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16 Players - All-Star Edition

By Dave Fleming
July 7, 2009
 
Torii Hunter, Angels – I should start by saying that I’ve always thought Hunter was an overrated player. For all his skills, I always saw the faults. A great centerfielder, sure, but what about the fifty games he missed in 2005 when he broke his ankle scaling the wall in Fenway? A fast runner, sure, but why is his stolen base percentage a hair under 70%. A power hitter, okay, but would it kill him to walk more than 40 times a season?
 
When the Angels signed him to a five-year, $90 million dollar contract before 2008 (to replace the albatross contract given to Gary Matthews), I thought it would turn out to be a huge mistake.
 
It is a mistake: Torii Hunter isn’t worth $18 million dollars. But damned if he isn’t trying. Damned if he isn’t making me a believer.
 
Last year, at the age of thirty-two, Hunter posted the best on-base average of his career, and the highest walk rate. He was 19-for-24 as a basestealer, a respectable success rate of 79%. He still wasn’t great, but he was making it harder to root against him.
 
This year, he’s having a great season. If he continues on his current pace, he will blow away his career highs in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. He is drawing walks at a good rate, and is 13-for-16 as a basestealer, cracking the 80% barrier.
 
With Guerrero out and Teixeira in the Bronx, the Angels had a breach in their batting order. They had no power hitter, no one to hit cleanup. Torii Hunter stepped in to fill that breach, and he has done so admirably. Much to my surprise, Hunter is a serious candidate for the American League MVP award. 
 
Brad Hawpe, Rockies – The 2007 Clutch Player of the Year makes his first All-Star game. In 2009 the Hawpster has a 1.106 OPS in two-out, runners-in-scoring-position situations, and a 1.042 OPS in Close/Late situations.
 
Javier Vasquez, Braves – In 1987, Nolan Ryan led the NL in ERA and strikeouts. In that year of astonishing batting lines, Ryan was the only pitcher in the NL with an ERA under 3.00, and the only pitcher with more than 250 strikeouts. His W-L record was 8-16.
 
Vasquez is having a similar year in 2009: at this writing he is 8th in ERA, 2nd in strikeouts, 1st in WHIP, and 1st in K/9 IP. His W-L record is 5-7.
 
Vasquez has had an unusual career. To be frank, his career looks like the career of a knuckleballer: a lot of bouncing around teams, a lot of innings pitched, and a lot of 13-12 or 12-16 records. He’s played in five different teams: most pitchers who strike out hitters like Vasquez does usually don’t get bounced around so much.
 
He’s been as healthy as a horse, averaging 207 innings for the twelve years he’s been in the majors. His career is reminiscent of Jack Morris: lots of innings, an ERA a few ticks below average, some strikeouts. It is certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Vasquez reaches 3000 career strikeouts and 200 wins.
 
Albert Pujols, Cardinals – In his 2009 Gold Mine, Bill suggested that someone would come along and win a Triple Crown in the next ten years. Albert Pujols, apparently an avid reader of Bill’s work, has decided to go ahead and fulfill that prediction in 2009. At this writing, Pujols leads the NL in homeruns and RBI’s, and is third in batting average (.337), behind two scrubs named Hanley Ramirez (.345) and David Wright (.340).
 
Justin Upton, Diamondbacks – Upton is having a terrific season: .315 batting average, 14 homeruns, 10 steals…
 
Let’s assume he keeps it up. He has an adjusted OPS of 146 right now…let’s assume he finishes the year in that ballpark. He’s twenty-one years old. How rare is it for a twenty-one year old to do that?
 
Age 21 Season
OPS+
Joe Jackson
193
Jimmie Foxx
193
Eddie Mathews
171
Rogers Hornsby
169
Ty Cobb
169
Sam Crawford
167
Cesar Cedeno
162
Ted Williams
162
Albert Pujols
157
Ken Griffey, Jr.
155
Tris Speaker
152
Stan Musial
151
Hal Trotsky
151
Mel Ott
150
Arky Vaughn
146
Hank Aaron
143
Mickey Mantle
143
Del Ennis
143
 
I assume you recognize a few of those names. Fourteen of the eighteen are in the Hall-of-Fame, and of the other four (Jackson, Cedeno, Trotsky, and Ennis), it can reasonably be said that at least three of them had Hall-of-Fame ability, if not Hall-of-Fame careers.
 
Upton would be near the bottom of the list, with Arky Vaughn and a few ticks ahead of Aaron and Mantle.
 
