Billy Nash 96, Joe Randa 71

September 21, 2010

            Nineteenth century star Billy Nash scored in double figures in six straight categories, overcoming a 39-28 deficit late in the first half, and finishing out a comparatively easy victory by ending the game with a 10-0 sweep in the “Team Success” category.   The 7^th-seeded Nash will face #2 seed Jimmy Dykes in second round action on September 25.

            Among the 66 players in the tournament, Joe Randa ranks dead last in Team Success Percentage, at .338.   One of the bad habits that got the Kansas City Royals into the condition they are still in today was under-rating their home-grown talent.   After the Royals ran Kevin Seitzer off they traded for Gregg Jefferies, who was a very talented player and a kind of remarkable hitter, but not really a third baseman.   They had Jefferies for a year and Gary Gaetti for two or three years, and then Joe Randa came along.

            Randa didn’t come with a lot of hype.   He wasn’t a high draft pick, he wasn’t big or fast or showy, but he did hit .303 as a rookie in 1996, plus he was a good third baseman.   After one year the Royals—acting apparently on the belief that they were only a player or two away from winning their division—traded him to Pittsburgh as part of a package for two veterans, Jay Bell and Jeff King, and gave their third base job to Craig Paquette, and then to Dean Palmer.  

            Randa hit .302 in Pittsburgh—another team that was drifting annually a little further away from the pennant race—but was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the expansion draft, and then traded to Detroit.   He had an off year in Detroit, the Tigers lost 97 games, and he got traded from Detroit to the Mets and then, days later, back to the Royals.   Randa in his career played for only two teams that had winning records, the 2003 Royals and the 2005 Padres—and they were each just a few games over .500.

            As a mature player, Randa in 1999  hit .314 with 197 hits including 36 doubles and 16 homers.   He followed that up with a similar season in 2000--.304 with 15 homers, 106 RBI.    His won-lost contributions for those two seasons were 22-13 and 18-17.  He didn’t walk, and he wasn’t flashy at third base, but he was a good line-drive hitter and a steady, reliable third baseman.

            Compared to Seitzer, also eliminated from the tournament in the first round, Randa was more similar than different.   He was shorter than Seitzer but stronger, and the ball jumped off his bat better.  Both were high-average hitters; Randa’s career average, .284, was easily the best of the four players eliminated from the tournament today.  He also led the four in on-base percentage and in slugging percentage.  Seitzer was a little better hitter; Randa was a better third baseman.   They were similar in size and speed, and they were similar in this way:  that they were much better ballplayers than you would think they would be if you just watched them work out.   I would bet that the scouts early in their careers underrated both of them by quite a bit.

            Randa had (I think) some sort of minor nerve damage in his face that caused his lips to curl perpetually into a somewhat unnatural grin.    People used to call him “the Joker”.   The expression wasn’t unpleasant, and it wasn’t out of keeping with his personality; he actually was an upbeat person who went through life with a smile on his face.  Which he needed, because although he was traded more times than a NASDAQ stock, he never did get to play in a pennant race.

Joe Randa—Wins and Losses Summary

Clete Boyer and Ken

            Ken Keltner beat Clete Boyer 33-13 through the first three events including 17-1 in hitting for average, and held on for a 71-56 victory.

            Keltner in the second round will face the winner of tomorrow’s contest between Graig Nettles and Phil Nevin.

            In a certain sense, the Boyer/Keltner matchup was all about Boyer—in the sense that, if a basketball team comes out bombing threes and pressuring the ball, the question is whether they hit the threes and whether they can steal the ball.    Boyer’s .242 batting average was the lowest of any player in the tournament.   Although he had reasonably good power, his .670 OPS was still the fourth-lowest in the tournament.

            In spite of that, Boyer really was a good player, and he was a good player because he was a phenomenal defender.    We credit him with an .812 career winning percentage as a fielder, which is the highest of any player yet eliminated from the tournament, and the third-highest of any player in the tournament.   His career won-lost record, in the field, we have at 66-15, so if he hits .250 with 15 homers in a season, that’s enough.   In 1966 he hit .240 with 14 homers; he still comes out at 17-13.    In 1960 he hit .224 with 11 homers; he still comes out at 16-14.

            But the thing is, when we contrast Boyer with Keltner in the field, Boyer doesn’t gain that much because Keltner was also a very good fielder.   Boyer wins it, 14-8, but when we look at batting average, Keltner wins 17-1 because Boyer hits .242 and Keltner hits .276, which was better than the league average and better than the league average for a third baseman in that era.

            Boyer was the same age as Brooks Robinson, was similar in build to Brooks, and also comes from the same part of the country. . .a couple of hundred miles away.   While Boyer was at his peak (1960 to 1967), there were people who thought that he was a better defensive player than Brooks.   Our method suggests that he may well have been.   His defensive winning percentage is higher than Brooks’s, although, in truth, this is mostly because Brooks was a better hitter.   Because Brooks was a better hitter he stayed in the game years and years after Boyer was retired, thus we’re comparing lemons and oranges in making a direct comparison of the defensive winning percentages.   We are, in a sense, asking who was a better fielder:  the 25-year-old Clete Boyer, or the 38-year-old Brooks Robinson.

