Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
A nice touch by the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim players.
The team, who made the playoffs this year, voted deceased pitcher Nick Adenhart a full share of the playoff winnings according to the LA Times Blog. That comes out to roughly $138,000. The cash goes to Adenhart’s family, of course.
Nick Adenhart gave all he had for the Angels. Unfortunately, it for just one game when he pitched six scoreless innings in his MLB debut in April. That night, he was killed in an accident by a drunk driver.
Looks like someone is floating Todd Zeile’s name out as a HOF candidate.
All kidding aside, Teddy Ballgame already posted earlier about TZ being the only player to hit for more than ten major league teams.
Apparently, he also committed more errors than anyone in the 1990s, a record I never knew about.
I was thinking about the 2009 MVP awards and getting all cynical about how the BBWAA only recognizes players when they finally start hitting the long ball. After all, Joe Mauer’s 28 homeruns was twice his previous high three years ago. Mauer had all (ok, most) of the tools necessary to garner the award already but the boost in power clinched it.
But then I thought back to last year. Oh yeah, Dustin Pedroia. As much as a surprise as it was to me, Pedroia came through with the 2008 MVP award with a measly 17 homeruns for the Boston Red Sox (yeah, yeah, go ahead… scream East Coast bias all you want. Yankee writers vote on this too).
A little bit of related MVP trivia… who was the last National League player with less than 20 homers to win the MVP? It’s been a few years. Answer at the end.
It was more than the power in of itself though. An intriguing statistic… Joe Mauer led the league in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. No big deal? Except it hasn’t been done since George Brett did it in 1980.
Cocky sports show host Sam Panayotovich, who guest posted the MVP predictions on TBZ in September, shot me an email. Referring to his article, he wrote, “Man, this guy was right on the money. ;).”
Sure enough, Sam correctly picked Joe Mauer and Albert Pujols to win the big one. But let’s be fair. Albert Pujols was a gimme. :) The entire BBWAA thought the same way.
Seriously, it was a nice call, Sam. Out of all of our analysts who predicted the awards, I think he was the only one to get them both right.
Mauer wasn’t unanimous and that’s not too surprising. What is strange is that the lone dissenting vote didn’t go to second place Mark Teixeira or even third place Derek Jeter. Fourth place Miguel Cabrera was the recipient of the gratuitous #1 vote.
Oh back to the trivia question, who was the last NL MVP player with under 20 homers???
It was Barry Larkin in 1995. Larkin hit .319 with 15 homers with 98 runs and 66 rbis. He also stole 51 bases and won the Gold Glove that year.
The talent was there, the weather was perfect, and the announcers were abysmal. MLB Network was on hand in Scottsdale, AZ to telecast the AFL championship game, with Victor Rojas & Tony Clark in the booth as the broadcasters. First up, Victor was assigned the duties of play by play, even though he’s only a fill in at that with the Rangers, color analysis is his supposed forte, if he indeed has one. One play illustrated Rojas’s (son of Cookie) complete ignorance of baseball rulings (if you don’t know, keep your trap shut). The bases were loaded with two out, the batter hit a groundball to short, on which the shortstop laid back, rather than charge, the runner at first beat the throw to second for an attempted force out. Here’s what Victor Rojas had to say, “Tony, they ruled that a basehit. We’re not here to judge. They didn’t even try to get the batter at 1st”. Common sense says, if you can’t force the runner on a short throw to 2nd, you certainly wouldn’t be able to retire the batter at first, the ruling of a basehit was correct.
Then there was former switch hitting, big man, big leaguer, Tony Clark, cliches were in abundance. Here are Big Tony’s favorite utterings rolled into one sentence, “Brother, No doubt about it, Mister Outstanding, I tip my hat”. Sheesh, if I didn’t want to hear what they had to say about the players from time to time, I’d have muted the game, rather than listen to their constant chatter, sometimes a little silence is a good thing.
Finally there were three guests brought up to the booth. Somebody from the charitable organization of Scottsdale Charros & then somebody representing the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation (the talking heads went on about the no-talent, egotistical, MLB Network’s own, Billy Ripken), but the worst was when Joe Garagiola, Sr. came up to visit. Joe started describing in detail his four major surgeries he’s undergone in the past year, sometimes it’s just better to wave to Uncle Joe from a distance.
Back to the game and the talented youngsters performing out on the field. In the 4th inning AFL MVP Phoenix Desert Dogs slugger Grant Desme, a 30 homer & 40 stolen base guy in A ball for the Oakland A’s showed off his power, nailing a home run inside the leftfield foul pole. Moments later Tampa Bay Rays catcher Nevin Ashley went “OPPO TACO”, poking one out to right, TC added, “Only growed up men hit balls like that”. It pains me today to recall their descritions of the game.
Here are some of the things I took away from watching this game. Little Matt Angle out of Ohio State University, representing the Baltimore Orioles, ripped a leadoff triple for Phoenix to start the game. Later Matt beat out a drag bunt past the pitcher for a single. Centerfielder Angle’s hustling play reminded me of another 5’10” centerfielder, Libertyville, IL’s Brett Butler. Rickie’s little brother, Jemile Weeks of the Oakland A’s, flashed some leather in the field at 2B, was 1-4 at the plate, doubling to right (was almost thrown out jogging to 2nd), and struckout three times.
