MARCO'S BASEBALL
BLOG-O-ROONIE: 2016 GREAT HITTERS AND THE BIG TRADE
Great hitters can be
divided into several categories. Sometimes a hitter is a member of
more than one category. More on that later. Right now, let's talk
about the basic varieties:
1/SCIENTISTS:
Their bats are magic wands. They hardly ever strike out and they walk
a lot because of their great batting eyes. They go the opposite way a
lot for singles and they'd rather bat .330 than hit 30 homers.
EXAMPLES: Rod
Carew, Pete Rose, Wade Boggs, Ichiro Suzuki (yes
I know he doesn't walk as much but he fits this category
otherwise), Tony Gwynn.
Of course the
ultimate Scientist hitter is Ted Williams. But Ted and other
scientific hitters like Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, Stan
Musial and George Brett transcend the category because of
their power. (See below)
2/GODZILLAS:
These guys go for the long ball first and don't care if they hit .240
as long as they crush 40 balls a year over the fences. They strike
out a lot. Unlike the Scientists, they can be pitched to....very
carefully.
EXAMPLES: Harmon
Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Ralph Kiner, Frank Howard
and the modern versions like Chris Davis, Jose Bautista, Edwin
Encarnacion, Todd Frazier, Giancarlo Stanton and
Nelson Cruz. (no
bold highlighting for convicted PED users!)They make outs but
everybody watches when they come up to the plate because they just
might bust one and break up the old ballgame.
3/GODS: This
category is reserved for the true Alpha Superstars of baseball lore.
In addition to Ted Williams and his buddies mentioned above, they are
multi-dimensional players who beat you in many ways. These are the
guys who you absolutely don't want to face in a close game. Here are
a few more...
EXAMPLES:
Willie Mays:
he hit for a good average with lots of power and he could beat you on
the bases as well. Then he'd go out and his defense would beat you.
Hank Aaron:
Back in the sixties the Dodgers' great pitching staff would meet and
go over the opposing team's lineup of hitters before each series and
compare notes on how to pitch each hitter. When they'd play the
Braves and
get to Aaron
there would be silence...nobody had a way to consistently get him out
and nobody could ever get a
fastball by him. Ted
Williams said Aaron was the most impressive fastball hitter he ever
saw.
Mickey Mantle:
People forget. If this guy hadn't been injured so much...if he'd
taken a little bit better care of himself...if he hadn't had to play
in one of the worst hitter's eras of all time...if Casey Stengel
had let him steal bases...This guy might be considered the greatest
all-round ball player of all time.
He was one of the
fastest players in the history of baseball. He could have stolen
40-60 bases a year if they'd let him. He was also the most powerful
home run hitter of his era...he's still up there with Giancarlo,
McGwire and a very few others when it comes to tape measure shots.
And the Mick put up batting averages like .365 and .353. He slugged
over .600 six times, his on base percentage was
.421 lifetime and he
finished in the top five MVP voting 9(!) times.
Babe Ruth, Lou
Gehrig and Jimmy Foxx: the best of the old timers who established
home runs as the new offensive paradigm of baseball back in the
twenties and thirties. Not many hitters have ever been able to hit
35-50+ homers every year and maintain an average of .350 or above at
the same time. These guys did it year after year.
CURRENT PLAYERS
WHO MAY EVENTUALLY BE CONSIDERED IN THIS CATEGORY:
Joey Votto:
already a scientist, he batted well over .400 the second half last
year with power and lots of walks.
Paul Goldschmidt:
has power, good average most years, high on base percentage and base
stealing ability.
David Ortiz:
probably already has made it to God-ness. His average suffered when
they started using the shift on him so much. He could have hit .400
if he'd gone for singles to the left side and sacrificed his power.
The opposition would have probably taken that if they could have
avoided the thunder.
Albert Pujols:
his recent injuries have dimmed the glow of his spectacular years in
the National League when he hit.330/35+ homers/125 rbis every year.
Mike Trout:
looks like an all-timer if his average gets a little higher and he
strikes out a little less.
Barry
Bonds: Yes he was a God. But then, so was Shiva the destroyer.
I've got one more
category of great hitters for you and in a way it's the most
interesting of all...
4/SAVANTS:
There are a few players who are truly great hitters that just seem to
have been born that way. Oh sure, somewhere along the line a Dad or
an Uncle or a Coach probably gave them some hitting pointers, but
they had a basic ability to do the hardest thing in
sport...consistently hit the ball with power and maintain a high
average and on base percentage at the same time. They aren't really
scientists and they share some interesting qualities.
For instance, they
seem to be mostly affable, happy-go-lucky types who are sometimes
pretty flaky or even goofy. They are popular with their teammates and
the press. They can be surprisingly bad defensively and most of them
aren't particularly good at other aspects of the game, but Oh Lord
can they hit. And most of them could hit when they were very young.
EXAMPLES:
Miguel Cabrera:
I'm very glad he won that
triple crown so people will remember him. That is very, very hard to
do in this day and age. He's hit over 40 doubles 5 times (including a
year of 50 and a year of 52) and over 30 homers 10 times. He's batted
in over 100 runs 12 times...every year when he hasn't been injured.