            I had noticed before that Clete Boyer had very, very high defensive winning percentages, and I had been concerned, before doing this study, that they might be too high because they were unduly influenced by the fact that Boyer played for very good teams, which could slant the data.   But in doing this study, I realized that this actually is not the case.   Boyer’s Team Success Percentage was good, .591, but not all that good.   Brooks Robinson’s was much better (.658).   Boyer did play for some great teams (1960 to 1964), but he also played for some crummy teams.   It’s not like he only scores as a good fielder when he is playing for a good team.  His fielding numbers are just very impressive, from the beginning of his career to the end.   But you still have to hit, and he drove in as many as 70 runs only once in this career.  

Clete Boyer—Wins and Losses Summary

Gaetti 71, Melton 49

            Gary Gaetti, outpointing Bill Melton 27-5 on defense and career length, moved relatively easily into the second round.   Gaetti, the #1 seed in the St. Louis regional, will face 9^th-seeded Edgardo Alfonzo on September 25. 

            As the chart below shows, there is really nothing wrong with Bill Melton, except that his career is too short for him to have value comparable to the front-rank players in this tournament.   He was an outstanding power hitter, and he was OK in the field.   In 1971, at the age of 25, he was near the level of being an MVP candidate.   Worse players have won the MVP Award.  He just had back trouble, and took a huge step backward at an age when he should still have been making progress.

Bill Melton—Wins and Losses Summary

Tim Wallach 118, Bob Aspromonte 62

            Tim Wallach, who as I recall was in the major leagues from sometime in the late 1930s until two or three weeks ago, dominated an overmatched expansion player, and advanced in the tournament with a 118-62 shellacking of Houston’s Bob Aspromonte.    Wallach, the #2 seed in his region, will face Adrian Beltre in Los Angeles on September 25.

            From 1955 until 1970 the Dodgers were constantly looking for a third baseman.   I notice here that the Dodgers in that era brought up but traded away prematurely three pretty good third basemen—Aspromonte, Ken McMullen and Don Hoak.   Hoak played for the Dodgers in ’54-’55, got traded to Chicago, and became a quality third baseman for the Reds and Pirates.   Aspromonte, a bonus baby, played one game for the Dodgers in 1956, played for them again in 1960-’61, and went to Houston in the expansion draft; he became a decent player for the Astros.   McMullen played for the Dodgers from ’62 to ’64, got traded to Washington, and became a good major league player in Washington. 

            Aspromonte had a brother, Ken Aspromonte; at least as I remember my old baseball cards, they looked enough alike to be twins.   They came from Brooklyn and they looked like characters from Jersey Shore, with thick, wavy black hair.

            I really thought, before running the numbers, that Bob Aspromonte was a much better player than he seems to have been.    His career OPS, .644, was the lowest in the tournament. Among the 66 players in the tournament, Aspromonte also ranks dead last in Isolated Power, at .084.  He played his best years in an absolutely terrible power park, yes, but. . .our system automatically adjusts for those things.  His Isolated Power in his career was .087 at home, .081 on the road.    The real problem is that not only did he not hit a lot of homers—8, 12 a year—but that he didn’t hit any doubles.   In his career he hit 66 doubles and 30 homers at home, 69 and 30 on the road.  He hit 17 doubles per 600 plate appearances—the fewest of any player in the tournament.   (Mike Lowell hit the most, 37 per 600 PA).   Defensively, although his defensive reputation was very good, he seems to have been a little bit above average in Fielding Percentage, but well below average in range.   He was a .500 player at the top of his game. 

Bob Aspromonte—Wins and Losses Summary

            Tomorrow’s contests will wrap up the first round of play with Phil Nevin taking on Graig Nettles in Cleveland (16 vs. 1), Don Hoak playing Chipper Jones in St. Louis (15 vs. 2), Jeremiah Denny dealing with Ron Cey in Los Angeles (14 vs. 3), and 8^th-seeded Doug DeCinces playing 9^th-seeded Jeff Cirillo in Baltimore.   DeCinces will be trying to avoid a clean sweep for the 9 seeds; they’re 3-0 so far. 

            On Thursday, we’ll kick off second-round action with Carney Lansford against Ken McMullen, Ken Boyer against Scott Rolen, Bob Elliott against Heine Zimmerman, and Matt Williams against Jimmy Collins.    So far, we have eliminated 30 players from the tournament.   Once we hit the second round it will take us four days to eliminate 16 more players, then in the third round we’ll switch to two games a day so that we don’t blow off three Hall of Famers a day.   This is how the 30 players eliminated so far rank in terms of career OPS: