Friday Follies

Johnny Cueto was given a seven game suspension for his Bruce Lee like efforts to impale the Cardinals with his Feet of Fury (Bruce Lee was in a movie entitled Fist of Fury). Oh, and in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, Cueto tried to kick about half of the Cardinals team when the Cards and Reds fought recently. Cueto took his suspension like a man, after acting like a child, and he’ll serve the suspension without an appeal.

Chipper Jones will have knee surgery and if his rehab goes well he plans on trying to play next year. I’ll try to rehab this weekend with copious amounts of alcohol so that I can return to work on Sunday night for the radio show I co-host with Kyle Elfrink from 8-12 PM EST called the Fanball Fantasy Recap. By the way, the show is on XM 147 and Sirius 211, and you can read all about it in I’m a Star.

Joe Mauer leads baseball with a .435 batting average the past 30 days (Chris Johnson leads the NL at .432). As pointed out to me today by Kyle Elfrink, Mauer hasn’t a single homer this season at home in 162 at-bats. Mauer’s also gone deep just seven times on the year. Where are those people that called me an utter buffoon when I said before the season started that there was not a scintilla of a chance that Mauer would go deep 30 times this season after hitting 28 big flies last year? Crickets? If we remove those 28 bombs, here is what his homer totals look like since his rookie season: 9, 13, 7, 9 and 7 this year.

Felix Pie is hitting .340 the past two weeks. At the same time he has a .333 OBP as he hasn’t walked a single time in that time. I don’t know if that’s real progress or not (things like sacrifice bunts and sac hits count as plate appearances and will therefore lower a players OBP even if the players batting average is not moved by the outs generated).

Dan Uggla may have “only” 26 hits in his last 25 games (he’s hitting .283 in that time), but he has made those hits count as he has gone deep 10 times, has knocked in 20 runs and has scored 24 times. It’s been said before but it bears repeating: Uggla is the only second baseman in the history of baseball with 4-straight years of at least 27 homers, 88 RBI and 84 runs scored. All he need is one more homer, 16 more RBI and four more runs scored to run that streak to 5-straight seasons.

Are you following me on Twitter yet at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter Account? If your not, and yes I’m biased, your missing out on some of the best baseball knowledge you could ever hope to find. Here are some of my favorites from today.

Casey McGehee has 73 RBI, one more than Evan Longoria.

Casey McGehee has 18 homers, one more than David Wright.

David Ortiz has seven 25 HR seasons for the Red Sox. 2nd most – tied with J. Rice – behind T. Williams (14).

Orioles considering going to a 6-man rotation to get a look at guys like Tillman and Britton.

Here comes the Panda. Pablo Sandoval in August: .349 with an .899 OPS for the SFGiants.

Sign up if you are on Twitter, you wont be disappointed. If you are you can take it up with management (which just so happens to be me).

By Ray Flowers

The Case of Andre Dawson

What the heck. I thought I might as well continue to plow through some of the potential HOFamers with the release of voting results mere days away (January 6th). Today I’ll touch on Andre Dawson, the highest vote getter in 2009 who wasn’t chosen for election to the Hall of Fame (he received 67.0 percent of the vote, just under the 75 percent minimum that is required).

To see my thoughts on others in this series simply click on the following links:

HOF: Tim Raines

Is McGriff Hall Worthy?

Andrew Dawson was the “modern day ballplayer” before there was the modern day ballplayer. Exceedingly athletic, powerful with the bat, his legs, and his arm, there was nothing this man couldn’t do on the ball field. Let me detail his exploits.

Blessed with a cannon of an arm, Dawson cut down runners frequently on his way to hauling in 6-straight Gold Gloves (1980-85) and eight overall.

Dawson was named to eight All-Star teams in his career.

Dawson won four Silver Slugger Awards.

Dawson won the NL MVP in 1987 (.287-49-137-90-11) and finished twice two other times (1981 and 1983). Overall he had 2.36 Career MVP Shares good for 67th all-time (a measure of how many votes a player picks up in MVP voting).

What about his overall numbers? Here are some of those.

Dawson hit 438 home runs in his career, 36th all-time.
Dawson knocked in 1,591 runs, 34th all-time.
Dawson scored 1,373 runs, 93rd all-time.
Dawson had 314 steals, 146th all-time.
Dawson produced 2,774 hits, 45th all-time.
Dawson hit 503 doubles, 48th all-time.
Dawson produced 1,039 extra base hits, 24th all-time.

And finally, you put that all together and — Dawson was one of only three men who have played the game who have hit more than 400-HRs with at least 300-SBs. The others two guys are named Willie Mays and Barry Bonds.

