rag.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-36247038200166754942016-08-19T14:09:00.005-07:002016-08-19T14:09:48.867-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #13: Curt Schilling<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Curt Schilling started 19 postseason games in his career, with a 2.33 ERA in 133.1 innings. He went 7+ innings while allowing no more than two runs in 13 of those starts, including two shutouts. In the 2001 postseason he pitched a complete game in Game 1 and Game 5 of the NLDS, and then pitched another in the NLCS, striking out 12. He started three games in the World Series, going 7+ innings in each of them, and allowing a total of only four runs. In his six starts that postseason, Schilling had a record 56 strikeouts in 48.1 innings, with a 1.12 ERA. During the 2004 ALDS, a tendon in Schilling's ankle tore. He underwent a procedure to stabilize the ankle before Game 6 of the ALCS, then went out and won. The suture began to give way during the game, leading Schilling's sock to famously soak through with blood. He underwent the procedure again a few days later, so that he could help the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years.<br />
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If Schilling had done nothing else in his life, he'd still be rightly remembered as one of the greatest postseason players in baseball history.<br />
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<i style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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Of course, Schilling <i>has</i> done other things in his life, both for the better and for the worse.<br />
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First, the <i>for better</i>...<br />
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Schilling began his career with the Orioles, and spent one year with the Astros, but I remember those things only because I've seen the baseball cards with Schilling wearing those hats. Houston threw him away in a minor deal, and it was with the Phillies that Schilling made a name for himself. It took time though. Schilling was great in 1992, his first season in Philadelphia, posting a 2.35 ERA and a league-leading 0.99 WHIP, but it went unnoticed at the time. It wasn't until 1997, when Schilling was already 30 years old, that he was named to his first All-Star team, and that he first received mention on anyone's Cy Young ballot. The following season he pitched 15 complete games, the most by any pitcher during the last quarter-century. He pitched 268.2 innings that season, second-most by any pitcher during the same timeframe.<br />
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Schilling was traded to Arizona in the middle of the 2000 season, and it was with the Diamondbacks that went from very good to fantastic. In 2001 Schilling led the NL with 22 wins and 256.2 innings pitched. He had a 2.98 ERA and struck out 293 while walking only 39. In 2002 he won 23 games, with 259.1 innings pitched, a 3.23 ERA, 316 strikeouts, and only 33 walks, the lowest walk total in baseball history for a 300-strikeout season. Per Baseball-Reference, Schilling was worth 8.8 wins above replacement (WAR) in 2001, and 8.7 in 2002. Most seasons in recent memory, those figures would lead all pitchers. In 2001 and 2002, they were good for second, and the one guy even better was not only in the same league, he was on the same team. Randy Johnson was one of the ten best pitchers ever, and his two best seasons coincided with Schilling's, leading Schilling to finish a distant second for the Cy Young both times. Schilling was also runner-up for the 2004 award, making him the only player ever to finish second three times without ever winning a Cy Young.<br />
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That third bridesmaid finish came with the Red Sox, whom Schilling played his final four seasons with, and where he won his second and third World Series rings. His role in knocking off the Yankees dynasty is as strong as anyone's, between his work in the 2001 World Series and 2004 ALCS. His final Major League appearance came in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, when he gave up one run in 5.1 innings. He hoped to play at least one more year, but shoulder trouble kept him out for all of 2008, and he formally announced his retirement the following March.<br />
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Schilling began his career with high walk rate, but when he arrived in Philadelphia he improved upon it a great deal. When he arrived in Arizona, his command was even better. From 2001 through 2007, Schilling had the second-lowest walk rate of any starting pitcher in baseball (behind only Minnesota's Brad Radke). Meanwhile, Schilling was always an excellent strikeout pitcher; his 8.60 strikeouts per nine innings rank 8th among all pitchers with 2000+ career innings, and he's one of just four players ever with five or more seasons with a strikeout rate better than 10 per nine innings. His combination of high strikeouts and low walks is unparalleled in modern baseball history. Dating to 1901, Schilling's K:BB ratio of 4.38 is tops among all pitchers with 2000+ innings.<br />
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Schilling was one of the greatest postseason performers in baseball history, and had some of the greatest seasons by any pitcher ever. His career ERA+ (which accounts for the high-scoring era Schilling played in) is 127, which is better than the figure for 40 of the 63 starting pitchers in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's the same figure as Bob Gibson, who didn't pitch all that many more innings than Schilling, and who cruised into Cooperstown in his first year of eligibility, while Schilling is now 0 for 4 in his years on the ballot, and only got above 50% of the vote for the first time this year. The obvious explanation is that his 3261 career innings and 216 career wins are both light by HOF standards, but the heft of his peak seasons and postseason resume should be more than enough to outweigh his career totals, just as they wee for pitchers like Sandy Koufax and Whitey Ford.<br />
