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| ____Texas A&M & Baseball _______________In No Particular Order |
Saturday February 7th, 2004
1:15am2005 World Cup
This won't be featuring David Beckham, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, or Romairo. It will, however, be featuring Ichiro, Nomo, Soriano and Roberto (Alomar).
That is correct my friends, MLB is trying to set up a World Cup amongst nations as part of their quest for international market share and ratings (ala the NBA).
I think that this idea is terrific. It would be something that would hopefully catch the interest of not only the nations that would be participating, but I think something of this magnitude, with this star power would be a positive step in rejuvenating America's interest in the game.
Sure, it's essentially a glorified All-Star game, but when you start factoring national pride into the equation it becomes personal. As an American, I don't want Japan to have the ability to say that their baseball leagues are on par with the leagues over here. It's not about trying to downgrade Japan, but more keeping the perception in our minds that we have the best baseball played in the entire world right here in our backyard. It would sure be embarrassing to lose, but wouldn't that make you hungrier to win next year and prove your worth internationally?
The potential for this is phenomenal but there are obviously some major problems or flaws with the idea.
Drug testing, which countries to invite, qualifications for which country players can represent, what to do about Cuba and Cuban defectors, MLB teams will be worried about their player's health, time of year, etc. All of those things are very legitimate problems that will have to be hammered out by the higher-ups.
Let's just think about the actual games themselves. I think the U.S.A. would be the frontrunner, but we may be an aging team. Here are my starting lineup options for the U.S.A.:
USA-All Players USA-Under 30 y.o. C Piazza C Pierzynski 1B Helton/Thome 1B D.Lee/A.Dunn 2B Boone/Kent 2B M.Giles SS A-Rod/Nomar SS A-Rod 3B Chavez/Rolen 3B Chavez LF Bonds/Giles LF Berkman CF Hunter/Cameron CF Hunter RF Sheffield/G.Anderson RF V.Wells SP Prior SP Prior SP Hudson SP Hudson SP Randy SP Mulder SP Schilling SP Oswalt SP J.Schmidt SP Beckett SP Oswalt SP Zito SP Mulder SP Wood CP Smoltz CP R.WagnerOk, so the <30 y.o. team isn't quite as intimidating, and yes Wagner is quite a stretch, but with that pitching staff I think they'd still be lights out.I think that the only team that would be able to hang with us would be the Dominican Republic....
Dominican Republic C D.Ortiz? 1B Pujols 2B Soriano SS Tejada 3B A.Ramirez LF Manny CF Vlad RF Sosa SP Pedro SP Colon SP R.Ortiz SP P.Astacio SP J.Jimenez SP R.Soriano SP J.Cruz CP O.DotelObviously their offense would just be insane, but Ortiz at catcher is a stretch defensively but offensively I couldn't think of any catcher that was any good. As for their pitching, you can tell it gets pretty slim after Bartolo Colon but who needs 7 starters? I just used that number because it showed USA's depth on the hill.
I'm looking forward to major league pursuing this idea and seeing if they can work out all the kinks to give the entire country something to get pumped up about.
Friday February 6th, 2004
12:05am1 WEEK UNTIL AGGIE BASEBALL
As you can tell, I'm a bit excited. I'm working on a 2004 Aggie Baseball Preview that should hit the web sometime in the middle of next week.
Until then, I'll give you a little tease by reprinting Baseball America's preview of their #21 ranked team:
21. TEXAS A&M
2003 Record (Ranking): 45-19 (14th). RPI: 15th.
Coach (Record, Years): Mark Johnson (804-384, 19 years).
'04 Lineup
C Justin Pouk
1B Coby Mavroulis
2B Erik Schindewolf
3B Matt Alexander
SS Cliff Pennington
LF Andrew Baldwin
CF Justin Ruggiano
RF Cory Patton
DH Eric Scheidt
Rotation/Closer
SP Zach Jackson
SP Justin Moore
SP Robert Ray
RP Jason Meyer
Offense: Five seniors in the starting lineup give the Aggies a veteran look. Patton, an unsigned sixth-round pick of the Padres, and Ruggiano formed the heart of the lineup in 2003. They will have to make up for the loss of two-way terror Scott Beerer (.335-11-57; 6-1, 1.82, 13 SV), a second-round pick as a pitcher who was also the team's top clutch hitter. Schindewolf and Pennington shape up as effective table-setters. They are efficient basestealers who aren't afraid to work counts.
Pitching/Defense: The Aggies had eight pitchers drafted in 2003, yet should still have a solid though not necessarily deep staff. Jackson (from Louisville) may be the biggest impact transfer in the country as he steps in as the No. 1 starter. He's a physical lefthander coming off a strong summer in the Cape Cod League. Ray has a power arm, an approach Moore should complement as he brings his finesse repertoire back from a 2003 season lost to various arm troubles. Pennington, who moves from third base to his natural position of shortstop, and Schindewolf should form a top-notch double play combination.
X-Factor: The Aggies will break in a new pitching staff, but just as important to their success will be bigger offensive seasons from Mavroulis and Alexander on the infield corners. Mavroulis showed promise as an outfielder before back woes forced him to first base.While we sit around on our hands waiting for that first pitch, there are other teams who have started their glorious seasons, including some Big XII rivals.
#6 Stanford swept #4 Cal State Fullerton in a three game set at home from Friday thru Sunday. I'm really big on Stanford to get back to the CWS this season because I've enjoyed watching their feisty CFer, Sam Fuld during the last two CWSs. He's a Pre-Season All-American and I'm going to be keeping an eye on him for the most part of the season. This past weekend his individual lines looked like this:
Date Vs G AB R H RBI SO/BB PO A LOB BA Other notes: 1/30 CSF 1 4 2 2 1 0/2 2 0 0 .500 1/31 CSF 1 4 1 2 3 1/1 4 0 0 .500 2B (1) 2/01 CSF 1 4 0 1 0 1/0 3 0 1 .417In news that is a bit more relevant to A&M, #8 texas (3-0)swept Hawaii last weekend. Freshman stud, Drew Stubbs was 6-for-13 with 4 R, 4 RBI and a HR. Their three starters from the games looked like this:
Player G GS IP H R ER SO/BB HR ERA K.MuCulloch 1 1 7.0 3 0 0 4/2 0 0.00 J.Simmons 1 1 4.0 3 2 2 2/3 2 4.50 S.LeCure 1 1 4.0 6 5 2 6/2 0 0.00 ----------------------------------------- H.Street 2 0 5.0 3 3 1 7/4 0 1.80I threw Street's numbers up there because I was interested in how he did and I figured that some of you were too. Note: MuCulloch is a freshman
The only other Big XII school that played was Kansas (7-2) as they took on Texas Southern and left with a two game sweep. KU also threw a no-hitter that included 5 pitchers and 11 Ks.
Kansas played the previous weekend up down in Hawaii and went 5-2 in 7 games down there. [a note about KU's program....their website boasts that they had a record crowd of 2,106 last season in a game against texas. A&M AVERAGED more than double that last year (4878/game)]
For my little brother's sake (a future Bobcat), I'll let you all know that Texas State swept Texas-Pan American in a two game set.
Pirates Sign Mark Guthrie
This isn't a headline story or anything, but it is interesting to me. Guthrie pitched in 2003 for the Cubs with a 2-3 record in 65 appearances while maintaining a 2.74 ERA.
He's definitely not someone that I'd call my friends to brag about if my team picked him up (which was last year with the Cubs), but I'm surprised that as a left-handed setup man he didn't have any better offers than the Pirates. I say that before I look at his lefty/righty splits.....and here those are:
AB H HR RBI SO/BB BA OBP SLG L 75 21 3 15 14/12 .280 .393 .480 R 79 19 3 9 10/10 .241 .326 .405I believe that we've found the faultiness of Mr. Guthrie....
As a left-handed relief pitcher it is reasonable to think that he is considered somewhat of a commodity because of the lefty/lefty match up he can provide. This means that it is his job to come into the game in tough situations against left-handed hitters and get the previous pitcher out of a jam (statistically, the lefty pitcher v. the lefty batter is to the pitcher's advantage).
The splits above show that Mark was pretty much completely ineffective doing his main job. Seeing that he gave up 15 RBIs to LHBs compared to 9 RBIs to RHB, you can see that when he faced the lefties he allowed more base runners to score than the other way around. A batting average of 39-points higher against lefties doesn't help him out any either.
His 2.74 ERA masks the fact that he was ineffective against LHBs because the runs that scored under his "watch" were not runners that were his, they were runners that belonged to the pitcher before him thus they were tacked on to their ERAs.
That said, I'm still a bit surprised that Mark has to settle with the Pirates with a non-guaranteed contract that is 1/2 of his 2003 salary.
Thursday February 5th, 2004
12:54amNational Signing Day
As many of you know, yesterday was the national signing day for college football and a big day for the Aggies. Here in Texas, this event is almost as celebrated as Memorial Day.
Our recruiting class was ranked #8 by ESPN.com and #12 by Rivals.com, which was a pleasant suprise for me.
I was planning on doing a recap of the Aggie's recruits, but instead I'm just going to link you to the school's website....they've got enough info there to cover it quite well....
MVP/All-Star Connection
Two Saturdays ago when I wrote about Barry Bonds I started wondering how many MVP winners were not selected as All-Stars during the same season they were the MVP? Then I started wondering how many were not selected in they were considered the "reigning MVP".
Today I'm going to let you know my findings.... (the first All-Star game was played in 1931)
National League: Year Player MVP Year Next Year 1999 Chipper Jones No Yes 1994 Jeff Bagwell Yes No ba-78, hr-18, rbi-29 1991 Terry Pendleton No Yes 1990 Barry Bonds Yes No hr-8, sb-9, ba-9 1988 Kirk Gibson No No injury 1985 Willie McGee Yes No ba-97, sb-37, 3b-11 1979 Willie Stargell (tie) No No injury 1978 Dave Parker No Yes 1967 Orlando Cepeda Yes No ba-77, hr-9, rbi-38 1964 Ken Boyer Yes No ba-35, hr-11, rbi-44 1960 Dick Groat Yes No ba-50 1956 Don Newcombe No No injury 1950 Jim Konstanty Yes No w-11, l+4, era+1.39 1941 Dolph Camilli Yes No ba-33, hr-8, rbi-11 1932 Chuck Klein No Yes 1931 Frankie Frisch No No ba-41, sb-10 American League: Year Player MVP Year Next Year 2002 Miguel Tejada Yes No ba-30 1998 Juan Gonzalez Yes No ? 1996 Juan Gonzalez No No ? 1992 Dennis Eckersley Yes No sv-15, era*2 1989 Robin Yount No No ba-71 1987 George Bell Yes No hr/2, ba-39 1986 Roger Clemens Yes No ?still a 20 g winner 1979 Don Baylor Yes No ba-46, rbi/2.5, hr/7 1974 Jeff Burroughs Yes No ba-75 1971 Vida Blue Yes No injury 1965 Zolio Versalles Yes No rbi/2, hr/2 1958 Jackie Jensen Yes No slight drop 1951 Bobby Shantz No Yes 1948 Lou Boudreau Yes No ba-76, hr/4.5 1943 Spud Chandler Yes No war 1940 Hank Greenberg Yes No war 1935 Hank Greenberg No No war 1932 Jimmie Fox No Yes 1931 Lefty Grove No No era+.8, W-6, L+4I'm shocked by the number of players that made these lists! I'm especially shocked by the 8 guys who didn't make the All-Star team in either their MVP season or the following season. That is just staggering to me.
There are 35 entries on that list (19 AL and 16 NL), 2 players are listed twice, 8 times the player was a pitcher, 14 times the MVP was not an All-Star the year he won the MVP and 29 times he was not an All-Star the season following his MVP campaign.
I would imagine that of the pitchers there would be the highest percentage chance that they not make the All-Star team the following season. I just think that it is more likely for a pitcher to be seen as having a bad season than a position player, especially since there are only so many spots on the roster for pitchers and so many more pitchers than any other position. Of the 8 players on the list, 7 of them fell into this position (Bobby Shantz was the only one not to).
I wanted to know why so many players weren't named to the A.S. game the year following their MVP, so I looked at the stats. Those are the numbers to the far right of the chart. If a player's BA was down 30 points it is marked ba-30....if his HRs were down by 1/2 it is HR/2....if his RBI were down by 40 it is rbi-40.....etc. The two players that I am most baffled with are Bonds in 90-91 and Clemens in 86-87. I don't think that their drop off was significant enough to not be an All-Star, but because I can't find their season splits I don't know if they did decent in the first half and insane in the second half of the year.
As for the guys who weren't All-Stars in either category, 5 of them didn't play enough games so I'm assuming they were either injured or went to fight in WW-II (they're marked above by an educated guess).
Wednesday February 4th, 2004
12:00amAdrian Beltre Revisited
After writing about Adrian Beltre yesterday, I sat in class all day thinking about whether or not some of his lack of continued success was due to injury. I vaguely remember hearing about him having something wrong with him, so I decided to do a bit of research to find out if there were any injuries that could have contributed to some lack of success.
The only two injuries I could find occurred in 2000 and in 2001. In 2000, from May 28 to June 16th, Adrian was on the DL with a strained right hamstring. I'm not an expert on injuries, but this seems to be fairly common so I wouldn't say that it affected his season. In 2001, however, Adrian had to undergo surgery to repair his appendix (on March 12th) from a previous surgery he had on it back in January. He was reactivated from the DL on March 12th (exactly 2 months later).
I feel that this injury may have hurt Adrian's season stats. He is getting to be known a bit more traditionally as a second half hitter (does better after the A.S. break), so it set him back 2 months (basically from getting hot in July to getting hot in September). Here is a little flash of his career Pre- & Post-All-Star game stats:
G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS GPA Pre 383 1388 147 345 164 38 121 241/116 .249 .705 .238 Post 427 1476 205 404 225 61 140 260/117 .274 .788 .263Those are some pretty significant increases. 2 months is approximately 1/4 of the major league season, so try to imagine his 2001 stats if he had been able to hit that much better for a 1/4 of the season. They would have been much higher than they were.Yesterday I also mentioned how hitting in Dodger Stadium for every home game in his career has probably hurt his overall numbers.
Here are his career Home/Away Splits:
G AB R H RBI HR XBH SO/BB BA OPS GPA Home 406 1358 169 320 154 42 110 241/117 .236 .683 .232 Away 404 1506 183 429 235 57 151 262/116 .285 .807 .269Those differences are incredible! I feel strongly that it is fair to say that Adrian would explode if he were able to play elsewhere. People criticize Colorado players' statistics because of their environment in Denver, so the exact opposite should be done in Adrian's situation.If we were to project his career away from Dodger Stadium, then his stats would compare like this (for simplicity's sake, I just doubled his career away numbers because the # of games was so close):
G AB R H HR RBI XBH SO/BB BA OPS GPA W/ D.S. 810 2864 352 749 99 389 261 503/233 .262 .748 .251 W/O D.S. 808 3012 366 858 114 470 302 524/232 .285 .807 .269Factor in that Adrian Beltre will only be turning 25 years old in 2 months and you have one heckuva ballplayer!
Tuesday February 3rd, 2004
1:57amTexas A&M 59 v. texas 69
It has taken a couple of days to recover from this one. Not really, I've just been really busy.
This was a pretty good game, but once again we fell apart in the second half, shooting 29.2% from the field.
Nick Anderson led all scorers with 14 points while Andy Slocum was a beast on the boards with 18 total rebounds.
We were able to hold t.u.'s Top 3 leading scorers (Tucker, Mouton, & Ivey) all below their season averages but we got hurt by their big men, Klotz and Boddicker.
The game was the most physical game I think I've ever seen, but I will say that I have absolutely zero respect for Brain Boddicker.
He was relentless in his physical attacks on our players behind the backs of the officials (who didn't seem to care even when they saw him). There was one play where Leandro Garcia-Morales was taking a 3-pter from the corner and Boddicker just ran right into dropping his shoulder into Garcia-Morales' jaw. The game was already well out of hand and this was just a vicious cheap shot at a defenseless shooter. What made me more upset was the grin he flashed to the A&M student section, which was about 6 feet away from the play.
The highlight of the game was the fact that Iron Spikes showed up in full force and was awarded the $100 prize that goes along with being named the most spirited organization at the game. I will take credit for part of this because I believe that I was the only member to actually stand on my chair to project my yelling louder at the opponents.
We take on #13 Oklahoma State tonight at Reed Arena. Tip-off is at 7pm CST.
ps. I have now reached 11 stamps on my quest....25 more to go and it's all mine....
