DrungoHazewood

Eddie Rogers? He was one of many pre-2001 players with fake documentation, so when he reached the Baysox in 2000 everyone thought he was 18. If you can hit reasonably well in AA at 18 you're on the fast track to stardom. Unfortunately when 9/11 happened and they cracked down on that stuff it was revealed he was actually three years older, and his '01 season split between Frederick and Bowie wasn't so hot.

Pearce had a great season, but it was 102 games and the defensive metrics have him almost 15 runs better than any other season. I don't think he was a slightly below average defender for the rest of his career and a plus-plus defender that one year. So I'd discount any of his WAR estimates by about a win.

You'd have to infer quite a bit from what you're saying. GG and MVP could go to the guy who's unbelievable, or the guy with the best story. 30/30 is a good thing. Mullins is on pace for a nearly 8-win season. There have only been six of those in team history. But he's nowhere near Cal's best seasons. I'd guess there have been 20 or more where someone played at Mullins' rate for 81 games. Chris Davis had multiple 81-game spans in 2012-13 where he hit .330 or .340 with over 30 home runs. Jim Gentile did that in '61. Frank had runs in '66-67 where ht hit .340/.445/.700. First half of '05 Brian Roberts had a 1.000 OPS and 18 steals. First half of '71 Don Buford hit .314/.441/.525 with 12 steals. In '92 Brady had 15 homers and 28 steals at the break, then in '96 30 and 12. He had a good half a season. I would be cautious in projecting 16 homers the second half when his current 14 are 2/3rds of his career total.

Probably more than one cause, but '25 was the year Ruth had a "stomach ache" from "drinking too much soda and eating too many hot dogs". Probably all washed down with 22 beers and some VD. He only played 98 games and that was the only year between 1919 and 1932 he didn't have a 1.100+ OPS. Gehrig also had an off year, and their 2B/SS/3B were pretty awful.

It depends on the injury and his willingness to keep trying. Rudy Seanez debuted at 20 and over the next 14 years had just one season of 40 innings pitched. Then at 36 he struck out 84 in 60 innings and had a 2.69 ERA. Pitched until he was 39. I'm sure any number of people said exactly what you're saying about Harvey about Seanez 15 years before he was out of baseball.

Pick a reliever, any reliever, and it's very likely they'll have allowed a disproportionate share of their runs in a handful of outings. Random name... Donnie Hart... 2017. Take away his four worst outings and his ERA was under 2.00. Unscored on in 36 of 51 outings.

Basically. Which disappoints the group who needed this to be Exhibit #338 on See The Orioles Suck and They Just Needed To Do This One Weird Thing and Dylan Bundy Will Win the Cy Young.

His peripherals are pretty much the same as they've always been. Last year he had a 65-inning run where he barely allowed any homers. He'd had 14-game stretches as good or better three or four times with the Orioles, but it just so happened that last year 14 games was the whole season. He is going through some bad luck in that his FIP is a little over 5.00 and his ERA almost 7.00. Otherwise his 2021 is very similar to his 2018.

It was one of the last parks built pre-Camden Yards. As soon as OPACY opened almost every park built in the last half-century was dated, especially the weird artificial turf domes like Tampa's and the Metrodome and the Kingdome. Unfortunately for the Rays the park was built to attract a team, their franchise wasn't awarded until a decade later when the new park boom was well underway. It was like your family buying you a car when you were six and putting it in the garage until you could got your license in the year 2000. On your 16th birthday you wake up and mom and dad say "surprise, you get a brand new 1990 Chevy Cavalier!"

Yes. But when's the last time Crystal Palace told their fans to wait four years until they're going to try to win? And when they got promoted back to the Premier League they celebrated like they won the World Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFV7sWSdB7s

I like the idea of realigning into 2-3 leagues based on market size. Maybe a 10-team huge market league, a 10-team mid-market league, and a 10-team small market league. The top league gets four playoff spots, the middle three, and in the bottom league the top two teams play to get into the 2nd league playoffs. Maybe have yearly promotion/relegation or reassignment as markets and revenues change. Sure that's admitting that they couldn't solve revenue imbalances. But that's the truth. The big market teams will fight to the death to keep their inherent advantages, even if it means a third of the league has given up on competing in any given year.