Batting cleanup for Peoria was the White Sox Brent Morel, who lined singles in two of his four at bats, and looks like the real thing. Mariners Dustin Ackley, the 2nd player drafted behind Stephen Strasburg, looked good with the bat, 2-5, but very shaky in leftfield, maybe it was the sun. While White Sox centerfielder Jordan Danks was 0-4, drawing a walk, stranding 5 runners, he showed good baseball instincts, and looked solid in the field.
Pitchers that showed their stuff were Cuban righthander Reidier Gonzalez of the Blue Jays, pitching for Phoenix, with one quick perfect inning of work. Looking sharp for the Javelinas was lefty Andrew Oliver of the Detroit Tigers, 2 innings, 2 Ks. But the man on the bump for Peoria was the Tigers Robbie Weinhardt. Weinhardt is a Tigers 2008 10th round draft taken out of Oklahoma State University, where he epitomized what a power pitcher is, striking out 70 batters in 44 innings. Robbie brought his gun to town, working two innings for Peoria, striking out the side in the 8th (Corey Brown, Chris Marrero, Grant Desme) in the 8th, going 1-2-3 in the ninth, fanning Weeks swinging to end the game.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the BOMB OF THE GAME off the bat of White Sox secondbaseman C.J. Retherford. Retherford is a native of Arizona, attended ASU, was a Sun Devil, whom the White Sox signed as a free agent. With the Javelinas trailing by a run in the bottom of the 8th C.J. stepped in against former ASU hurler Josh Perrault of the Marlins, and absolutely CRUSHED one deep over the leftfield wall, it was a no-doubter, an absolute BOMB! It proved to be the game winner as the Peoria Javelinas thwarted the Peoria Desert Dogs in their hopes of winning their 6th straight AFL Title.
Here’s the Baseball Cube report on Scott Maine who the Cubs just picked up in the Aaron Heilman trade.
6’4” Maine (no relation to John) had a 10.0 strikeout/9 IP ratio over his minor league career but control might be an issue (55 walks in 120+ innings). The good news is that he seems to have settled down in that area in 2009 allowing only 22 free passes in 62. Not great but ok.
Maine hasn’t started a game since his college days at Miami. Since then it’s been strictly been out of the pen for him. He’s had his share of experience with pitching with the game on the line with 13 career minor league saves.
That said, the scouting reports on him show his prospects as a probable middle reliever. Now that he’s with the Cubs, I don’t see that changing.
Reports also say that he may be up a soon as early next year.
Zack Greinke was named the 2009 AL Cy Young Award winner. Greinke was dominant with a 2.16 ERA and a 16-8 record for the lowly Kansas City Royals. Zack started impressively, winning his first six games, with an ERA of 0.40, only Walter Johnson & Fernando Valenzuela had done that with lower ERAs. In back to back starts he struckout 15 batters in one contest and then allowed only one hit in his next start. He was 6-1 with a 1.75 ERA in his last 11 starts. Imagine how many wins Greinke would have amassed had he been pitching for the explosive New York Yankees. The Royals only scored 15 runs in Zack’s eight losses, 1.9 per game. Zack Greinke only allowed 195 hits in 229′ innings, striking out 242, while walking only 51.
MLB announced Tim Lincecum as the winner of the 2009 NL Cy Young Award. It was the 2nd straight year The Freak had won the award. Lincecum was the NL strikeout leader two years running, last time a Giant did that was Christy Mathewson in 1907-08. It was a very tight Cy Young vote, only 6 points separating 1st & 2nd, with a couple of Cardinals starters finishing in 2nd & 3rd. Interestingly Adam Wainwright was the leader in wins with 19 & 12 first place votes, but finished 3rd, teammate Chris Carpenter was the ERA leader at 2.24 with a 17-4 record, finished 2nd, and Tim was the strikeout leader with 261 Ks, a 2.48 ERA, and a 15-7 record, was the award winner, 15 wins was the lowest win total for an award winner.
Jim Tracy took over for Clint Hurdle in Colorado, guiding a struggling Rockies team to a 74-42 finish, and a postseason berth. It’s hard to argue with the selection of Tracy as the NL Manager of the Year. Twice before teams he’s managed have finished with 90+ wins (2004 Dodgers finished 1st), while three times his teams finished with 90+ losses (2007 Pirates finished 6th). So it just goes to show, being a successful manager has alot to do with being in the right place at the right time, and having the horses.
Mike Scioscia won the AL Manager of the Year Award. It was the 2nd time he’s won the award, the first coming in 2002, when his Angels won the World Series. Scioscia has averaged 90 wins per season in his ten years as the Angels skipper, and has finished in 1st place five of the last six years. The Angels have built a winning baseball philosophy around their manager’s belief in fundamentals, speed, & defense.
