Brooks Robinson 91, Steve Buechele 62

            Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson, in whose honor this tournament is named, rallied early in the second half, and coasted to an easy 91-62 victory over 1980s third baseman Steve Buechele, who was the 16^th seed in the Baltimore division.

            Robinson fans were stunned early in the game when Buechele, who generally hit 16 to 22 homers a season, muscled up and took an 18-9 lead over Robinson in the “Power” competition.    Buechele, however, hit only .245 in his career, thus lost the “Hitting for Average” entry by a 19-3 score, putting Robinson momentarily ahead.   Buechele then beat Robinson 15 to 6 in the “Plate Discipline” area, and thus pulled ahead at halftime, 41 to 38.  Robinson dominated the second half, winning the “Career Length” and “Awards” areas by lop-sided margins, and the other two areas by lesser amounts:

            Robinson will face the winner of the Doug DeCinces/Jeff Cirillo contest on September 26.   The DeCinces/Cirillo battle will take place on September 22; Robinson faces the winner four days later. 

            Buechele surfaced with the Rangers in 1985, at a time that the Rangers already had two very good Brooks Robinson-style third basemen in Buddy Bell, the #1 seed in the Los Angeles region, and Larry Parrish, the #5 seed in the Cleveland region.   Parrish was playing right field, as Bell took care of third base.  Buechele’s defense was very impressive, however, and when the 1985 Rangers lost 99 games the Rangers decided to re-build with Buechele at third base.

            There was something odd about Buechele’s build, in that he seemed to have a very long torso with an unusually flexible mid-section, so that he seemed to move always with a sweeping motion, almost like a rubber broom.  Buechele’s son, Garret Buechele, is now the third baseman for the University of Oklahoma, where he hit .350 with 17 homers and 65 RBI in 2010; he also is a fine defensive third baseman, and is considered one of the top college players in the country.  Buechele was a draft-eligible sophomore in 2010 and was drafted by the Rangers, although I don’t believe that he signed.

            Buechele Sr.’s best year in the majors was 1991, which he split between Texas and Pittsburgh, posting the extremely Brooks Robinson-like numbers of .262 with 22 homers, 85 RBI.   His won-lost contribution for that season is equivalent to 18-11—15-8 with Texas, 3-3 with Pittsburgh.  We have him with a career won-lost contribution, as a hitter, of 83-105 (very comparable to Sprague or Salazar), but, as a fielder, of 36-19, a fine .655 percentage.

Steve Buechele

Santo Hits Century Mark in Rout Of Davenport

            Chicago Cub favorite Ron Santo, the #2 seed in the Cleveland regional, rolled over his National League contemporary Jim Davenport, 113 to 82.    Santo’s largest advantages were in power (23 to 5), and playing time (18-5).  Davenport had significant advantages in speed and in the success of his teams, and even won a one-point nod over the five-time Gold Glover Santo in defense (17-16), but was never in the contest.

            Willie Jones will meet early American Leaguer Bill Bradley on September 20, and Santo is scheduled to meet the winner of that contest on September 24.

            Davenport was a part of one of the best rookie crops of all time, which included National League Rookie of the Year and Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, all-star outfielder Felipe Alou, slugging outfielders Willie Kirkland and Leon Wagner, and catcher Bob Schmidt—all rookies with the 1958 San Francisco Giants.  Davenport was an excellent defensive third baseman and a competent defensive shortstop, and wrested the National League Gold Glove away from Ken Boyer in 1962, when he (Davenport) hit .297 with 14 homers, 58 RBI.    His OPS that season was a solid .813, but when it dropped to .630 the next year Davenport lost his third base job to Jim Ray Hart, and spent the rest of his career as a utility infielder.  With the exceptions of the 1961 and ’62 seasons, Davenport didn’t have enough power to really be considered a member of the Brooks Robinson tribe.   A well-liked player, Davenport spent his entire thirteen-year career with the Giants.

            Davenport’s career won-lost contribution as a hitter is scored at 86-111 (.437); as a fielder, 35-26 (.579), overall 121-136 (.471).   His best years as a regular, 1961 and 1962, have won-lost equivalents of 15-9 and 17-10. 

Jim Davenport

Todd Zeile 86, Ken Reitz 64

            Continuing the trend of one-sided victories for the higher-seeded players, 1990s St. Louis Cardinal third baseman Todd Zeile rolled to an easy 22-point win over his 1970s counterpart, Ken Reitz.

            You know how there are players that you mix up in your mind?  It is a coincidence that Zeile wound up matched against Reitz in this tournament, but sometimes I mix up Zeile and Reitz—both Cardinal third basemen, both very slow, and with similar names, one ending in “z” and the other taking off from there.  I never much liked either player, but Zeile could play some; he has big advantages over Reitz in Power, Plate Discipline, and the Length of his career:

            Reitz was a much better defensive player than Zeile, but Reitz in all candor couldn’t play.   I don’t mean this to be disrespectful of him; I think Reitz was a fine man who genuinely loved playing baseball.    He wasn’t all that good at it, and he was able to have the career that he had mostly because the two things that he did fairly well—defense and hitting for average—were tremendously over-valued in the era that Reitz played.   Reitz was not only slow; he was unusually slow, with a career high in triples of 2, ten stolen bases in his career (in 24 attempts), and very high numbers of grounded-into-double plays.   His career high in walks was 25—this from a player who had over 600 plate appearances five times.    While he did hit 17 homers and drive in 79 runs in 1977, a typical year for him was five to eight home runs.