I've watched a lot more 1860 Munich this year than the Orioles. Even though they're in the German third division. It's so much fun to watch a team with a small, dedicated fanbase competing with other teams roughly on the same financial footing. I also watch Tottenham Hotspur a lot, but they've been trending more in the dumpster fire direction over the last year or so. Main point is that with multiple competitive goals everyone stays engaged, there are always things to shoot for. Even if you're far out of the league title you might still be in the national cup, or the regional cup, or one of several European competitions. Or just trying desperately to not be relegated. The last game of the year between the 17th and 19th-best teams can have massive implications. That never happens in baseball.

Salary cap does nothing to level the revenue gap. Alabama and Clemson don't pay their players anything (at least legally) and they still win almost every game. Put a harsh salary cap in place without revenue sharing or revenue constraints and the Yanks/Dodgers/Sox would still win more because they'd have gold-plated locker rooms and personal Lear jets and each player gets a free $20M mansion.

Or institute a rule that if you are more than X games below .500 over a five year span your team is contracted and replaced by an expansion team. No, that's obviously never going to happen. Owners love the fact that no matter how badly they do there's essentially a 0% risk to their investment. In leagues with promotion/relegation nobody ever tears it down and rebuilds unless the team is just a total on-field and financial dumpster fire. Just the threat of losing most of your media revenue scares the ever living bejezzus out of an owner.

Baseball's biggest problem is teams like the Orioles cannot regularly compete with teams that have 3-4 times the revenues. Sure, the Rays are a thing. But they are ruthless and cutthroat and super-efficient. Everyone can't do that all the time. The reality is that there's one trophy that matters, 29 teams go home disappointed, and on June 25th there are 9 or 10 teams that have been essentially eliminated. They'll spend the next 90 games playing out the string. By the All Star break there will be several more. And there are 5-6 teams who were more-or-less eliminated on opening day. The challenge in baseball is how to keep a modern fan with 1000 entertainment options engaged through a six-month, 162 game schedule when there's one trophy and some teams have $650M in revenues, some $200M. The Yanks and Dodgers have player payrolls bigger than some teams total revenues, way bigger if you don't include revenue sharing. Other sports have secondary competitions. College sports have league titles and various tournaments and then the national championships. Soccer has cups and relegation battles and Champions Leagues and international competitions. Baseball has wait 'til 2024.

Baseball is in a tough spot. They have a fanbase (or at least a core of the fanbase) that wants baseball like it was when they were 12 in 1960 or 1980 or whatever. But those same people loathe the idea of proactive changes to move in that direction. Fans: Everything has gone south. We want more action, we want more contact, we want pitchers who throw more than a few innings. MLB: What if we move the mound back, check pitchers for illegal stuff they use to throw super pitches, that should result in more action. Fans: Stop messing with the game!!!

I'll see it through, but it doesn't mean I'm going to invest 3-4 hours a night to watching it. Yes, this time around there's a plan and there are players on the farm who are going in the right direction. Unlike 1998-2011 where they'd occasionally get a Markakis or a Bedard but there was no coherent plan, no end goal besides let's keep drafting guys and paying them slot and eventually we'll pass the Yanks!

Baseball cannot continue to tailor and market the game to people who want it to be exactly like it's 1930 or 1960 or whatever. Those people either aren't around anymore, or soon won't be. Also, standing pat on rules and changes for a century has resulted in a game that looks nothing like it did 50 or 100 years ago. You can drive the changes, or you can let them just kind of happen. And when you let things go you end up with 3-4 hour games of mostly strikeouts and home runs. Manfred's major flaw is that he changes things around the margins that have little effect. But he almost has to because every change is judged on how different it is from when Mickey and Willie were playing. Runner-on-second-in-extras and seven-inning doubleheaders are deeply loathed by the traditionalists, imagine if he tried some changes that would actually result in lower Ks and faster-paced games. Well... the sticky stuff ban should lead to fewer Ks, and the Twitterverse thinks checking pitchers for the banned substances is ridiculous and insane.

