Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
MLB and the MLBPA announced a few changes in how free agency will be handled. Here are the changes in a nutshell:
The changes will take effect beginning next offseason.
Talk about trying to rain on someoneās parade. The health inspector was called in on the matter of a few Cincinnati Reds smoking cigars in the locker room after clinching the Central Division championship.
Players could be seen on TV smoking their celebratory cigars in the locker room handed out by Reds owner Bob Castellini.
Five people called a statewide smoking ban complaint hotline, said Rocky Merz, health department spokesman.
Five people need to get a life. Letās face it, they were probably Cardinal fans.
Seventy-five years to one billion.
Twenty-one years to two billion.
Thirteen years to three billion.
What am I talking about? The amount of years it took MLB to reach these attendance milestones beginning in 1901.
The milestone was the result of the 10,843rd person who passed through the Coors Field gates on Tuesday afternoon for the Dodgers-Rockies game.
Give or take a gate crasher or two.
I was asked by a fellow Cub fan what I thought of interim manager Mike Quade. I honestly told him I didnāt know a whole lot about him but I sure was impressed by his performance so far. His 21-11 record is a long time coming.
Now I find out that at least a couple of the Cubs are coming to the plate for him too. Pitcher Ryan Dempster and outfielder Marlon Byrd both have expressed support for him.
"He’s been very upfront, very honest with all of us. He’s been tremendously supportive, he’s given us a lot of confidence to go out there. What he’s done for the bullpen- those guys have really stepped up and he’s believed in them.ā
Pretty strong words. As for Byrd:
"The record speaks for itself. The way we’re playing, the way we’re executing, just all-around."
I wonāt speculate if theyāre just simply backing up their manager or making a statement on who they want for their next permanent manager but those statements (especially Dempsterās) are pretty telling.
That said. the Cubs could have gone 32-0 under Mike Quade and that wonāt change the fact that a certain former Cub second baseman has more star power than a ex-Carolina League/current Coach with a funny name. Like it not, the Cubs organization knows that and theyāll have tough decision to make.
Or not.
Cito Gaston is gone as Toronto manager. On his leaving, he wrote a apparently heartfelt letter to the fans of the Blue Jay Nation published in the The Star.
A couple points on Gaston:
One, in this day and age of musical managers, itās hard to believe that heās been with Toronto for twelve years (albeit with an eleven year break in between). Not only that, his first six years were pretty phenomenal. Five first place finishes placing second in his sophomore year. It all resolved itself into two World Championships in 1992-1993. Some, like Dave Perkins of The Star, think this warrants a Hall nomination for Gaston.
Which brings me to my second point. Gaston managed to bring this success with little fanfare or controversy. We donāt hear much Cito here in the Midwest and I think I mean that as a compliment. The biggest controversy we heard about Gaston was that he didnāt get Mike Mussina into the 1993 All-Star Game in front of his home fans in Camden Yards. Big deal.
Finally, is it me or is this the Year of the Manager Goodbyes? Granted, Gaston hasnāt ruled out his options for the future but with Piniella and Cox saying sayonara to the game, it seems like there is some major transitions going on at the manager level.
My favorite Halos fan went on a rant today over email:
I don’t know whether you have noticed, but the Angels have given 224 at bats in 2010 to a player who has no positives. NONE.
He is batting .147, slugging .210 and has an on-base % of .176. He has walked 6 times and struck out 70 times. He also is no threat to EVER win a Gold Glove. He has ONE stolen base (you can’t steal first base, and he’s not a base stealer anyway).
Is this unprecedented in the history of baseball? Probably not, because baseball has a long history.
If you havenāt figured it out, heās talking about Brandon Wood. I checked his game log on B-R and wowā¦ Heās getting his playing time for sure. My buddy can rest assured that Wood is improving. Heās got three hits in September (he only got one in August). <—- Sarcasm
BaseballReference.comās Steve Lombardi has been posting a series of photo galleries of his recent trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.Ā Iāve been to the hallowed halls four times myself so I have a particular interest.
Hereās a link to his fourth installment.Ā From there, youāll find links to his previous posts.
Pirate fans, Yankee-haters and baseball history buffs rejoice! Game Seven of the 1960 World Series will be shown on television this off-season.
All thanks to Bing Crosby who reportedly had the last copy of the game:
The copy had been in a vault Crosby built in his home and was discovered last year by an executive of Bing Crosby Enterprises. No other copy is known to have existed for nearly 40 years.
The game will be broadcast on MLB Network sometime this off-season.
On the same day, Jose Bautista hit his 50th homer of the season and Ichiro Suzuki got his 200th hit of the season for the tenth consecutive season.
Iāll give you one guess which story got the most news coverage. Yeah, Bautista.
Ichiroās milestone is a significant one. No other player has accomplished such a feat. Not Cobb, not Hornsby nor Lajoie. Pete Rose is the only to have ten (non-consecutive) seasons with 200 hits.
Itās a shared opinion among many of my baseball friends that if he chose to, Ichiro could hit 30 homers a season. Maybe more. He just chooses to play his brand of baseball. The one that earns him a .331 career batting average, best among active players.
I listened the other day as the talking heads on ESPN discussed the idea of Troy Tulowitzki earning this yearās MVP based on his 14 homeruns in 15 game performance.
Sigh.
Ok, it makes for good TV and to their credit most of them came to the conclusion that if he did it again (assuming that were even possible this late in the season), he should get it. Otherwise, they wisely said no, probably not. Last year, Fangraphs had a good article on āWhen Samples Become Reliableā. I think itās relevant here.
But itās more than just sample size too. Itās choosing the range of data, too. Letās take a hypothetical exampleā¦
Say a player, call him Player X, goes hitless on Sunday and Monday. He then gets one hit on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Saturday he goes hitless again. We could say:
Those are all correct statements but convey very different things. Itās just human nature that most of us would like to probably choose to focus on the positive and most likely concentrate on the fact that Player X hit safely in three straight games.
So yeah, Tulo did hit 14 homeruns in 15 games and that is indeed a notable achievement. But letās look at the whole picture, guys. He has 26 homeruns up to this point. The fact that Tulowitzki did this at this moment in the season probably didnāt hurt. Had he done this in June, the boys on ESPN wouldnāt have been bringing up his name.
Thoughts?