Moreover, in the decade of the 1980′s, few were better at the dish. Here is an average Dawson season in that time (1980-89): .285-25-90-81-20. That type of season would have helped to win many a fantasy baseball championship would it have not? Remember, offense wasn’t as prevalent back then so the numbers are actually better than they look on the face of it as well.

Clearly, he was very good for a very long time.

From the traditional measures to a couple of those new fangled measures that you may or may not be aware of.

HOF Career Standards (created by Bill James). A score of 50 is about “normal” for a HOF player, and Dawson checks in with a mark of 44 which is one point better than the 43 that one of last years inductees, Jim Rice, racked up in his career. That seems to paint Dawson in a slightly unfavorable light.

HOF Monitor (created by Bill James). A score of 100 is about “normal” for a HOF player, and Dawson has a mark of 118. Compared to Jim Rice though, he falls well off the pace (Rice has a 144 mark). In fact, Dawson falls well behind three other batters who failed to gain entry last season in Mark McGwire (170), Don Mattingly (134) and Dave Parker (124). This measure, and the one above, seem to signal that Dawson would be a fair option for the Hall of Fame, but far from an elite option – perhaps that’s why he still hasn’t been enshrined.

Andre Dawson isn’t a lock to be inducted in 2010, but sooner or later, much like Jim Rice, it appears that he will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. So in the words of Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber – “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”

By Ray Flowers

Is McGriff Hall Worthy?

In yesterday’s column I championed Tim Raines for inclusion in the Hall of Fame in HOF: Tim Raines. Today, I’ll take a look at a player who in no way resembled the fleet of foot Raines, but that doesn’t mean that Fred McGriff doesn’t deserve some serious consideration for addition to the hallowed halls of the shrine in Cooperstown.

Consistency vs. Greatness

Yes he played in the era of the lively ball, expansion, and steroids, but Mr. McGriff was never even remotely attached to the muscle bounds freaks that dominated his era. Despite this fact, McGriff still posted some pretty special numbers over the years, though as you might gather from the title of this section, he never really took his game to the level of greatness. Here is what I mean.

* McGriff hit 493 homers in his career, good enough for a 26th place all-time tie with the incomparable Lou Gehrig.

* McGriff finished in the top-5 in his league in home runs seven times pacing his league twice (1989 and 1992).

* From 1988-1994 he hit at least 31 homers each season, and 10 times in his career he hit at least 30 bombs.

* Eight times he knocked in at least 100 runs, and four other times he was in the 90′s.

* Overall he knocked in 1,550 runs, the 41st best mark ever.

* McGriff finished with 958 extra base hits in his career, good enough for 42nd all-time (his 441 doubles rank 99th).

* McGriff produced a Runs Created mark of 1,704 – good for 45th all-time.

That’s a pretty darn impressive run of effectiveness. At the same time there is some downside as well.

First off, McGriff hit “only” .284 in his career with four season of at least .300. Solid numbers to be sure, but far from outstanding.

Second, though he hit all those homers he never reached 40 homers in a season. Heck, even a guy like Adrian Beltre did that once.

Third, despite all the RBI, he never once reached even 110 RBI in a season.

Fourth, never fleet of foot, McGriff scored 100 runs only twice and he never swiped more than eight bags in a season.

Fifth, and this is where the argument against McGriff is most acute, the man was named to only five All-Star teams. There were certainly a virtual pantheon of terrific first baseman chosen instead of McGriff through the years, but the fact of the matter is that McGriff was rarely, if ever, considered to be the best first baseman in his league. Moreover, McGriff had only one top-5 finish in the MVP voting (he was fourth in 1993).

A man that McGriff is often compared to is Willie McCovey because both men swung left-handed and played first base. How do McGriff’s career numbers stack up against the Giants’ great? Quite well actually.

McGriff: .284-493-1,550-1,349-72 with a .886 OPS
McCovey: .270-521-1,555-1,229-26 with a .889 OPS

Based solely on numbers, there is little difference between the two. Of course this leaves aside the real test which is comparing a players’ numbers to those men that played in the same era against the same level of competition. Without getting into an overly technical comparison in that respect, let me spell it out for you very clearly. McCovey was more highly thought of than McGriff during his career, not to mention that he produced his numbers in an era when pitchers had a much higher degree of success than they did during the majority of McGriff’s career.

Those people that voted for Jim Rice will also likely vote for McGriff. It’s not that it would be a horrible inclusion to the Hall, after all his totals in a myriad of categories do place him in a position to be considered one of the best, it’s just that for those of us who watched McGriff, did any of us ever think we were in the presence of greatness when we saw him sock a homer? As a voter the decision has to be made – do you reward consistency in which case McGriff is a lock, or do you sit back and say that the Hall of Fame is a place for greatness, and by that standard Fred McGriff can knock on the door though no one will ever answer.

By Ray Flowers