Don't Give Up Too Soon
One of my pet peeves with baseball is when a very young player "flops" and the media (or maybe even baseball as a whole) writes a kid off as such.
A good example would be Andruw Jones. He had a tremendous minor league career, and broke through in the biggest spotlight of all...the World Series (he hit two HRs in one game...at age 19)...after a relatively poor regular season showing in his 31 games (.217 BA in 106 ABs). He was a marked man after that.
The media had people believing that Andruw Jones was going to be the next Ken Griffey Junior (which was a good thing at the time). What they forgot was that he was only 20 going into his first full major league season and he had not played against a competition level so high for such a long time. Obviously it would be a matter of time before opposing pitchers could figure out his weaknesses and exploit them.
They did, and he hit .231 in his first big league season and the media decided that he was a flop....at 20 years old. Ok, maybe not a flop, but they were down on him A LOT!
A similar example is Adam Dunn, who lit up the world in a short 1999 season and has struggled to produce at the pace he did as a rookie....Kevin Maas is another example....so is Shane Spencer. Poor Miguel Cabrera better watch out because he is set up for the exact same thing Jones faced after a torrid playoff run.
Those are all good examples, but the one player that even I had written off is Adrian Beltre of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was a big name prospect coming up and even produced very well in his second full season (2000), hitting 20 HRs while batting .290. Not too bad for a 21 year old.
In 2001, Adrian's BA dropped 25 points to .265 while his HRs dropped to 13. Time for the questions to start coming.
In 2002, Adrian hit .257 while his power started to creep back up to 21 HRs.
I honestly thought that he was a flash in the pan....BUT to my defense, I thought he had broken into the league in his mid-20s, whereas he was only 22 in 2001.
In fact, I didn't realize how young Beltre was when he broke into the league (19 y.o. in 1998) until last week when Rob Neyer mentioned him in his article about possible replacements for Aaron Boone. In 1998, I was a sophomore in high school (which now seems like ages ago) and since I assumed that Beltre was in his early/mid-20s when he broke into the league, I assumed he was 28 or 29 now.
I want to extend an apology out to Mr. Beltre, because I had made an uneducated decision in judging him and his potential. The man will be turning 25 this April, which according to my "Prime Chart" is still a couple of years away from hitting the pinnacle of his career (ages 28-31).
Year Age Team G AB R H HR RBI XBH SO/BB BA OPS GPA 1998 19 LA 77 195 18 42 7 22 16 37/14 .215 .648 .217 1999 20 LA 152 538 84 148 15 67 47 105/61 .275 .780 .265 2000 21 LA 138 510 71 148 20 85 52 80/56 .290 .835 .281 2001 22 LA 126 475 59 126 13 60 39 82/28 .265 .720 .242 2002 23 LA 159 587 70 151 21 75 52 96/37 .257 .729 .243 2003 24 LA 158 559 50 134 23 80 55 103/37 .240 .714 .237 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Career 6-yrs. 810 2864 352 749 99 389 261 503/233 .262 .748 .251What scares me about those numbers are the increased amount of strike outs and the terribly low number of walks (which had something to do with the poor OPS).
What I like about the situation is the fact that he has played his entire career at one of the most extreme pitcher's parks in the ML (Dodger Stadium) which is bound to hurt his numbers quite a bit. I also like the fact that according to Baseball-Reference.com some of the players that he is most similar to through his age of 24 are Ron Santo (#1), Ruben Sierra (#3), Eric Chavez (#5) and Gary Sheffield (#9). Not too bad of company if you ask me. I'd take any one of those players on my team any day (well, only Sierra in his prime).
Beltre is only under contract with the Dodgers through the 2004 season, which makes this year his contract year. If I was a ML team with a weak link at third base, I would take a long hard look at Adrian Beltre and sign him to a 3 or 4-year deal that would take you into the peak of his prime. Even better, I'd allow another team to pick him up and then I'd make a trade for him right before the 2007 season. Then you turn around and trade him after a year or two. You'll be getting a pretty solid player for two of his peak seasons at an overall weak position throughout the league. It's all about buying low and selling high.
Sometime soon I'm going to do a post that helps prove my theory about the player's prime....