Some teams gain a good rapport with their fans by doing all the right things and then sit back, enjoying (not to mention pointing to) their successes. Others look to fans to find more ways to improve their baseball experience even more.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Miller Park are good examples of the latter. The Brewers team has already gained acclaim by getting ranked 7th out of all 122 major league sports franchises for “Fan Satisfaction”. They’ve also were ranked #3 in “Affordability” and “Stadium Experience”.
Yeah, surveys whatever… what matters to me is that every friend of mine who’s been to Miller Park, (no matter what team they root for) tell me that ballpark is one of the best.
Well, they’re not stopping there, it seems. After soliciting feedback from the fans, the Brewers are making more improvements to Miller Park.
Work has already started on the Terrace Level where the team is renovating the existing merchandise store to create a new “Brewers Team Store on Terrace Level.” The store, which is modeled (on a smaller scale) after the award-winning Team Store by Majestic on the Field Level, will be upgraded to improve customer flow and overall visibility. The renovations will consist of an expansion of the current footprint as well as new lighting, signage, cash-wraps, store fixtures and floor design. The Brewers will also feature a variety of new merchandise in the store, which is scheduled to be accessible during home games when the Miller Park gates are open.
They are also making improvements to the clubhouse interior and parking lots will be renamed after “the city’s baseball legends” (I take that to mean they will include some of the Milwaukee Braves too).
Kudos to the Brewers for catering to the baseball fan. The rest of MLB can take a lesson from the Brewers and Miller Park here.
There will be plenty of prospects to satisfy anybody’s appetite in the 2009 AFL Championship game Saturday November 21st in Scottsdale, AZ. I’m really bummed that I’m not in the Arizona desert to see this showdown between the Phoenix Desert Dogs and the Peoria Javelinas.
Even without Stephen Strasburg, this game will feature alot of talented young baseball players. For example, Drew Storen was the 2nd first rounder drafted by the Washington Nationals. He threw up a 0.66 ERA, 2-0, 4 saves, 13 strikeouts in 13″ innings pitched this Fall for the Desert Dogs, and appears to be on the fast track to the Nation’s Capital. Storen starred at Stanford before turning pro.
A Javelinas star is the 2nd player taken in the 2009 draft out of the University of North Carolina by the Seattle Mariners, outfielder, Dustin Ackley. Ackley showed off his skills in the AFL, batting .315. Dustin put up fantastic numbers in college, batting .402, .417, & .417 in his three years in collegiate ball.
Another pitching prospect for the Nationals appearing for Phoenix was Baylor’s Jeff Mandel, 14′ innings, striking out 10, without issuing a base on balls, and a nifty 1.88 ERA. Mandel was 12-6 this past season, splitting time between A+ & AA Ball. Two Javelinas pitching prospects were Eric Krebs of the Pirates 19 strikeouts in 13″ innings and the Tigers Andrew Oliver who struckout 16 batters in 16 innings. One hurler I’m hoping to see pitch in the game is Robbie Weinhardt of the Javelinas and the Tigers, 29 strikeouts in 18′ innings in the AFL.
Some of the hitting prospects I’m looking forward to seeing are the White Sox thirdbaseman Brent Morel for the Javelinas, a couple of Desert Dogs firstbasemen Brandon Snyder of the Orioles & the Nats Christopher Marrero, another Nationals prospect out of Long Beach State SS Danny Espinosa, White Sox/Javelinas outfielder Jordan Danks (brother of John), and AFL home run champ with 11 Grant Desme of the A’s & the Desert Dogs. Interestingly Morel & Desme, who’ll square off in this contest, were teammates at Cal Poly.
While my heart might be in the desert, the rest of me will be in front of my TV watching some of the best young players, playing a little baseball, can’t wait!
I first saw Matt McBride when he clubbed an 8th inning two run home run in the Rising Stars AFL All Star Game, which proved to be the difference. The 24 year old catcher starred in the desert for the Peoria Saguaros, hitting .378, power numbers of 4, 2, 4, two stolen bases, 19 walks, and an out of this world OBP of .511.
You might think this 6’2″ 215 pound standout, drafted by the Indians in the 2nd round of the 2006 draft would have a clear path to the big leagues, especially after Cleveland traded their All Star catcher Victor Martinez to Boston, but the Tribe is loaded with young talent behind the plate. The former Lehigh University standout put up some mighty fine numbers in 2006, hitting .417, 19 doubles, 12 homers, 61 ribbies in 56 games, and even stole 22 bags. This past season in the minors Matt clouted 44 doubles & 18 long balls, splitting time between A+ Kinston & AA Akron.
Despite the trade of Martinez, the Indians still have Kelly Shoppach on their roster, along with standout minor leaguers Lou Marson (acquired from Philadelphia in the Cliff Lee deal) & Carlos Santana (acquired from Los Angeles in the Casey Blake trade). Both seem to be ahead of McBride on the depth chart. Marson was at AAA last season and even spent some time in the majors, while Santana made the Eastern League All Star team at AA Akron, batting .290, 30, 2, 23, while walking 90 times. The best path for McBride to make it to the big leagues might be the Rule V draft, the Indians have not rostered Matt, so he’ll be draft eligible. Hey, major league clubs, if your team is looking for a catcher, you might want to think about drafting Matt McBride.