Matt Kemp – Visions of Glory

“I believe in myself to the most,” said Matt Kemp. “I have confidence I can achieve it. I try to set my expectations as high as I can. I think I’m capable of doing it.” What is Kemp claiming he is capable of doing? No it’s nothing as grand as solving the mysteries of Stonehenge, nor is he talking about getting back together with his famous ex Rihanna. No, Matt Kemp was saying that he thinks he could go 50/50 this year – 50 homers and 50 steals.

“It speaks to his confidence and his self-awareness,” GM Ned Colletti said. “Even if he doesn’t make it, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It tells me about how he feels about his game. It tells me what he thinks about who he is.” (For the full report see Tim Brown’s article on Yahoo. By the way, if you want to play fantasy baseball this year, Yahoo Sports is a great place to sign up to play). I don’t know if I share Colletti’s vision here, but here are the facts as I see them.

1- Kemp is a supremely talented player who was one homer away from going 40/40 last year.

2- Kemp has nearly gone 20/20 each of the past four years (he missed out by two homers in 2008 and by one steal in 2010). The last four years he has averaged 28 homers and 32 steals. That’s nearly 30/30 for four years folks. Impressive.

3- Kemp has been as healthy as they come. Each of the past four years he has appeared in at least 155 games with between 602 and 606 at-bats in each season.

All of that information points to Kemp being an elite performer (duh). However, history is against Kemp and the potential run to 50/50. No one has ever done it. Ever. Only four men have ever gone 40/40: Jose Canseco in 1988, Barry Bonds in 1996, Alex Rodriguez in 1998 and Alfonso Soriano in 2006. Remember, Kemp was just a homer short of joining the club last season so he was close. Does that mean he could go 50/50? What would it take for Kemp to get to those numbers besides health and an unwavering need to concentrate for virtually every moment he was on the field in 2012?

Kemp hit 39 homers last year in 161 games. That equates to one homer every 4.13 games. If he appeared in 161 games again in 2012 he would need to hit a homer every 3.22 games. That’s a  significant increase an one that he wouldn’t likely to be able to maintain over the course of a season no matter how much faith he has in his abilities (his 40.5 percent fly ball rate last year was a career best but his 37.4 percent career mark is just big league average).

Kemp stole 40 bases last year in 161 games. That equates to a steal every 4.03 games. If he appeared in 161 games in 2012 he would need to steal a base every 3.22 games. That’s a rather significant increase an one that would be almost impossible to maintain. Let’s not forget that every time that Kemp goes deep that’s one more time that he doesn’t have the chance to steal a base. An increase of 10 homers might lead you to say ‘but Ray, we’re only talking about 10 plate appearances,’ an if you said that you would be right. At the same time, he’s going to need every last plate appearance if he is going to squeeze out 50 steals.

Is Kemp going to thumb his nose at history and do something that no one else in the history of the game has every done? An elite athlete with immense talent, Kemp is in the prime of his career and never misses games. On the flip side he hits in a ball yard that favors pitchers and has little protection in the Dodgers batting order. Kemp also has only one season of 30 homers in his career and he has just one effort of more than 35 steals. Clearly Kemp has full confidence in himself, but it would be foolish to think that he could reach the lofty numbers that he says he is capable of producing in 2012.

For thoughts on how Kemp is being viewed by Fleaflicker click on the link.

By Ray Flowers

Celebrating the 4th

photo © 2008 Eric Beato | more info (via: Wylio)

In years past I have taken the 4th of July as a chance to move a bit away from the norm here at BaseballGuys.com. Last year I wrote about Competitive Eating and asked the question about whether or not it was a “sport”?  Two years ago I wrote a piece entitled Freedom where I gave some information regarding the Declaration of Independence. Today I’ll follow my usual path and touch on a few topics that aren’t exactly germane to fantasy baseball while mixing in some relevant information.

There have been 46 ball players who were born on July 4th. Currently there is only one who is active – Sergio Santos who was born in Bellflower California in 1983. In that same year of 1983 Dave Righetti tossed a no-hitter against the Red Sox on the 4th. That outing was the Yankees first no-no since Don Larson’s perfect game in the World Series in 1956.

A history lesson. Though we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, the resolution was actually adopted on July 2nd. Furthermore, the Declaration wasn’t officially approved until July 9th when it was voted on at the New York Convention. The document was ordered to be “engrossed on parchment” for the means of it becoming an official document on July 19th. The actual signing ceremony was held on August 2nd, 1776 though, despite common perception, it took longer for all 56 delegates to affix their signature on the historic parchment. Moreover, some members of Congress never actually signed the document.

Lou Gehrig’s retirement speech, you know the one in which he said he was the “luckiest man on the face of the earth,” was given on July 4th, 1939. Gehrig died less than two years later of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, on June 2, 1941. He was 37 years old.