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Finally, the <i>for worse</i>...<br />
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Curt Schilling is some combination of asshole, idiot, and bigot. He started a video game company shortly after his retirement, applied for and was given a $75 million loan by the Rhode Island Board of Economic Development, defaulted on the loan two years later, and laid off his workers with an email. He blamed the government for his company's failure, and often rails against government handouts, even though he took a massive one. He has spoken out strongly against evolution and gay marriage. He has posted despicable things on his blog and Facebook page about Muslims and transgender people, leading to his long overdue firing by ESPN from the broadcaster and studio commentator job he held for a few years. In recent weeks Schilling has spoken of running against Elizabeth Warren for her Senate seat, or even making a run for the White House in another few years.<br />
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His work as a baseball player was tremendous, but just about everything he's done since he quit playing has been deplorable, and serves as a reminder that sometimes it's easier not knowing what someone is really like, because sometimes people are awful.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-91232898779538551722016-08-03T08:08:00.000-07:002016-12-17T17:15:18.640-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #14: Mike Mussina<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Mike Mussina's career seems to have been marked by bad timing. In the process of working my way through this project, I've already written about other pitchers from the last thirty years having to face unfair comparisons to Rogers Clemens, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez, four of the dozen or so greatest pitchers in history. Mike Mussina also spent his entire 18-year career in the higher scoring American League, during just an era when offense ruled baseball. Mussina played for good Orioles teams that were stymied in the ALCS. He joined the Yankees in 2001, when they'd won four of the last five World Series. They made the postseason in seven of his eight seasons there, but didn't win the World Series. Mussina won 20 games and posted a 3.37 ERA in 2008, but decided to retire, giving him the best final season by any pitcher since Sandy Koufax. The Yankees proceeded to win the World Series in 2009. As I said, bad timing, and that probably goes a long way towards explaining why Mussina doesn't get his due. And to be clear, Mussina <i>doesn't</i> get his due.<br />
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<i style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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In his first three years on the Hall of Fame ballot, he's peaked at 43% of the vote (with 75% needed for induction). Tom Glavine and John Smoltz each cruised into Cooperstown in their first year on the ballot, and I think Mussina was better than either of them. I'm obviously in the minority there, and an even smaller number of people would put Mussina's career ahead of those of Mike Piazza and Derek Jeter, the two players I have just behind Mussina on this countdown. I think most people just fail to grasp the context of Mussina's numbers, and then make unfair comparisons to the pitchers I mentioned at the top.<br />
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Pitcher wins are a pretty stupid statistic, and shouldn't me important in making the case for a pitcher's greatness, but if they're going to be a part of the argument, Mussina's 270 wins should be a big plus for his case, not a minus. No, he didn't win 300, long viewed as the magic number for pitcher wins*, but since Mussina made his MLB debut on August 4, 1991, the only pitcher with more than 270 wins is Greg Maddux. Mussina's win total is elite for the era of five-man starting rotations, and specialist relievers.<br />
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<i>*Two asides on the topic of 300 wins:</i><br />
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<i>1) The 300-win pitcher may not be extinct, but it's also possible that it is. Bartolo Colon leads active pitchers with 227, but he's 43 years old. CC Sabathia is next, with 220 wins, but only 15 of those wins have come during the last three seasons, which makes it seem pretty unlikely he's got another 80 wins in him. No one else has more than 173, and no one younger than 32 is even halfway to 300. Felix Hernandez (148 wins, 30 years old), Clayton Kershaw (125 wins, 28 years old), and Madison Bumgarner (95 wins, 27 years old) could each get to 300 by winning 15 games a year through their age-40 season, but now we're looking a decade or more down the road. Pitchers don't start as many games or pitch as many innings per game as they used to, making wins harder to come by, and 300 may be obsolete.</i><br />
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<i>2) The 300-win mark has never really been the bar for entry to the Hall of Fame. There are 63 starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame, and only 23 of them (36.5%) won 300+ games. The median number of career wins among those 63 pitchers: 260.</i><br />