His lifetime batting average/on base/slugging? .321/.399/.562 with
four titles in both average and on base and 2 in slugging (.606,.636)
He strikes out a hundred times a season so he's not a scientist. He's
just one of the most natural hitters ever.
Manny
Ramirez: He didn't track pitchers except with his baseball memory.
He'd just amble up to the plate and wait for a pitch in the zone and
then just launch it...right, center or left he didn't care. He'd just
uncoil with that beautiful swing that terrorized pitchers. It seemed
like you should have been able to fool him more but you really
couldn't. He had awesome offensive stats. Who knows how much the
drugs helped him? Can't forgive him or Bonds or the others, but Jeez
it was something to watch them swing the bat.
Pedro Guerrero:
Remember Pedro from the Dodgers of the '80s? Lifetime OPS .850. He
finished in the top 5 MVP voting 4 times. He was a disaster in the
field and a bozo on the bases (even though he could run fast enough
to steal 20 bases a couple of times). But when he'd come up to the
plate he was just one scary right handed Dominican power hitter, even
playing in a lousy hitter's park like Chavez Ravine. Injuries cut his
career short. He should have done some Dh-ing in the American League.
He was very popular in the press because he would say what he felt
and never shirk a question. Most of the other Dodgers of that era
were very reluctant to open up so the reporters always wound up
around Pedro's locker because they knew they'd get some good quotes
from him. Kind of like a baseball Charles Barkley.
Vlad Guerrero:
Another Dominican Guerrero right-handed power hitter. Lifetime OPS
.931! Batted over .300 in 13
out of 15 full seasons and hit over 30 homers 8 times. 4 years with
more than 200 hits. 10 years of more than 100 ribbies.
Unlike
some of these other Savants, he wasn't one-dimensional. He had years
of 37 and 40 steals and had one of the two or three most powerful
right field arms in baseball in his day. Vlad (they called him “The
Impaler”) learned to hit by swatting bottle caps with a broomstick
growing up poor in a family of nine kids in Dominica. He was famous
for swinging at balls out of the strike zone but still being able to
hit them with authority. He once got a hit off a pitch that bounced
in front of the plate. Always well-liked as a player, he had 8 kids
by 5 different women.
OLD
TIMER SAVANTS:
Yogi
Berra: He wasn't a league
leader in average or homers but he got a lot of rbis hitting behind
guys like DiMaggio, Mantle and Maris. He didn't walk a lot but almost
never struck out. (Only 3 seasons out of 19 with more than 30!)One of
the most famous bad-ball hitters of all time.
He
would swing at anything. One time Casey Stengel dressed him down for
it and told him to “Think when you're up at the plate!” So Yogi
went up to bat and took three straight strikes and came back to the
dugout and told Casey “I can't think and hit at the same time!”
Babe
Herman: You've
probably read about this Brooklyn Dodger from the '30s getting hit on
the head by a fly ball and once tripling into a triple play. (Base
runners were staying put but Babe kept running until three guys were
on the same base.) He
was considered one of the biggest clowns in the game and was laughed
at during his career, but he was a 6'4” leftie hitter who had
seasons with batting averages of .381 and .393 to his credit.
(Admittedly in the ridiculous seasons of 1930 and 1931 when the
National League was playing with the ultimate rabbit ball and the
League as a whole batted over .300)
Joe
Jackson: One of the Black
Sox of 1919 but also one of the best hitters ever. Lifetime average
.356. Consecutive years of these averages....387/.408/.395/.373. A
leftie, Babe Ruth said he copied Jackson's swing and that's how he
was able to hit so many homers. Jackson was kicked out of the game
just when the lively ball came into vogue in 1920 or he would have
hit lots more homers. As it was he hit over 20 triples 3 times.
Jackson
was a simple country boy who was probably illiterate. Ty Cobb, who
had befriended his fellow Southerner when Jackson first came up, did
a head trip on Joe one year when they were neck and neck for the
batting title. Cobb pretended to be mad at Joe for some reason and
stopped talking to him. It bothered Joe so much that he slumped and
lost the title. (Sounds about right for Cobb.)
More
Mickey Mantle: Mick was a
Baseball God who was also a Savant. He was a real country bumpkin
when he came up and even though being a switch hitter implied some
kind of sophisticated approach to hitting, Mantle admitted that he
went up to the plate trying to hit a homer every time. (He
exaggerated because I watched him lay down a perfect drag bunt once.
He'd use bunts to break himself out of slumps.)
One
year at the All Star Game, Ted Williams praised him for the great
season Mantle was having and went into a long technical discussion of
how Mantle was hitting so well. “Are you keeping your hands back
longer? Are your hips coming through just before the swing? Are you
seeing that breaking pitch and adjusting?”...stuff like that
fascinated Scientist Ted.
Well
Mantle says “Gee, I don't know Ted.” Mick starts thinking about
it and winds up going into a huge slump for the rest of the season
trying to figure out what technique he was using.
I
could go on and on about Mickey Mantle but I won't.
Instead,
I'll talk about the Big Trade at the winter meetings.