He has to know that most people, casual or die hard, aren't watching. But he also strongly suspects that they'll come back when they're winning. He also knows that signing some Kevin Millars to make things a little more respectable has a negative ROI. Because they're awful, an average game is over three hours, and they make it difficult to stream I've only watched a handful this year.

This was one of those story MVP awards, where Dawson signed some kind of blank check contract with the Cubs because of collusion. And he'd already had an excellent career with no awards. The writers decided that he was some kind of folk hero who led the league in homers and RBI in perhaps the best hitters' park in the National League in the best HR season of all time to that point. He was 42nd in the NL in on-base percentage, and 6th in slugging. Probably more ridiculous was that he got the GG as a 32-year-old RFer with bad knees. Remember this was the same year Tony Gwynn hit .370 with a .447 OBP and an OPS 70 points higher and stole 56 bases. Eric Davis had 37 homers and 50 steals and an OPS over 100 points higher. Darryl Strawberry had an OPS 100 points higher. Jack Clark had an OPS 150 points higher. Mike Schmidt had like his 14th-best season and his OPS was 40 points higher than Dawson. This is one of the more convoluted "valuable doesn't mean best player" arguments, especially since the Cubs went 76-85. If you're going to use that silly argument then why not Jack Clark or Will Clark whose teams won? Jack's by only three games over the Mets and four over the Expos.

The other other side of the story is that Manny passed Harold Baines and Bill Mazeroski in career value several years ago.

The other side of this story is that about half that list compiled a majority, sometimes a large majority, of their career value in their 20s. Cedeno fell off a cliff, McGraw went from a .500 OBP to out of the league in a few years, Banks turned into an okay first baseman, Jackson sold out, Baker semi-retired due to personal reasons twice and didn't really have the same impact when he returned, Dawson won an undeserved MVP but his knees really slowed him down. But they were good enough to get inducted.

19 non-active players with 40-45 rWAR through 28. Only Cesar Cedeno and Sherry McGee are not in the Hall, and McGee could be with better luck (he's ahead of 10 current LF HOFers on the JAWS list). Oh, also Joe Jackson who would be in Hall if not for throwing Series. And full disclosure, McGraw is mostly in the Hall for his managerial skills, his playing career ended by 30 at least in part due to the after-effects of 19th century communicable diseases. Rk Player WAR/pos From To Age 1 Duke Snider 44.9 1947 1955 20-28 2 Cesar Cedeno 44.2 1970 1979 19-28 3 John McGraw 44.0 1891 1901 18-28 4 Sherry Magee 43.4 1904 1913 19-28 5 George Davis 42.9 1890 1899 19-28 6 Ernie Banks 42.6 1953 1959 22-28 7 Ivan Rodriguez 42.4 1991 2000 19-28 8 Mike Schmidt 42.4 1972 1978 22-28 9 Joe Medwick 42.4 1932 1940 20-28 10 Shoeless Joe Jackson 42.2 1908 1916 20-28 11 Home Run Baker 42.2 1908 1914 22-28 12 Tim Raines 42.1 1979 1988 19-28 13 Reggie Jackson 41.7 1967 1974 21-28 14 Gary Carter 41.1 1974 1982 20-28 15 Richie Ashburn 41.0 1948 1955 21-28 16 Andre Dawson 40.9 1976 1983 21-28 17 Willie Wells 40.7 1924 1933 19-28 18 Lou Boudreau 40.5 1938 1946 20-28 19 Goose Goslin 40.2 1921 1929 20-28

He's 40th in all time rWAR through age 28, despite this year only being less than half over, and last year being just 60 games. Others who had 40-45 WAR through this age include Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, Pudge Rodriguez, Mike Schmidt, Joe Medwick, Joe Jackson, Home Run Baker, Tim Raines, Reggie Jackson, Gary Carter, Richie Ashburn, Andre Dawson, Lou Boudreau and Miguel Cabrera. Roughly 90% of players on this pace end up in Cooperstown. There are 125+ HOF position players who had less than 40 WAR through 28.

On pace for almost six wins per 150 games with a 127 OPS+ and good defense. Part of an exciting young team that's 10 games over .500 and a 95% chance at the playoffs. Yes, they're weeping and gnashing their teeth with regret.