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Furthermore, Mussina spent his entire career in the American League, which for decades has been the tougher league to pitch in (largely because of the designated hitter). The only pitcher with more American League wins since the DH was introduced in 1973: Roger Clemens. In fact, Clemens is the only pitcher with more AL wins than Mussina since the end of World War II. Mussina's career ERA would be lower, and his career strikeout total would higher, if he'd spent all that time in the Natioanl League instead.<br />
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Mussina would be in the Hall of Fame already if he'd won 30 more games, and given that he won 20 during his final season, there's a pretty solid chance he could have stuck around and reached the benchmark. As I mentioned in my second aside above though, <i>only</i> 270 wins has never been a disqualification for entry to the HOF. If it's not a lack of wins, what's holding Mussina back? I would guess it's his career ERA of 3.68, which would be the second-highest among starting pitchers in Cooperstown, were he a member.<br />
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Again though, we need to look at that in context, accounting for Mussina pitching in the tougher league during an era of tremendous offensive numbers. ERA+ accounts for exactly those sort of things, along with the particular ballparks a player pitched in. Mussina's career ERA+ was 123, which would place him in the top half of all Hall of Fame pitchers. It's the same ERA+ that Juan Marichal had, in a career with almost exactly the same number of innings pitched. He finished in the top ten in the American League for ERA (and for ERA+) in eleven different seasons. He finished in the top five in seven different seasons.<br />
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The strange thing to me is, that while baseball writers have shown little interest in voting him into the Hall of Fame, Mussina was not overlooked by them during his career. He received mention in the Cy Young voting in nine different seasons, more than almost any other pitcher since they created the award.<br />
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<b>Most seasons receiving mention on Cy Young ballots**:</b><br />
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<li>1) Roger Clemens: 12</li>
<li>t2) Randy Johnson: 10</li>
<li>t2) Tom Seaver: 10</li>
<li>t4) Greg Maddux: 9</li>
<li>t4) Mike Mussina: 9</li>
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<i>**Cy Young balloting first included space for three pitchers in each league in 1970, so this list isn't really applicable for pitchers before that time. Still, we're looking at near half a century's worth of voting.</i><br />
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The other four pitchers on that list are probably the four best in baseball since World War II. Mussina wasn't in their class, but it really is only pitchers of that caliber that you can hold up as clearly superior to him.<br />
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Mussina never won a World Series, but he pitched 139.2 postseason innings over nine different trips to the postseason, two with the Orioles, seven with the Yankees. He posted a very good 3.42 ERA in those appearances, and went 7+ innings in more than half his postseason starts. In 1997 he out-dueled Randy Johnson twice in the ALDS, and was then excellent in both of his ALCS starts, including an American League postseason record 15 strikeouts in Game 3 and eight shutout innings in Game 6. The Orioles couldn't score off Cleveland in those two games though, and lost them both. If they manage a couple more runs in those two games, Mussina is ALCS MVP, Baltimore advances to the World Series and maybe wins it, and the Mussina narrative today is different.<br />
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Instead, bad timing and a misunderstanding of context work against Mussina. In addition to his excellent pitching, Mussina was a fantastic fielder as well, winning seven Gold Gloves and scoring well with the advanced defensive metrics. A pitcher's defensive skills tend to be overlooked though, even in the case of one of the best ever to field the position.<br />
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Mike Mussina is almost always left out of discussions about the best players of his era. He shouldn't be.</div>
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-62208426713431640082016-07-21T11:55:00.001-07:002016-07-21T11:55:06.383-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #15: Mike Piazza<div style="text-align: justify;">
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Mike Piazza will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend. Given that I've got him as the 15th best player of the last thirty years, it's an honor I obviously believe is much-deserved. I'm not sure there's ever been a Hall of Fame player who made it after less was expected of him at the start of his professional career though, not in the 50+ years the MLB Draft has existed anyway. Piazza was a child of privilege, his father having made a fortune selling cars and real estate. When Piazza was a boy, he received hitting instruction from Ted Williams. Baseball is incredibly difficult though, and even with those advantages, Piazza wasn't viewed as a real talent. As you're probably aware, Piazza wasn't drafted until the 62nd round in 1988, and only as a favor to Piazza's father, a lifetime friend of then Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. More than 1300 other players were chosen ahead of Piazza that year, but we went on to outplay them all.</div>