The
Big Trade: Of course it's the Red Sox/White Sox
trade...The White Hose send leftie Ace Chris Sale to Fenway
for the top prospect in baseball (according to popular opinion) Cuban
Yoan Moncada and pitching prospect Michael Kopech. (He
of the 102 mph fastball) The Scarlet Stockings threw in two more
prospects just to sweeten the pot.
So
what about this trade? Yes the Red Sox needed another pitcher and I
guess they got the best one available. They have a surfeit of lefties
in their rotation with Price, Pomeranz, Rodriguez and
now Sale. Somebody has to go. Still, the Red Sox want to win now and
getting an Ace like Sale can only help that for the next two years or
so. But what about the future? Just how good are Moncada and Kopech?
Well
Kopech can bring it, no doubt. But he's been in A ball
and
his control is not top notch and the Red Sox have been disappointed
in their other great pitching prospects (like leftie Henry Owens
who just hasn't been able to develop the control that a major league
starter needs. I'm sure they would have rather traded Owens to the
White Sox but no dice.)
On
the whole, the Red Sox have drafted well when it comes to position
players and have screwed the pooch with their young pitchers (since
Lester and Buchholz in 2007). I don't think they wanted
to wait around for another three years while Kopech learned control.
Remember Daniel Bard? He threw fast too....he's now
struggling in the St. Louis Cardinals' system.
Moncada
is another story. The guy just looks like a future superstar.
However, he's Cuban and hasn't played enough what with all the
defecting and all. The Red Sox just blew $70 million to get the
rights to Rusney Castillo...another Cuban who everybody said
couldn't miss. Speed, power, defense blah blah blah. Turns out the
guy has no bat speed and is average in minor league ball at best.
Well
they spent $60 mil on Moncada and he's supposed to be better but how
can you be sure? It's hard for these Cubans to adjust to the USA. In
19 major league at bats Moncada has struck out 12 times. He probably
needs a couple more years in the high minors to figure it out. He has
terrific speed and could be a great stolen base threat right now...if
he could get on base. Also, the Red Sox ...if they could play him at
all...were going to have to play him out of position at third
instead of his natural second base. (Pedroia is too good and too
important for their infield chemistry to move him.)
The
question becomes...try to win with Sale right now? Or wait for the
youngsters a little longer and give yourself a chance to win big two
or three years from now? (When vets like Hanley Ramirez,
Pedroia, Price and Pablo Sandoval will probably be on
the downside of their careers)
Here's
how I evaluate Moncada (who I love, really.)
WHO
WILL YOAN MONCADA BE IN 3 YEARS?
1/
5% chance he's a combo of Robbie Cano and
Tim Raines (power, defense, speed and moxie...hopefully with a
better hustle ethic than Cano)
2/10%
chance he's Robbie Cano with more speed (who'd complain?)
3/15%
chance he's Tim Raines (stolen base leader but without the great
power of Cano...but still a HOF candidate)
4/40%
chance he's Carl Crawford (.290/.330 on base/ .430 slug...
less than twenty homers a year, less than 100 ribbies a year but a
stolen base league leader...but will only be at this peak until his
speed goes after about 6 years.)
5/30%
chance he's Rusney Castillo (White Sox win the ultimate Xmas
present...a box of dirt!)
So
you've got a 30% chance Moncada is some kind of Hall of Famer and 30%
he's a bust...and a 40% chance he's a much better than average player
for a few years. Meanwhile Chris Sale is one of the top 10 pitchers
in baseball for sure. I say the Red Sox made the right choice...but
so did the White Sox. The White Sox had to break up that team and
start over.
The
fly in the ointment for the Red Sox is that you can't trust pitchers
and their delicate arms. Sale has been pretty injury free except for
a small problem early last season. But he throws funky across his
body and he's skinny and he's a leftie and a hot-head. Those kinds of
pitchers rarely last that long. His fastball has lost 2 or 3 mph in
the last couple of years. Most Aces only have a window of 5-8 years
where they truly dominate. Sale has had 5 top years. Price is
already over that hump and so is Verlander...but they're still
great, valuable pitchers. So is Sale. Even if he's not as dominant as
he has been for the last few years, he's better than anybody else the
Red Sox could have added to their starting staff short of Bumgarner
or Kershaw or
maybe Scherzer. And I think he's got two truly dominant
years in that arm...and the Red Sox have a better chance of winning a
World Series or two with him than with Moncada and Kopech.
Sale
still has 3 years on a very affordable contract but you have to add
in the $60 million investment in Moncada which it turns out they
spent for trade bait.
If
the Red Sox want to really up their chances of winning another
Championship they'd grab Edwin Encarnacion for 3 years. The loss of
Ortiz is huge. The middle of their lineup is just not the same and
Encarnacion is the only other player out there with that knack of
hitting the prime time dramatic homer. Plus, Edwin always kills the
Red Sox and what if the Yankees get him?
I
understand that a 5 year deal would be too much risk with a player in
his mid-thirties and Boston still has to rebuild the bullpen after
losing Uehara, Tazawa and
Zeigler. But how much money
will another title be worth to marketing in New England?
Go for the jugular, Dombrowski. And Merry Xmas Baseball Fans
Everywhere!