But Justin is a centerfielder. How does he compare with his own ilk? What are the best OPS+ by twenty-one year-old centerfielders?
 
Age 21 Season
OPS+
Cesar Cedeno
162
Ken Griffey, Jr.
155
Tris Speaker
152
Mickey Mantle
143
Juan Gonzalez
121
Rick Monday
121
Vada Pinson
118
Whitey Lockman
118
Andruw Jones
116
Rick Manning
116
 
He’d be right between Speaker and Mantle, which is nice company to keep. When all is said and done, Upton could put together one of the five best Age-21 seasons of any centerfielder.
 
Tim Wakefield, Red Sox – Joe Maddon picked Wakefield his first ever spot on the All-Star team, a decision that has garnered near-universal approval around baseball. I certainly won’t argue it: Wakefield has been one of my favorite players since his stunning debut with the Bucs in 1992. I just hope he gets the chance to pitch.
 
Few remember this now, I suppose, but Wakefield’s first season in Boston was terrific; for much of the year his ERA was under 2.00, and in a weak year for pitchers there was talk that he’d win the Cy Young Award. He faded down the stretch, but still posted fine numbers.
 
He wasn’t an All-Star in 1995, but he probably deserved to be one. It was a short first-half following the strike year, and Wakefield started the year in the minor leagues, trying to get his knuckler straight. Going into the break Wakefield’s numbers compared favorably with the pitchers selected to the game:
 
Randy Johnson – 9-1, 2.88 ERA
Kevin Appier – 11-5, 3.04 ERA
Chuck Finley – 7-7, 3.56 ERA
Erik Hanson – 7-2, 3.61 ERA
Dennis Martinez – 8-0, 2.37 ERA
David Wells – 8-3, 3.00 ERA
Steve Ontiveros – 8-3, 3.09 ERA
Kenny Rogers – 8-4, 3.05 ERA
Tim Wakefield – 7-1, 1.61 ERA
 
A few of the pitchers had to be on the team: Steve Ontiveros was the A’s lone representative in 1995, and Appier was the Royals only star. But Chuck Finley? There were three other Angels represented on the team. Dennis Martinez? Cleveland had five other players.
 
Most galling of all was the selection of Erik Hanson, who was Wakefield’s teammate on the Red Sox. Hanson had one more win than Wakefield…and two more runs on his ERA. Yet Buck Showalter thought Hanson deserved the nod.
 
Well…it took fourteen years, but someone finally corrected that mistake.
 
David Wright, Mets – Wright is on a pace to hit about a dozen homeruns this year, which is about twenty off what anyone would have expected on the season. And while it would be easy to chalk it up to park effect, it bears mentioning that Wright has only two homeruns on the road this year.
 
Question: has there ever been a player who has endured such a steep drop in homeruns at the Age of 26, after establishing a clear level of ability? 
 
Carlos Beltran, Mets – At some point, the Mets of the late Aughts will join the Braves of the late 1950’s, the Cubs of the late 1960’s, the mid-1980 Yankees, and the mid-1990 Mariners as one of the great squanderers of talent ever.
 
Think about it: the Mets have three truly great players in Beltran, Wright, and Johan Santana. They have surrounded those players, at various times, with talented players like Carlos Delgado, Francisco Rodriguez, Billy Wagner, Jose Reyes, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, and Gary Sheffield. Yet for all of the talent the Mets have had over the years, they have just one playoff series victory to show for it: a 3-0 drubbing of the Dodgers in the Wild Card round of 2006. 
 
Jay Bruce, Reds – What kind of player does Jay Bruce become?
 
His positives are obvious: he can hit baseballs very far. His negatives are also obvious: he doesn’t make great contact or get on base, and he’d be wise to ignore Dusty Baker when the skip tells him to steal second.
 
There is something deceptive about the power: it sort of blinds us to the liabilities. We look at a hitter like Votto and we think: “If he can get those strikeouts down, learn to lay off the bad pitches, he might turn into something.”
 
Compare Jay Bruce to Colby Rasmus, the centerfielder for the Cardinals. Both players are twenty-two years old:
 
 
R
H
2B
HR
BB
SO
BA
OBP
SLG
Rasmus
33
63
17
8
12
44
.270
.313
.455
Bruce
38
58
11
18
30
58
.212
.294
.458
 
Rasmus has been the better player than Bruce this year, better in the field and better at the plate. But the Reds wouldn’t think to trade Jay Bruce for Colby Rasmus. Why not? Because Bruce is on a pace to hit 35-40 homeruns this year.
 