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<i style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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Piazza was told he would be transitioning from playing first base to catcher, a far more demanding position. His first couple seasons in the minors, he didn't hit much, but in 1991, playing for Single-A Bakersfield, Piazza batted .277/.344/.540, with 29 home runs, second-most in the California League. The next year he started off in Double-A, where he killed the ball for a few weeks and was quickly promoted to Triple-A, where he killed the ball again. In September he was called up for his MLB debut, and there was no looking back.<br />
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In 1993 Piazza hit 35 home runs and finished 4th in the National League in OPS, despite playing his home games in a pitchers park. He was an All-Star, a Silver Slugger winner, an MVP candidate, and unanimous Rookie of the Year winner. (That was the second of an incredible five consecutive ROY winners for the Dodgers, who somehow managed to never win a single postseason game with those players.)<br />
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Piazza was an All-Star in 12 of his first 13 full seasons, only missing out in 2003, when he spent much of the year on the disabled list. During May of 1998, he was traded to the Marlins for an impressive bundle of talent. He played only five games for Florida before they traded him to the Mets for a much less impressive bundle of talent.<br />
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It was in New York that Piazza had his most memorable moments, highlighted by his home run on September 21, 2001, during the first major sporting event in New York after the terrorist attacks ten days earlier:<br />
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Piazza was an All-Star and MVP candidate because of his bat, but he was terrible at preventing base runners from stealing, throwing out only 23.2% of attempted thieves, second-lowest in history among the 122 catchers with at least 6,000 innings behind the plate. At the time, this was all it took to damn Piazza as a defensive player. I personally thought Ivan Rodriguez must have been the superior player, because he could hit <i>and</i> field. In more recent years though, studies have found that Piazza was an excellent pitch-framer (meaning he was good at receiving the ball in a way that borderline pitches were more likely to be called strikes), and very good at preventing wild pitches and passed balls. In short, despite his inability to throw runners out, <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mike-piazza-was-more-than-a-big-bat/" target="_blank">Piazza was a net positive on defense.</a><br />
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Piazza retired with 427 career home runs, a record 396 of them hit while he was playing catcher. He was the best-hitting catcher in Major League history, and unless Buster Posey somehow gets even better in his 30s, Piazza will remain at the top for the foreseeable future. And to think, if not for a favor done for a friend, he might never have gotten the opportunity. I'm struck by that, by the wondering about how many other stars we've missed out on because they didn't have someone to call in a favor for them.<br />
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For the most part, cream rises, but Piazza can't be the only player who couldn't come from nowhere to excel. Baseball's draft no longer includes 62 rounds, instead ending after 40. How many alternate timelines might there be where a player never drafted in our reality went on to the Hall of Fame? What happens to those guys in the reality where they were never drafted? Do they grow old believing that if they just gotten the chance... or did they believe it when they're told they just aren't good enough?<br />
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What might any of us accomplish if given the right opportunity and direction?Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-47543138561364217352016-06-24T10:14:00.002-07:002016-06-24T10:14:21.672-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #16: Derek Jeter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In 1996 Derek Jeter was a unanimous American League Rookie of the Year winner, and was an important part of the Yankees winning the World Series for the first time since 1978, ending the team's longest drought since winning its first championship in 1923. By the end of 2000, Jeter had played little more than a quarter of his career, but had already won four World Series rings and played in more nationally televised games than just about any player in history. He was the face of the Yankees, which in many ways made him the face of baseball, and he was still only 26 years old. Unsurprisingly, being the most beloved player on the Yankees made Jeter a divisive figure. In the three decades I've been a fan, no player has received as much adulation, and few have received as much scorn.</div>
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<i style="font-size: 14.85px; line-height: 20.79px;">This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" style="color: #cc0000; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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The first famous play of Jeter's career was the home run he hit in Game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Series against Baltimore. With the Yankees behind by a run in the 8th inning, Jeter hit a long fly ball that was going to fall just short of the wall and be caught for the second out of the inning, at least until a 12-year-old boy reached over the wall to try to catch himself a souvenir and had the ball bounce off his mitt into the crowd; the play was incorrectly ruled a home run, tying the game, which New York went on to win in extra innings, potentially changing the outcome of the entire series. If the Yankees lose that series, they probably still go on to win the World Series in other years, but maybe George Steinbrenner blows the whole thing up and the Yankees continue to flounder. Instead, Jeter's legend began. Damn 12-year-olds...<br />
