Saturday, August 19, 2006 |
Pickoff Moves
Base-Ball Enjoys Wide Popularity Through-Out The Nation
... but you wouldn't know it from ESPN's coverage. They were all slobbering over the dirty uniforms left behind from the two Yankees/Red Sox matchups, the latter of which amounted to the longest nine-inning game in major league history, yet they apparently failed to mention Jered Weaver's date with 9-0 destiny on the national broadcasts. Eastern Sports Propaganda Network indeedy, but what did you want from a network that has four Yanksox games broadcast nationally?Give 'em hell, Jered. Next stop: Boston at home, Thursday.
Today's Birthdays
Tex Carleton BRO b. 1906, played 1940, d. 1977-01-11
Brian Cooper ANA b. 1974, played 1999-2001. One of my favorite pitchers, so long as he's working for the other guys, he was on the mound for one perfect day at the ballpark. The best part: the Angels ended up trading him to the Blue Jays for righty-masher Brad Fullmer. More of those, please, Mr. Stoneman.
In case you were wondering: he's still toiling with the Giants as an organizational soldier.
Gary Gaetti CAL b. 1958, played 1991-1993, All-Star: 1988-1989. This was his first year of eligibility, and he received four total votes from the BBWAA Hall of Fame balloters. It's fair to say that this might have something to do with an institutional bias against third basemen; a Hall of Fame without room for a Ron Santo is an empty place indeed.
Yet at the same time, Gaetti was never a great player. The charges so often leveled at Bert Blyleven, that his counting stats were inflated by his longevity, certainly apply to Gaetti, a shockingly durable man. Bill James wrote
There is no reason for a player like Gaetti to last until he is 40 years old, and not much precedent for it. Gaetti is the same type of player as Ken Boyer, Ron Santo, Tim Wallach, Sal Bando, Al Rosen, or Ron Cey, but whereas all of those men were better players than Gaetti at his best, they all aged at a normal rate of speed, losing value at a rate of about 12% per season after age 30, and thus were finished by their mid-thirties.Earlier this year, Marc Normandin nominated him for the Ray Lankford Wing at Cooperstown based on his JAWS score; Jay Jaffe, who came up with the ranking, commented that Gaetti was
a classic low-average, high-slugging third baseman who was excellent with the leather. Not only did he own the AL Gold Glove from 1986-1989, he's tied for fifth all-time in FRAA among third basemen (Brooks Robinson leads at 176, followed by Jimmy Collins at 172). He's done in by the fact that he didn't have much patience at the plate, leading to just a .308 OBP. The otherwise vaguely similar Ron Cey (who hit .261/.354/.445 with 316 homers over a career some 1500 plate appearances shorter) scores at a much more robust 74.9 JAWS thanks to better plate discipline if considerably worse defense. No to the Rat.
Fred Lasher CAL b. 1941, played 1971
Ron Roenicke LAN b. 1956, played 1981-1983. And hullo over there in the dugout, Ron!
Bad Penny: Giants 7, Dodgers 3
At some point there is no point in even watching the game in picture-in-picture, and that was how I felt about yesterday's Dodgers disaster. Let's see if the ol' perfesser can keep the Dodgers in it today. The good news is they've just seen Schmidt, but Brad Hennessey just isn't a 2.71 ERA pitcher, and Matt Morris has been ridiculously unstable this year. The Dodgers, at least, have a chance to win a couple.
AND AN ADDENDA: The fanfare that accompanied Gaetti's signing in Anaheim made the disappointed fans turn on him when he failed to produce. Man he was subpar.
: 8/19/2006 02:57:00 PM
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