Here’s the thing, though: Colby Rasmus is far more likely to be a good player than Jay Bruce. He has more ways to become a good player.
 
Michael Young, Rangers – Call me crazy, but I might have taken Alex Rodriguez here. Or Brandon Inge.
 
Justin Morneau, Twins –Why is it most baseball fans think Justin Morneau is a better player than Joe Mauer?
 
If you ask a Twins fan to name their team’s best player, they will almost always cite Justin Morneau. Moreover, these people will argue for Morneau with surprising passion and zeal. This is true even among casual fans who don’t root for the Twins. And this is true of most sportswriters, or at least those who get to vote on the MVP ballot: Mauer has never finished ahead of Morneau in an MVP tally.  
 
This should be surprising.
 
Think about it: in a typical season, Justin Morneau hits .300 with 30 homers and a 120 RBI’s. Those are fine numbers for a first-baseman, sure. But they are hardly rare: there have been sixty-six seasons in baseball history where a first basemen has posted a Triple Crown line of .300/30/120. No one would argue he is the best first baseman in baseball right now, nor is he the best in his league. 
 
Meanwhile, Joe Mauer is putting up numbers that no catcher has ever put up. He is doing things that we’ve never seen before. He has won two batting titles and is making strides towards his third, and is nearly hitting .400 to boot. He is also a terrific, Gold Glove-winning defensive player. He is, by any objective measure, the best catcher in baseball right now, and it isn’t even close.
 
I’m not trying to pick on Minnesota fans. I just think it’s interesting. Why do most people think Morneau is better than Mauer?
 
I think the Morneau/Mauer thing demonstrates an interesting truth about how we understand and order our perceptions of the world. Specifically: we tend to favor the familiar, and ignore the unique.
 
With Morneau, there is a precedent for the things he does, one that is clearly defined and entrenched enough that even casual fans recognize that Morneau is meeting that precedent. He fits the expectation of what a good first baseman does.
 
Meanwhile Mauer is doing things that have no precedent. We have no memory of a catcher who regularly wins batting titles, a catcher who flirts with a .400 batting average and wins Gold Gloves. It doesn’t fit the realm of our understanding.
 
Mark Teixeira, Yankees – I was surprised to see this is only Teixeira’s second All-Star game. It’s tough to get in as a first baseman.
 
Freddy Sanchez, Pirates – On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to make the All-Star team if you’re a middle infielder for the Pirates. This is Freddy’s third All-Star game.
 
Sanchez’s most similar player, according to baseballreference.com, is Cotton Tierney, who played second and third for the Pirates in the early 1920’s. Which makes Freddy Sanchez something of a throwback player.
 
Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox – I’m glad Youks is on the All-Star team, but it’s interesting that Joe Maddon took him over Miguel Cabrera.
 
 
R
H
2B
HR
RBI
BA
OBP
SLG
Youkilis
49
72
20
14
47
.301
.423
.569
Cabrera
48
97
17
16
47
.323
.385
.540
 
There are a lot of Red Sox on Joe Maddon’s team. A case of keeping friends close, enemies closer, perhaps?
 
Ryan Braun, Brewers – Ryan Braun recently complained about the poor pitching that the Brewers starters have been handing in. He also insinuated his belief that the Brewers GM should be making some moves to acquire new pitching.
 
Is it just me, or are players getting a little freer about expressing their opinions? To my ears, criticizing the pitching staff of your own team isn’t typical behavior, nor is giving advice to the GM.
 
This is a side-note, but it occurs to me that, in this age where media structures are being altered and reshaped, we’re seeing an emerging freedom of expression. Whereas in the past it was left to the sportswriters to criticize a team, now the players themselves are doing it. Anyway, more on this topic to come.
 
Josh Hamilton, Rangers – The voting for Hamilton and Manny Ramirez is interesting, isn’t it?
 
Both players have missed significant time this season: neither Ramirez nor Hamilton are really deserving of All-Star status. Despite their missing seasons, both players garnered a significant number of votes from the fans. And lastly: both players were, at one time, suspended for violating baseball’s drug policy.
 
There has been a lot written in the mainstream press about how fans shouldn’t be voting for Manny Ramirez, who is, after all, a cheat and a scoundrel. There has been no such response about Josh Hamilton.
 
We Americans love the repentant sinner, the prodigal son returned from the wilderness. We have less affection for those who refuse to atone. Neither player deserves to make the All-Star team, not on the basis of their play this year. But only Ramirez is being called out for it. Hamilton gets a pass.
 