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Derek Jeter retired with a .310/.377/.440 batting line, with 260 home runs and 358 stolen bases, and with 3465 career hits, which is by far the highest total by any player since I became a baseball fan in 1986. Jeter also played in 158 postseason games, a record I don't believe will ever be broken. His career postseason batting line was .308/.374/.465, which means he played a full extra season's worth of games in the postseason, and put up excellent offensive numbers in that "season." He also made some famous defensive plays, none more famous than "the flip":<br />
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The Yankees were down two games to one in that best-of-five series, one loss from being eliminated, and were clinging to a one-run lead when that play happened. If Jeter doesn't bust his ass across the diamond to snare that errant throw, or if he was unable to make the nifty toss to the catcher in time, the Yankees may have lost that game. Instead, Jeter's legend grew. Damn slow, not-sliding Jeremy Giambi...<br />
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While Jeter did make a number of excellent defensive plays in his career, his trademark, <i>go deep into the hole to his right and throw to first base while jumping in the air</i> play (as pictured at the top) looked really cool, and he won a number of Gold Gloves, but advanced metrics hated his defense, and rate him as one of the worst defensive shortstops in history. That particular divergence, between what many fans' eyes told them, and what the metrics found, is what really exacerbated the difference of opinions on Jeter.<br />
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A couple weeks after the flip, Jeter had the moment I think of first when remembering his career. Ironically, much of my memory of that moment has to do with what I don't remember, because that moment led to the only drunken blackout of my life. It was Halloween of 2001, my senior year of college, and I was out in costume (Han Solo) with friends at an Iowa City drinking spot. Because of the attacks on September 11, the postseason had gotten off to a late start, and so for the first time there was still baseball as Linus went to wait in the pumpkin patch.<br />
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It was Game 4, and the Diamondbacks were ahead two games to one. When Arizona took a 3-1 lead into the ninth inning, I started to let myself consider the joyous possibility that my college years wouldn't be filled entirely with the Yankees winning the World Series every year. They blew the lead, and during the bottom of the tenth, the clock struck midnight in New York, turning the calendar from October to a month Major League Baseball had never experienced before. Jeter hit a home run into the short porch of Yankee Stadium's Little League right field, "Mr. November" flashed on the scoreboard as Jeter rounded the bases, I chugged my beer, then my girlfriend's beer, then my roommate's beer. I don't know what all I did after that, because the next thing I knew it was the next morning, and I was waking up still dressed as captain of the Millennium Falcon.<br />
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Good times.<br />
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Some would say Jeter compiled great career totals by staying healthy, but was never a truly great hitter, that he was a terrible defender and doesn't belong anywhere on this list. Others would say he was a Gold Glove shortstop with great offensive numbers for his position, that he was the leader of the greatest team of the last thirty years, and ought to be in the top five. A few would even say that because he was never connected to performance enhancing drugs, he should be #1. As with many heated sports arguments, I find myself somewhere near the middle. Jeter wasn't the baseball god his biggest supporters would have you believe, but while I often wished I could drink enough to black out his entire career, I'm forced to acknowledge that he was great. He will waltz into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, and deservedly so.Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-62623277467171490682016-06-17T11:43:00.003-07:002018-01-25T18:44:58.655-08:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #17: Jim Thome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was young, being a baseball fan meant playing the game, collecting cards, and checking the sports section of the newspaper my dad brought home at the end of every workday. Each year I went to a couple games at Wrigley and a couple games at Comiskey, but otherwise, watching baseball was pretty infrequent. We didn't have cable, I was in school or playing somewhere when the Cubs were on WGN, and while the All-Star Game and postseason were already a big deal to me, they were rarities. I'd become an Indians fan at the age of six, but I bet I could count on my fingers the number of Tribe games I actually watched before reaching junior high. Julio Franco was my first favorite Indian, but he and the others I liked in those early years, I liked for what I could see on the front and back of their baseball cards. It was an appreciation for static things. In the mid 90s we got cable, the Indians got good, and I could suddenly enjoy my favorite team far more dynamically.<br />