            That combination—zero speed, few walks, no power—that’s deadly.   You just can’t have a player like that on your team, unless he is a Gold Glove catcher and hits .280.   Reitz’ secondary average, .139, is one of the worst in modern baseball history.   Among the 66 third basemen in this tournament, Reitz was easily the worst hitter, with a career won-lost contribution, as a hitter, of 70-138 (.337).   He was above water as a fielder (39-32), but even so, he was a sub-marginal player who should never have been a major league regular.   In his career, he had almost as many GIDP as walks.   His won-lost contributions, for the years that he was a regular player, read 9-17, 13-20, 13-21, 13-22, 15-19, 14-18, 14-20, and 13-19.

Ken Reitz

            Todd Zeile in the second round will meet the winner of the Don Money/Aramis Ramirez contest, which will be held on September 18.    Zeile will meet the winner on September 23.

Lansford Needs Overtime to Edge Boone

Carney Lansford 91, Ray Boone 89 (OT)

            Carney Lansford, the #4 seed in the Los Angeles region, narrowly averted being the first higher-seeded player upset in the Brooks Robinson invitational tournament, outscoring 13 seed Ray Boone eight to six in overtime to escape with his life.  Lansford will play the first contest in the second round of this tournament.  Vinny Castilla will match up against Ken McMullen in Los Angeles tomorrow, September 16, and then Lansford will meet the winner of that event on September 23, kicking off the second-round games.

            Boone beat Lansford 18-10 in Power, 14-8 in Plate Discipline, 20-7 in Defense, and 13-10 in Awards.    Lansford saved himself by winning a batting title, hitting .300 several times, and playing 500 more major league games than did Boone.    The 22-4 edge in career length averted disaster for Lansford.

            Boone and Lansford—who incidentally both hit exactly 151 home runs in their major league careers--are both extremely interesting players.   Boone reached the major leagues as a shortstop with the 1948 Cleveland Indians, a World Championship team with a Hall of Fame shortstop, Lou Boudreau, and what some feel was the best infield in major league history (Eddie Robinson, Joe Gordon, Ken Keltner, Lou Boudreau).   As Boudreau aged and moved on, Boone moved into the shortstop job, hitting .301 for the Indians in 1950.   In 1951, however, his average plummeted to .233, and from then on he was not quite the Indians’ Golden Boy.

            Although Boone was before my time, I don’t believe that he ever did have the quickness of a good shortstop, and I’m not really sure why the Indians tried to make him a shortstop, or why they never gave up on it—or why they gave up on him rather than giving up on the idea that he was a shortstop.   They did, in any case, trading him to Detroit in mid-season 1953 as a part of one of those monster eight-man trades that the 1950s General Managers loved to execute. 

            Boone rallied in Detroit, becoming a different player.   After the trade to Detroit he drove in almost a run a game, 93 in 101 games, 114 for the year (1953).   He drove in 116 runs in 1955, and made the All-Star team in 1954.   In 1956 he had a .400 on base percentage, and a .500 slugging.   Good strikeout/walk ratios.   After 1956 he was aging—he had started late—and trying to hold on as a first baseman.

            By our system, 80% of Boone’s career value was his value as a hitter; only 20% was his value in the field.   That’s a low “defense” percentage for this group of players, and what’s odd about that is that Boone played much more shortstop than did most of these other players.   One would think, knowing how the system works, that a player who played several years at shortstop (and didn’t hit much when he did) would have a high “defensive percentage”, but he doesn’t.

            Boone does pound Lansford as a defensive player, 20-7, but that’s mostly because Lansford, as we have discussed repeatedly, had extremely limited range at third base.    Boone and Lansford were comparable hitters; Boone was better in the field, Lansford’s career was much longer.   That’s what it comes down to. 

            Before Boone there had never been a three-generation family of major league players.   Contemporary with Boone came Gus Bell—a somewhat similar player—and then came the Boones and the Bells, parallel dynasties, many of them Brooks Robinson-type players.   Boone’s son, catcher Bob Boone, and Bell’s son, third baseman Buddy Bell, were probably the best players in each family, the middle-generation guys.

            Among the players who have been eliminated from the tournament thus far, all are similar quality hitters, except that Boone was much better and Reitz was much worse. Defensively, Boone in the middle of the pack, but as a hitter—easily the best hitter among the early eliminations, with a career won-lost contribution, as a hitter, of 119-77.   Boone’s overall won-lost contributions, beginning in 1953, are 19-7, 20-9, 17-11, and 21-5.

Ray Boone

            This is how the six players who have been eliminated from the tournament rank, one compared to another:

            In tomorrows’ contests, number 2 seed Jimmy Dykes will face off against 15 seed Tony Batista in Baltimore, #3 seed Sal Bando will face 14 seed Brook Jacoby in Cleveland, #4 seed Ken Boyer will face #13 seed David Bell in St. Louis, and fifth-seeded Vinny Castilla will battle 12^th-seeded Ken McMullen in Los Angeles. 

            On Friday the Baltimore matchup will be third-seeded Toby Harrah against 14^th-seeded Ray Knight, Bob Elliott in Cleveland will face Dean Palmer (4 vs. 13), Scott Rolen will return to St. Louis to face Howard Johnson (5 vs. 12), and in Los Angeles, sixth-seeded Willie Kamm, a 1920s defensive wonder, will face 11^th-seeded Troy Glaus.    Reminding you again that your opinions are most welcome here.