Spring Training Notes

Major league baseball is rocking and rolling with Spring Training underway, so now is a good time to take a little trip around the league to hit on a few of the stories making the rounds.

Mike Carp has been dealt from the Mariners to the Red Sox for a Player to be Named Later or cashola. He’ll likely serve as depth behind Mike Napoli at first base in case big Mike’s hip issue flares up. As for Carp, he’s gone deep 18 times with 71 RBIs in 545 big league at-bats spread over four seasons. He’s got decent pop though he doesn’t hit too many fly balls (33 percent) so that will cap his potential upside there even if he’s given a lot of work. A solid depth add for the Red Sox and a strong late round addition in AL-only leagues.

A follower pointed out today that Matt Holliday had a career worst strikeout total of 132 last year, and he wondered if that was a significant issue that needed to be addressed? My answer? Not really. It’s a concern that he posted a career worst total, but it’s also the only time he’s gone over 105 since 2007. In addition, his K-rate last season was 19.2 percent, a career worst, but only 1.2 percent above his 2011 mark (he appeared in 124 games in ’11 to keep his overall K total a bit muted). As players age they sometimes see an uptick in strikeouts, but Holiday’s overall skill set is very stable and I see little reason to think that he can’t repeat his totals from last season (.295-27-102-95).

Phil Hughes has a bulging disk in his back and he will be shut down for two weeks to let the area heal. There is still time for him to be available in the first week of the season, but as his Player Profile points out, you shouldn’t really care about his health as much as you might think.

Just how overlooked has Juan Marichal been when the discussion roles around to great pitchers of the past fifty years?

Shelby Miller, one day, will likely be a top of the rotation ace. Everyone believes that. Will that happen in ’13? Probably not. In fact, he may not even make the rotation out of camp. That won’t stop some from over drafting him this year though. Perhaps this note will. Miller is dealing with some soreness and tightness in his shoulder. The team believes it’s not a serious situation, but a little hiccup like this could lead to him falling out of contention for the 5th rotation spot, though it’s likely his spot to lose if he performs well.

Ever heard the urban legend of alligator’s in the sewer? Turns out it’s real…

Brett Wallace is going to play first base for the Astros, this according to Bo Porter the manager of the club. Wallace has 709 at-bats as a big leaguer, but he’s never attained the levels of success that were predicted for him when he was drafted. Wallace has hit .250 with a poor .699 OPS while going deep 16 times. He’s been a replacement level bat, simple as that. If he can’t make it happen this season he’ll likely settle in to a depth player for big league clubs for the rest of his career. With Wallace at first, that means Carlos Pena will likely be the DH most days. This seems like an odd choice to me since I don’t know of many baseball people who think that Wallace profiles as a better defensive player than Pena. By the way, Carlos will be looking to return to the 28 homer, 80 RBI level that he flashed each year from 2007-11 before dipping to 19 and 61 last year. Be careful with Pena as we all know he’s gonna kill your batting average (the last time he hit .230 was 2008). Chris Carter is likely to play left field on a regular bases with that power bat of his. He’s gone deep 19 times in just 332 at-bats, but he’s also struck out a whopping 124 times.

Did you know that Jered Weaver led AL hurlers last season with a .214 batting average against? The NL leader was Gio Gonzalez at .206. The #2 man in baseball was Clayton Kershaw at .210.

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By Ray Flowers

Nirvana

In the grand scheme of things a championship in sports means nothing, and the life of one person is also rendered insignificant when placed in the context of the world. But I gotta tell you, in this corner of the sphere that we all inhabit, there have been few things that can rival what has occurred over the last 24 hours.

I’ve never been married or ever welcomed a child into this world, so I don’t have that frame of reference to draw upon, but I can tell you this – in the pantheon of events that have shaped my life, this event ranks near the top of the list.

Willie May, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal, Barry Bonds – some of the greatest players ever to done a uniform – were never able to bring a World Championship to San Francisco. In more recent years players such as Jeff Leonard, Will Clark, Kevin Mitchell, John Burkett, John Beck and Jeff Kent were also unable to bring the World Series trophy home to San Francisco.

On Monday night, November 1st, 2010, that all changed.

The names will likely be forgotten in a few years if you aren’t a Giants fan. Honestly, some of the players might not even be at the forefront of your mind right now (Sergio Romo, Travis Ishikawa, Javier Lopez, Jeremy Affeldt, Mike Fontenot, Nate Schierholtz), but isn’t that the wonder of baseball? The sport is more than one great player leading a team to victory through sheer will and determination. The grind of six months of a regular season an another month for the playoffs offers the chance for numerous players to make history or to step to the fore at a moments notice. Cody Ross? I mean seriously, unless you were a Marlins’ fan or a fantasy baseball addict, did you even know who he was prior to the postseason? Edgar Renteria? Wasn’t he washed up and heading off into retirement after the worst season of his career (.276-3-22)? My goodness, he didn’t even start the first five games of the playoffs for the Giants. But that was the beauty of the 2010 Giants. They may not have been a team filled with “names,” but they had timely hitting, excellent work behind the bench by Bruce Bochy, and some of the best pitching the game has seen in this century.