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Enter Jim Thome.<br />
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<i>This countdown is a way for me to look back at the three decades I've spent as a baseball fan. My introduction to the project, with an explanation of sorts, and <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-best-baseball-players-of-last-30.html" target="_blank">links to every entry can be found here.</a></i></div>
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Thome was a 13th-round pick in 1989, began 1990 in rookie ball and made his MLB debut in 1991. It took him a little while to stick there, but strong hitting at the end of 1993 put him the Majors to stay. He was initially somewhat overshadowed by Albert Belle and Kenny Lofton, and later by Manny Ramirez and Roberto Alomar, but over the full course of the Tribe's great run from the mid 90s through the early 2000s, no one did more to help the team win ballgames than Thome did, and it's Thome who now holds the franchise record with 337 career home runs in an Indians uniform, including 52 of them in 2002, when he set the team's single-season record.</div>
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When Thome homered, he tended to get his money's worth, like on July 3, 1999, when he hit the longest home run anyone on the Tribe had ever hit, a shot that exited Jacobs Field and was measured at 511 feet:</div>
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I wasn't there for that one, because I never saw the Indians play in Cleveland until after I'd graduated from college, but I saw him hit a number of them at Comiskey, which during the Indians' stretch of dominance in the division often had as many Tribe fans as there were Sox fans.</div>
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I remember a Friday night from my senior year of high school, when Thome, Matt Williams, and Manny Ramirez each homered, and then Sunday afternoon Thome homered again. I remember one summer during college, seeing Thome hit two home runs, and another game where he hit one that came to rest in the moat that used to exist between the field and the bleachers at Comiskey. I could easily have climbed over, dropped down, and grabbed the ball, and considered doing just that, but was too scared of getting kicked out to do it. To this day I still wonder if they would have let me keep the ball. I should have done it.<br />
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I was also there the night in 1995 when Thome did something more remarkable than hitting a long home run: he tripled... twice! Thome hit only 26 triples in his entire career, and that night was the only time he ever did it twice in one game. Albert Belle also hit his 40th and 41st home runs of the season, and odds are that game will always be the most enjoyable time I ever have at a ballgame, as my favorite team continued to steamroll towards its first AL pennant in 41 years.<br />
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Thome spent a bit more than half his career with the Indians, including a brief stint in 2011, when he was approaching retirement. He also had some big years for the Phillies and White Sox. He and Alex Rodriguez are the only players to hit 40+ home runs in a season with three different teams; he and Mark McGwire are the only players to hit 40+ home runs multiple times in both the American and National Leagues.<br />
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Late in 2009 Thome was traded to the Dodgers, who were in postseason contention. Thus began the "have bat, will travel" portion of Thome's career. During his final three and a half seasons, Thome played for the Dodgers, Twins, Indians, Phillies, and Orioles. In 2010, at the age of 39, he hit 25 home runs for Minnesota, becoming one of only 20 players in MLB history to hit that many at such an advanced age. His OPS that season was 1.039. The only other players to post that high a figure in 300+ plate appearances at the age of 39 were Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, and Hank Aaron.<br />
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Thome retired with 612 home runs, 451 doubles, 1699 RBI, 1583 runs scored. He wasn't just about power; Thome also had an elite batting eye, and drew 1747 career walks, seventh-most in MLB history. His career batting line was .276/.402/.554. His .956 career OPS ranks 19th all-time.<br />
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Thome was tremendous at not making outs. When he did make an out, it was very often of the three strikes variety, as he totaled 2,538 strikeouts, second in MLB history. Home runs, walks, and strikeouts are known as the "three true outcomes," because there the possible results of a plate appearance that don't involve the defense making or not making a play. Given that Thome excelled in each of those area, it should come as no surprise that shortly before he retired, <a href="http://groundballwitheyes.blogspot.com/2012/07/jim-thome-three-true-outcomes-king.html" target="_blank">Thome became the three true outcomes king,</a> taking over a crown that had previously belonged to Barry Bonds, Reggie Jackson, and Babe Ruth.<br />
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For all his baseball accomplishments, and all the joy many of those accomplishments brought me, perhaps my favorite Thome memory didn't involve baseball. In 2013 Thome's wife and my mother-in-law were both prominently involved with the same charity, and my wife and I attended a dinner event which Thome and his wife were also at. Thome had established a strong reputation for being a good guy, well-liked by teammates, clubhouse attendants, and media members, but our own experiences always mean more to us than what we might read or hear about from someone else.<br />