I don’t bring this up as a criticism of Josh Hamilton, whom I respect a great deal. I just find it interesting that in the loud din that arose from the press when Manny Ramirez was leading NL outfielders in the fan votes, no one noticed that Hamilton, too, was receiving votes that had little to do with how his season was going.
 
Dave Fleming is a writer living in Iowa City, IA. He welcomes questions, comments, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.
 
 

COMMENTS (15 Comments, most recent shown first)

jollydodger
I think the Morneau/Mauer issue has less to do with familiar/rare and more to do with big, round numbers (laziness). I link it to W-L records for pitchers.
Take a glace at a group of pitchers, you could sort through best ERA or BABIP, etc....but most would just glance at W-L records.

With players on their team, they could look at OPS+ or games played, but they inevitably look for HR,RBI,AVG...with AVG seemingly being the least important.

Maybe they're glanced at BECAUSE they're familiar. When you look at the back of a baseball card, you know about where the column for HR will be, and that BA is probably last. So I guess its familiarity and the laziness to not look deeper.
6:48 PM Jul 16th
 
ventboys
Gruz is probably the best comp for Freddy out of those...
10:38 PM Jul 9th
 
DaveFleming
Ventboys,

23 players have hit 50+ doubles in a season, with 10 or fewer homers. Interestingly, twenty of those seasons were post-1921.

George Burns, 1926, is the most striking example: 64 doubles, 4 HR.

Recent players of note:
Mark Grudzielanek, 1997: 54 2B, 4 HR
Brian Roberts, 2008: 51 2B, 9 HR
Wade Boggs, 1989: 51 2B, 3 HR
Pete Rose 1978: 51 2B, 7 HR

Tris Speaker had four such seasons, while Paul Waner and Billy Herman had two apiece.
5:30 PM Jul 9th
 
sdbunting
"On the other hand, if his name does turn up in a future investigation or positive test, no one will be shocked."

I actually would be pretty shocked to hear El Hombre's name come up in connection with PEDs, but I admit that he's my favorite player and perhaps I just don't want to think it's possible.
2:41 PM Jul 9th
 
ventboys
I probably don't need to post this, but nice work as usual, Dave. More, more, more......
1:17 AM Jul 9th
 
ventboys
2 cents...

Torii Hunter- I typed ii into the search engine on BBR.com, and got 5 players that have II attached to their names (so and so the second), but no Torii Hunter…..

Brad Hawpe- Nice little player, but also a good example of a guy making the allstar team mostly due to getting hit-lucky. His BABIP is .379 this year. His career mark going into this year was .341. Those 38 points would put his overall numbers right where they have been all along. He is known as a brutal defensive player, and I looked. His numbers bear his reputation out. I’m happy for him, getting his allstar nod.

Javier Vasquez- Pitched regularly in rotation for the 2006-2008 White Sox, but for some weird reason his records for all three years go against the team’s success level. He was 11-12 for a 90 win team in 2006, 15-8 for a 72 win team in 2007, then 12-16 in 2008 when his team went 89-74. I can’t get a handle on him at all, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he went 22-7 some year. He’s running out of years, though. He turns 33 later this month. His main historical comp, Brad Radke, won 20 in the middle of a long stretch of similar seasons by other metrics.

Albert Pujols- How old is he? He is certainly on a pace to go after the big records, with 350 homers and 1059 rbi halfway through his age 29 season, but I don’t read or hear anyone talking about him and his career pace like we did with Griffey and Arod. Is it just assumed that he is a couple (at least) years older than he claims?

Albert is one of the very best hitters ever, but again I don’t read about that like we read about Frank Thomas in his 20’s. By the numbers isn’t he knocking on the door as the best right handed hitter ever? I don’t hear that from the media. Are they skittish because of what might come out against him, burned by the “greats” of the recent period? Personally you can call me a skeptic, I guess. He looks like the Michelin Man, and he just seems older than his listed age. I love the guy, and I certainly root for him, but I can’t get my head around 29 years old and PED clean, not with what has happened in the recent past.

Justin Upton- Have we ever seen such talented siblings? We have 15 or 20 years to figure it out, I guess. I have both in my local keeper league, so I am a buyer. I have always had a soft spot for skinny guys that hit homers. Both of the Uptons combine brilliant athletic moves with iron headed mistakes, but I was there for Griffey when he was young. He was prone to a lot of the same mistakes, though he never struck out like the Uptons.