There are five places in the United States that have the name “America.” The largest is American Folk in Utah. It has a population of more than 26,000 people.

Jose Canseco hit his 30th homer on this date in 1999. He would hit only four more homers the rest of the way including just three over his final 115 at-bats before his season ended. All told he had 34 homers and had 95 RBI in just 113 games for the Rays. The effort marked Canseco as the first player in history to hit 30 homers with four different clubs (the others were the Athletics, Rangers and Blue Jays).

There’s a better than one in four chance that the hot dogs you eat, or ate, came from Iowa since there were over 19 million pigs located in the state in March, 2011. The odds are one in three that your baked beans came from North Dakota and if you’re eating corn on the cob there is a nearly 70 percent chance it came from California, Florida, Georgia, New York or Washington. For more fascinating info, click on this link.

July 4th, 1974 was Mike Marshall’s 14th straight appearance for the Dodgers. And you think guys are overworked nowadays? For the year Marshall pitched 208.1 innings… and didn’t make a single start. He won 15 games, lost 12, and racked up 21 saves to lead the NL. He also posted a 2.42 ERA and 1.19 WHIP on his way to appearing in 106 games, the highest single season total for any pitcher in the history of baseball.

By Ray Flowers

McGwire: The Day After

As time passes and we all digest the news of Mark McGwire’s admission that he took steroids for about a decade of his career, I thought I would do something I’d like to do more of moving forward.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to sign up, BaseballGuys is on Twitter where I post away all day (you can sign up at Baseball Guys’ Twitter Page). With the news of McGwire finally coming clean about his drug use, there were a plethora of responses in cyberspace (you can see my video thoughts at McGwire Admits Steroid Use), and I thought it might be beneficial to all of you, even those who have joined my Twitter following, to see what people’s initial reactions were. So here is a random sampling of some of the more interesting Twitter posts on the McGwire news that I came across in the hour after the news broke (Twitter comments are in italics, my responses follow in regular font after ***).

@SI_JonHeyman: if you lie for 10 years, and everyone knows you’re lying, what’s the value of finally telling the truth?
*** I can’t disagree here, though a McGwire apologist might say he didn’t actually lie, he just didn’t answer completely truthfully (he never told Congress, point blank, that he “didn’t” take steroids).

@MattArlauckas: Baseball record books to start using asterisks for players who were clean. It’ll save on ink costs.
*** Only problem with this is that we have no way of knowing who did or didn’t cheat. I can’t disagree with the sentiment though.

@DeBo_XL: Roger Maris should be officially the single season Home Run King. Even though 1998 saved the game of baseball.
*** McGwire admitted he took steroids, and only a brain dead moron wouldn’t postulate, with a high degree of certitude, that Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa didn’t too, so I have no problem with this line of thought.

Where do we draw the line? RT @MWEinNC: Do we know Maris wasn’t taking greenies (also barred) ?
*** Touche. Of course, we don’t know who was doing what, when, and therefore this argument quickly becomes the equivalent of chasing Alice down the rabbit hole (that’s an Alice in Wonderland reference).

@IamAlabamaCrazy: Canseco can sit back and say I told ya so.
*** Amazing aint it? Not everything he said has come to light as truth, but you’d have to say that Jose Canseco was hitting at least .500 with his revelations.

@JimmyGlenn711: They should start a Steroid Record Book and just tabulate all the baseball records broken with Steroids.
*** I understand this sentiment, but as I’ve written, there is no way to quantify who was on what when, so this one will remain the realm of the hypothetical discourse.

@mets4ever: when baseball players admit to taking steroids… it’s like part of my childhood gets destroyed a bit.
*** This might be the worst part of this whole flipping mess. Players used to be heroes to kids, but nowadays there are few men that you can point to as someone that your children should really look up to. I touched on this sad fact last season in Death of the Hero?

@NDBRAD: The MLB home run record is still 61 in ’61 by North Dakota’s Roger Maris. Rotten cheaters.
*** Same as the other one above signaling that the “real” single season home run record holder is still Mr. Maris.

In closing, I would like to leave you with some quotes that I took down during McGwire’s interview with Bob Costas yesterday. I have to tell you Mr. McGwire, judging by the response of people on Twitter, it doesn’t sound like you have a shot at ever recapturing your stature as a baseball player worthy of respect and honor, so good luck with that.

“I’m not here doing this for the HOF. I’m doing this for me, to get this off my chest.”

“I would have loved drug testing when I played.”

“I kept this to myself… I’ve never been asked.”
McGwire never told his parents (until Sunday).

“I was not going to lie…I decided I would take the hits.”
On his testimony before Congress.

“There is absolutely no truth to that whatsoever.”
McGwire speaking to Canseco allegation they did ‘roids in stadium locker room.

By Ray Flowers