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Towards the end of the night I mustered up the courage to talk to Jim, who was standing alone. I mentioned being an Indians fan, but before I knew it, Thome had turned the conversation around, and instead of me asking him about his career, he was asking me about mine as a teacher. The ten or fifteen minutes he spent asking me questions and really listening to my answers about the joys and frustrations of trying to help a couple dozen ten-year-olds made just as big an impression on me as the 511-foot home runs.<br />
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Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-48766226566284309752016-06-10T14:22:00.002-07:002016-06-14T21:13:23.768-07:00Best MLB players of the last 30 years, #18: Manny Ramirez<div style="text-align: center;">
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To be a teenage Indians fan during the 1990s was to have a wealth of fantastic offensive players to cheer for at a time when you were too young to fully appreciate it. At the time I graduated from high school, in June of 1998, Manny Ramirez had finished runner up in the AL Rookie of the Year voting, had been named an All-Star and won a Silver Slugger, had received mention on MVP ballots, and had a career OPS close to .940, but he'd never been the Tribe's best or even second-best hitter, and having luxuriated in the warmth of Albert Belle, Jim Thome, Kenny Lofton, and David Justice over the years, I didn't fully grasp how good Ramirez was. As the 1998 season continued though, Ramirez drew more and more of my attention, and then in 1999 and 2000 Manny put up two of the best seasons by any hitter in any era. You could argue he was too good for the Indians, because by hitting so well, he played his way out of their price range and signed with Boston, going on to far greater fame than he'd found in Cleveland.</div>
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Manny set a new Indians record with 165 RBI in 1999, while posting an OPS of 1.105. A year later he topped that OPS and set a franchise record for <i>that</i> at 1.154. That winter he signed an eight-year, $160 million contract with the Red Sox. Many scoffed at the deal at the time, but Ramirez proved to be worth it. He was an All-Star in every one of his eight seasons with Boston, and finished in the top ten in MVP voting five times. He'd hit 236 home runs with the Indians, and he hit 274 with the Red Sox, which makes him one of only five players in MLB history to hit 200+ home runs for two different teams (Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro are the others).<br />
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<a href="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mlzdsFWffdA/maxresdefault.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mlzdsFWffdA/maxresdefault.jpg" width="320" /></a>Of the 555 home runs Manny hit, the one that comes to mind for me first came on July 16, 1995, with two outs in the bottom of the 12th against Oakland, with the Indians down a run. Future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley was on the mound for the A's, when Manny hit a deep home run, prompting Eck to make the face you see on the side of this text. <a href="http://www.letsgotribe.com/2014/7/16/5904781/dennis-eckersley-interview-hall-of-fame-cleveland-indians-rehab-golf" target="_blank">When I interviewed Eckersley in 2014,</a> he told me people everywhere else bring up Kirk Gibson, but in Cleveland they bring up Manny.<br />
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In 2008, having worn out his welcome in Boston with antics that escalated over the years and went from acceptable from an MVP-caliber hitter to obnoxious from merely a very good hitter, Ramirez was traded to the Dodgers, where he put up incredible numbers during the final couple months of the season, batting .396/.489/.743, with an extra-base hit every six at bats; he was so productive he finished 4th in the NL MVP voting, despite playing only 53 games in the league that year. From there injuries and suspensions took a swift toll. Ramirez missed 50 games due to a PED suspension in 2009, and retired abruptly during the first week of the season in 2011. It soon became clear that his retirement was an alternative to the 100-game suspension he was about to face for another failed drug test.<br />
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In general I shrug my shoulders at PED use in baseball, and there are a number of reasons for that. Such use during the 90s and early 2000s does seem somewhat different to me from the same sort of use during the last seven or eight years, because after turning a blind eye to it for more than a decade, MLB began to crack down on it. Ramirez's repeated use (and he reportedly failed a test in 2003 as well, but there were no suspensions connected to those tests) doesn't do much to detract from what I think of him as a hitter, but I understand that many others feel differently about the matter, and because a number of those others have a vote for the Hall of Fame, I think it'll be a long time before Manny is ever inducted in Cooperstown.<br />
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Rather than ending with a consideration of Ramirez's PED use, I'll go to the most notable positive aspect of his career, which is his postseason play. Manny hit 13 postseason home runs with the Indians, 11 more with the Red Sox, and another 5 with the Dodgers, giving him a record 29 postseason home runs altogether. Manny was chosen as MVP of the 2004 World Series, as Boston won its first since 1918. Ramirez's career batting line in the postseason was .285/.394/.544, and his 493 plate appearances are third-most in postseason history. Between the quality and quantity of his play, Ramirez has a strong case as the greatest postseason hitter in history.<br />