As for me, the day after is surreal. For every year of my life that I have consciously been aware of the game of baseball, I have lived and died with the Giants. I’ve lost sleep worrying about games, I’ve skipped out on dates with pretty ladies to watch games, and I’ve nearly given myself an ulcer with each gut wrenching failure I have endured along with the club. So when Brian Wilson threw that final strike last night, what was my response? Did I jump up and down? Did I scream at the top of my lungs? Did I get plowed to the point that I forgot my own name? The truth is I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I looked over to my parents, both of whom who have been there right with me nearly every step of the way, and simply smiled and said “wow.”

It may not have been a celebration for the ages in the Flowers’ household, but I can tell you this – other than those major life events, like my parents wedding, my brother and I being born, my brother having two wonderful children of his own, it was one of the happiest moments of our lives.

Thank you San Francisco Giants. It was a long time in coming, but as I’ve written before, it was all worth it as I can now walk down the street, #1 finger held high in the air, with a huge smile on my face. We, and yes I’m including myself and all the Giants’ fans in the world, WE are World Champions.

By Ray Flowers

Numbers: A Look Back

Each week I write a piece entitled By The Numbers where I break down all forms of interesting information from the baseball diamond. In this entry I’m gonna take that same idea but go back in time with my time machine as I’ll list a bunch of interesting numbers and facts that pertain to players that have been immortalized in the HOF.

Luis Aparacio led the AL in steals in each of his first nine seasons in the league (his high was 56). From 1960-64 he stole 51, 53, 31, 40 and 57 bases each season. While none of those totals are outlandish, it should be pointed out that the game was played differently back then with base runners rarely attempting a steal. In fact, during that five year only one other rival was able to steal as many as 30 bases in a season.

Yogi Berra is one of the greatest hitting catchers of all-time (11 times he went deep 20 times and nine times he produced at least 90 RBI). He also won the MVP award on three separate occasions. But perhaps the most amazing number of all in his career is the fact that he struck out 12 times, twelve, in 1950 over the span of 597 at-bats. He was no slap hitter that year either producing a batting line of .322 with 28 homers and 124 RBI for the Yankees.

Sandy Koufax led the NL in ERA each of the last five seasons of his career (he had to retire with elbow problems at the age of merely 30). Three times he posted a mark below 1.90, and his five year run resulted in an overall ERA of 1.95 in that time. He also went 111-34 during that five year year of excellence for the Dodgers (.766 winning percentage).

Juan Marichal led baseball with 191 victories during the 1960′s. Three times in that decade he won at least 25 games, but he was never able to win the Cy Young award

Bill Mazeroski made the Hall of Fame despite the fact that he never hit even .285 in a season. Moreover his career mark was .260, he had a pathetic .299 OBP, and his career OPS was a frightening .267. He did however make six All-Star teams while also winning eight Gold Gloves as one of the finest fielding second basemen of all-time. It’s ironic that he is most remembered for hitting the first walk-off homer in World Series history in Game 7 when the Pirates defeated the Yankees in 1960 on his blast.

Amos Rousie is a HOF pitchers who won 246 games in his career with a 3.07 ERA from 1889-1901 (he won 30-games 4-straight seasons). Still, he was far from a control artist as he led the league in walks five straight seasons with a high of 289 batters in 1890, the most ever in a single season. At the same time you’ll want to cut the guy a little bit of slack since he tossed 548.2 innings in that season. In fact, in the five seasons that he led the league in walks, each season with at least 200 free passes, he never threw less than 444 innings. During that fateful season of 1890 his BB/9 rate was 4.74 which is actually a hair lower than the 4.78 mark that Scott Kazmir currently has to lead the “worst” list of 2010.

Hoyt Wilhelm was the first pitcher in big league history to win the ERA title despite the fact that he spent the entire season in the bullpen. In 1952, his rookie season mind you, Hoyt led the league with a 2.43 ERA and 71 games pitched. Since the NL played 154 games that year, his total of 159.1 innings was enough for him to qualify for the ERA title. He won 15 games and saved 11 on his way to another league leading figure, a .833 winning percentage.

Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in 1942 (.356-36-137) and 1947 (.343-32-114). He didn’t win the MVP in either season as he finished second in ’42 and ’47. Amazingly, Williams also led the league in OBP each season (.499 and .497) as well as SLG (.648 and .634) yet he still wasn’t awarded the trophy. Moreover, and this is truly amazing, from 1941-42, and 1946-49 (he missed 1943-45 serving in World War II), Williams led the AL in OBP and SLG in each and every season. All told, he led the AL in both slash categories an amazing nine times. As great as Albert Pujols is he has done that only one time (in 2009).

By Ray Flowers