Tim Wakefield- I remember him with the Pirates back in 1992. I could have predicted several scenarios for him, but I doubt that I would have picked paragon of consistency and flexibility for a perennial contender, signing the same contract with the same team every year well into his 40’s. In the age of instant and constant chaos, Wakefield, with his chaotic pitch, has been the model of consistency. He’s still building his legend, but he already deserves kudos for a career well done.

David Wright- Gary Gaetti famously hit 5 homers at the age of 25 after a couple of seasons of over 20, and then returned to hitting in the 20’s the next year. I looked the season up on BBR, and it looks like he was cutting his swing down that year. His K’s dropped from 121 to 81, and his batting average went up some. He kept the K rate after that, after an adjustment year he blossomed into a legitimate allstar.

I don’t think that is what is happening here. There was a graphic in the game today that told us that Castillo is hitting .336 at home this year, .278 overall I think. Is Cityfield one of those parks, like old Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis or Kaufman, that impedes power but enhances batting average? I hope so, I really do. Parks like this might bring back a game that isn’t all about the 3 run homer.

Carlos Beltran- The Mets deserve a mulligan for this year, even with the recent past. Beltran’s injury, if it’s as serious as it looks, might be the camel the broke the straw’s chance of his Hall of Fame candidacy. I don’t really agree with your premise, that the Mets have had massive talent in the recent past. Playing in New York tends to accentuate the hyperbole. I like their talent, but it’s not on the same level as the M’s of the 1990’s, the Braves of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s or the Giants of the 1960’s. The Carl Hubbell fed Giants of the 1958-1975 period made a string of trades that are unbelievable, just magic bean unbelievable. To recount them would take about three books.

Jay Bruce- Colby Rasmus, by his history, SHOULD be what Jay Bruce has been this year. He never really hit for high averages in the minors, but he had the magic power/speed combo that makes everyone salivate. I expect their averages to migrate towards each other, but it might not happen right away. Bruce has never struggled like this before, but he is barely 22, turned in April. He looks terrible, really, atbat and in the field. He looks like he needs a breather, and someone to coach him up some. I have him on both of my teams, and I am not benching him yet, but I am concerned short term. Long term, I am very confident. We keep 10, and he will be one of them.

Michael Young- 50 years from now Jason Stark’s grandson will be asking us to give a list of the guys that had 5 consecutive 200 hit seasons. Young will be the one that nobody can remember.

Justin Morneau- I doubt that anyone is calling Justin better than Mauer now. Who is better, Morneau or Tex? Put them in the same park, I bet that they would be indistinguishable. This cat could hit 40 every year in a lot of parks. His line drives carry deeper than just about anyone.


Mark Teixeira- My guess is that his early season problems have hurt him some in the allstar balloting. I am thinking that Tex is going to win the MVP this year, just a hunch.

Freddy Sanchez- What a weird player, or actually what a weird situation for a player to get himself in. Put him on a good team and he would be a utility infielder. He’d be a good one, but I don’t see him as a regular on a championship team unless they had a weird imbalance. His defensive stats look decent, but the deeper thinking formulas have him as a negative. Have the Pirates been exceptionally geared towards groundballs lately, or is it my imagination?

Freddy hit 53 doubles and 6 homers one year. I wonder if anyone has hit over 50 doubles with that few homers since the deal ball era. Anyone?

Kevin Youkilis- I hate, just HATE to watch him hit. I normally like weird stances, but his pre-swing routine reminds me of a golfer that is wearing a bunch of paraphernalia to keep his head down and his swing aligned. Despite a rep for walking constantly, Youk’s walk rate declined consistently in his first three years as a regular. It is up some this year, and his oba is over .400 at the moment, higher than it has ever been.

I was curious about his defense at third, so I looked it up expecting it to be pretty bad. Actually it’s fairly decent, though in a somewhat small sample size. I would trust him over there.

Ryan Braun- Marty Feldman with muscles. I don’t know that players complaining to the media is all that new. The main paradigm shift is mostly in the access, and the competition to publish. Nothing is left on the cutting room floor anymore.

Josh Hamilton- We haven’t gotten to the point where we support the redemption aspect of recovering steroid users, or at least the media hasn’t. Hell, the media is years away from this. They are still going nuts over every new revelation. I was over it fairly early, so I looked into when it started and tried to figure out who the trailblazers were. I have posted some names, some of them several times, and got no reaction. It’s too soon, I guess.

Manny versus Josh is not quite a fair comp, because of the timeline. Manny is just coming back from a bust less than two months ago. Josh has been clean for over two years, and his crime wasn’t against baseball itself.