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A big part of being a baseball fan my age, having come to the game when I did, is coming to grips with the fact that many of the greatest players I've been able to watch are getting very little support for the Hall of Fame, and will only get in if and when there are changes to how players are voted in. The absence of those players only serves to make the Hall of Fame less significant in my eyes. Like some of the others on this list, Manny used substances seemed against the rules. I accept that reality, but that doesn't mean I throw out the reality in which Manny Ramirez was one of the greatest hitters I'll ever get to see play.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1949841996250681646.post-54481865756139993062016-06-03T17:14:00.000-07:002016-06-09T09:18:55.883-07:00Teammates with long hitting streaks in the same season<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/08/09/BostonGlobe.com/Sports/Images/bogaerts_bradley_davis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/08/09/BostonGlobe.com/Sports/Images/bogaerts_bradley_davis.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts just finished up a 26-game hitting streak going. His teammate, Boston outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. recently had a 29-game hitting streak. Two players on the same team each putting up a streak that long seemed liked a rarity, and while most people would have been content to leave it at that, I've never been one to back down from hours of research to answer a question few people are asking. It turns out my hunch was correct; since 1913 (the first season there are box scores for at Baseball-Reference), Bradley and Bogaerts are only the sixth pair of teammates to each have a hitting streak of 25+ games in the same season.</div>
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<b>Teammates with hitting streaks of 25+ games in the same season (1913-present):</b></div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">George Sisler (41 games) & Ken Williams (28), 1922 St. Louis Browns</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Dale Alexander (29) & John Stone (26), 1930 Detroit Tigers</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">George McQuinn (34) & Mel Almada (29), 1938 St. Louis Browns</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Shawn Green (29) & Shannon Stewart (26), 1999 Toronto Blue Jays</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Luis Castillo (35) & Kevin Millar (25), 2002 Florida Marlins</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Jackie Bradley Jr. (29) & Xander Bogaerts (26), 2016 Boston Red Sox</li>
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Sisler's 41-game streak is still the second-longest in American League history, behind only Joe DiMaggio's MLB record 56. Incredibly, Sisler and Williams' streaks both began on the exact same day, July 27, 1922. After the first three days of their streaks, Sisler missed six games, and then starting on August, both players hit safely in the team's next 19 games.</div>
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McQuinn and Almada's streaks, like Bradley and Bogaerts', partially overlapped, while the other three pairs' streaks came during different parts of the season. On August 1, 1999, when Green went 0 for 4 for Toronto, ending his 29-game streak, Stewart went 2 for 2, starting his 26-game streak.</div>
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Castillo and Millar are the only pair of teammates from a National League team to make the cut.</div>
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While only five teams have had teammates with hitting streaks of 25+ games, 29 of the 30 MLB teams have had someone with a streak that long at some point, with the only exception being the Tampa Bay Rays, whose longest ever streak, by Jason Bartlett in 2009, lasted 19 games.</div>
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The Red Sox have had the most hitting streaks of 25+ games, with Bradley and Bogaerts bringing the franchise total since 1913 to 15 of them. The team didn't have an especially high total during the 1900s, but of the American League's 18 streaks of 25+ games during the 2000s, an eye-popping eight of them belong to Boston, including Bradley and Johnny Damon's 29-game streaks, which are the AL's longest this century. The Dodgers lead all NL teams since 1913 with 11 hitting streaks lasting at least 25 games.</div>
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Those six pairs of hitting streaks mentioned near the top aren't the only times a team had two streaks of 25+ games in the season, they're just the only times two different players on a team have done it. Chuck Klein with the 1930 Phillies, and Heinie Manush with the 1933 Senators (now Twins) each had two hitting streaks of 25+ games during the same season.</div>
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Two such streaks in one season is very impressive, and Klein and Manush each also had a third streak like that during another season of their career, giving them three apiece. Sam Rice also had three different streaks of 25+ games, but the leader is the aforementioned George Sisler, who had four different hitting streaking of 25+ games in his career.</div>
Jason Lukeharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09519510722372181851noreply@blogger.com0