1:06 AM Jul 9th
 
DaveFleming
Great point, Josh, about the way that fantasy baseball is probably influencing the general public's perception of the game. Certainly, the use of stats like RBI's and Wins in fantasy leagues helps to reenforce some skewed evaluations.

That said, I'm certain that fantasy baseball does more to get fans interested in alternative statistics approaches and new ways of understanding the game, than it does in trapping us in the dark age thinking that a player's RBI count is a true measure of ability.

Don't worry, though: fantasy baseball is only going to get more complicated, and more interesting. In ten years any league where defense isn't measured will be considered extremely dated.
6:29 PM Jul 8th
 
josheehan
I like your Morneau/Mauer comparison, Dave. We do as humans "tend to favor what is familiar". It just occurred to me that the proliferation of fantasy baseball leagues may have some influence upon this. If I'm drafting in the second round of my draft and am looking for a solid guy on the corner, Morneau is fantasy baseball gold. Not prone to injury, very consistent, great age. Of course Mauer is other-worldly, but at the end of the day, I don't care about what a catcher can offer me, especially since defense and non-standard stats don't generally count. All this is to say: one of the lenses many of us view ballplayers with these days (and for some folks, the ONLY lens they use) are the fantasy baseball utility pair.
3:11 PM Jul 8th
 
DaveFleming
Thanks for the corrections, guys. Trotsky, Trosky....it's probably a sin to confuse Iowa's greatest hitter with a Commie. And I can never keep the Upton brothers stright.
11:55 AM Jul 8th
 
ventboys
Isn't Justin Upton a rightfielder?
10:51 PM Jul 7th
 
THBR
Ummm ... shouldn't that be Hal TROSKY? His cousin Leon Trotsky was the revolutionary ....
7:37 PM Jul 7th
 
evanecurb
ChiSox: I think the treatment of Pujols in the media with respect to steroid use has been consistent with the treastment of other players where no evidence of usage exists. No one has gone on record to say that he is juicing, and no reporters have turned up any evidence of use. Others who have been reported as using steroids are players whose names turned up in one of a few places, namely Canseco's book, the SF reporters' book on Bonds, the SF steroids investigation, the 2003 durg testing leaks, the McNamee case, or one of the other cases. Since Pujols has not been linked to any of these cases, there is no evidence against him so no jounalistic reason exists for the media to report him as a suspected user.

On the other hand, if his name does turn up in a future investigation or positive test, no one will be shocked. Manny's name was never mentioned before his suspension.
3:40 PM Jul 7th
 
evanecurb
Went back and checked the 1997 Mariners, which was their best team. That particular team was aveerage or above average offensively at all nine positions, so my statement is wrong. Their lack of pitching depth was the weakness of that particular team, which has been noted elsewhere. They had three good starters but that was about it.
1:35 PM Jul 7th
 
chisox
It just breaks my heart that the Mets can't seem to win anything. Life is good.

I think one reason that Mauer doesn't get as much love a Morneau is that he doesn't put up the power numbers/RBI that might be expected from a big catcher. I'm certainly not criticizing him, and would love to see him on the White Sox. I just think that has something to do with it. If he ultimately moves to another position to save his body (apparently because he's so tall he takes an extra beating back there) what position would that be, and, would you then expect to see more power/RBI from him?

Just asking, but, is it me, or does it seem that Albert Pujols has been able to avoid the black cloud cast over the steroids era when he has been posting ridiculous numbers the entire time?
1:31 PM Jul 7th
 
evanecurb
Very insightful comments about Hamilton, Morneau/Mauer, and the Mets of recent years. The Mets seem to have a similar problem as the other teams that you mention (50s Braves, 60s Cubs, 90s Mariners): they tend to have weak players instead of average players at the positions where they don't have stars. Right field and left field have been problems for them during this era, same can be said of the third through fifth starters and the back end of the bullpen. The 90s Mariners failed not because of Johnson, Griffey, Edgar, Buhner, and A Rod, they failed because of their recurring weakness in left field, third base, second base, the bullpen, and the back end of the rotation. Same thing is true for the Mets today. The 60s Cubs are a different matter. They had some regular players who were overrated at the time and the team, therefore, was perceived to have more talent in its lineup than was actually the case: Beckert, Kessinger, Banks, and Hundley were all below average players offensively but were thought at the time to be above average players deserving of all star consideration. Williams and Santo were great, as were Jenkins, Holtzman, and Hands. But they weren't a great team.
11:52 AM Jul 7th
 
 
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