Bonds, Ruth and Bautista?

photo © 2010 Matt Pirecki | more info (via: Wylio)

 

 

The sun will rise in the morning, Raquel Welch will always be beautiful, and Jose Bautista will be the best hitter in baseball. Wait, what?

I’ve been a broken record for 12 months now. I keep saying “Jose Bautista can’t possibly keep this up,” yet week after week he does. It’s gotten to such a ridiculous point that people are now claiming that Bautista is not only a top-10 fantasy performer but that he is the best hitter in the game right now. Should we replace Lou Gehrig in the photo to the left and put Jose Bautista next to Babe Ruth?

 

 

2004-2009 SEASONS
During this period, Bautista’s season bests were 16 homers, 63 RBI, 75 runs scored and a .254 average. For the six years his slash line was .238/.329/.400. During that time the league average as better at .270/.340/.434.

2010 SEASON
.260-54-124-109 with a .995 OPS
Bautista led baseball in homers, was third in RBI and sixth in runs scored. He also became the fourth hitter in baseball history to have a season of 50 homers, 120 RBI, 100 runs, 100 walks and 35 doubles (the others are Babe Ruth, Hack Wilson and Luis Gonzalez).

2011 SEASON
.370-16-27-35-4 with a 1.365 OPS
His effort thus far is simply stunning. Bautista has been so stupendous, and honestly that word doesn’t do his performance justice, that he is on pace to hit hit .370 with 61 homers, 104 RBI, 135 runs scored and 15 steals.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Bautista’s work in 2011 is so absurd that it’s akin to being hit square in the face with a cast iron skillet.

(1) Bautista is hitting .370 and is on pace for more than 60 homers. Since 1940, only one player has hit .350 with 50 homers in a season. The year was 1957 and that hitter was Mickey Mantle (.365 with 52 homers).

(2) Bautista has an OBP of .516. In the history of baseball there have only been 10 seasons that can match that (minimum of 502 plate appearances). Think about that. Of all the players who have every played, there have only been 10 seasons better than the level that Bautista is currently getting on base.

(3) Bautista has an .849 SLG. In the history of the game only Barry Bonds 2001 season of .863 is better.

(4) Bautista has a 1.365 OPS. In the history of baseball there have only been four seasons that ended with marks higher than that – three by Barry Bonds and one by Babe Ruth.

As much as you all love Bautista, there simply can’t be a single person out there with half a brain that can legitimately claim that Bautista’s name should be mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth. We can agree on that, right? Come on, be honest. Do you really, if you search deep into the recesses of your being, think that Bautista deserves to have his name mentioned amongst the best hitters that the game of baseball has every produced before?

PERSONAL REVIEW

I’ve written and talked about how preposterous the performance of Bautista is going back to the start of last season. Here are the bullet points.

Bautista has never, not one single time, hit even .265 in a season. NEVER.
Bautista has never, not one single time, posted an OBP of .380 in a season.

As much as we want to say that he’s changed his swing and just figured everything out, we still have six years of below average work and one and a quarter seasons of excellence to review. Don’t forget that Bautista owns a rather average set of career numbers.

In his career his slash line is .250/.351/.472
The average player during his career has posted a line of .267/.337/.426.

PREDICTION

Can he keep up his current pace? I can say with 100 percent certainty that he cannot.

There is no way he hits .370, .350, or even .330. Players just don’t add .100 points to their career batting average, it just doesn’t happen.

Is he going to finish with an OBP, SLG and OPS in the top-10 all-time for a single season? Please.

The question is – how much will he fall? Secondarily, will he be a top-5 performer, a top-10 performer, a top-25 performer? That’s where things get a bit trickier.

Put your thinking cap on and be honest. If I told you that Player A, through a quarter of a season, was producing career bests in AVG/OBP/SLG, home run rate, steal rate, walk rate, K-rate and BABIP, wouldn’t your inclination be to be wary of that level of production continuing?

What if I told you he was hitting .110 points better than ever before?

Or how about if he was on pace to bump his OBP by .138 points?

What about if his SLG was .233 points clear of any previous season?

What about if he was running so frequently that he was on pace to basically double his career best effort?

You’d tell me there was no chance that Player A would be able to keep that up. Given that, why is everyone so willing to throw out logic and common sense when it comes to Jose Bautista?

By Ray Flowers

Around the Horn: August 12, 2010

(1) Pat Burrell on fire for Giants.

(2) Jose Bautista is on FIRE.

(3) Starlin Castro pushes average up to 320.

(4) Casey McGehee on fire in August.

(5) Injured pitchers – Andy Pettitte, Kevin Slowey.

(6) Shane Victorino back – implications to Phillies?

(7) Chipper Jones career could be over.

By Ray Flowers

The Greatest CF Ever?

The Kid always had that swagger. He had the smile, wore his hat backwards, and had one of the smoothest swings in the history of the game. He defined a generation of ballplayers, often being the yin to Barry Bonds yang, and the end result will be his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in five years. Of course, I’m talking about Ken Griffey Jr.

My first recollection of Griffey isn’t a homer or a catch to rob one, but going to the local ball card shop with my brother and friend in 1989. My brother and I each bought two Upper Deck Griffey cards, while our buddy bought 20 of them at $2 a piece (no joke). I’ve since lost touch with that friend, but hopefully he hung on to all those cards because he’d have made a pretty penny (at the lower end I think they go for $40-50). Why did my friend grab so many rookies of Griffey? He clearly knew what he was doing – slightly ahead of me and my cheapskate ways at the time (I think I bought two boxes of Score cards instead – and that wasn’t a great choice in retrospect).

However, my greatest memories of Griffey obviously emanate not from losing a small fortune, but from his work on the diamond. You’ll see the numbers listed everywhere you read about Griffey the next few days, so I’ll just list them quickly.

630 homers, 5th all-time
1,836 RBI, 14th all-time
1,662 runs, 31st all-time
1,192 extra base hits, 6th all-time
5,271 total bases, 12th all-time

* He was named to 13 All-Star teams including every year from 1990-2000 – the entire decade.

* He won the MVP award in 1997, unanimously. He was awarded 3.20 Career MVP Shares, 27th best of all-time.

* Here might be the most amazing part of the whole deal; Griffey wasn’t just a hitter, he was a sublime fielder who 10-straight Gold Gloves, one for each year of the decade of the 1990′s. Think about that. He won a Gold Glove ever year of the 90′s. Only Roberto Clemente (12) and Willie Mays (12) won more amongst outfielders.

Injuries curtailed Griffey’s career prematurely, and people who only remember the broken down player of the past few years are doing this man a disservice. Just how great was he during his prime? From 1996-1999, there wasn’t a finer player in the game. In that four year period of time he was the MVP once, finished fourth twice, and was 10th on the other occasion. As for the numbers, he never hit fewer than 48 homers, knocked in fewer than 134 runs, scored fewer than 120 or stole fewer than 15 bases in any of those four years. Griffey is therefore the only man in the history of the game to go 48-134-120-15 in 4-straight seasons – and he also won a Gold Glove every season to boot.

But beyond the greatness of his two-way play, beyond the childlike enthusiasm and beyond the fact that he was never embroiled in any off-field issues of any kind until the recent ludicrous story that he was sleeping during a game, there is one salient fact that sets him apart from everyone else he played against – not once has his name ever been linked to performance enhancing drugs.

Now I have no inside knowledge, I wasn’t in the locker room with any of these guys and I don’t share beers with them on a Friday night, so like the rest of you it’s all rumor and supposition about what went on behind closed doors. But as stated, what we do know is that Griffey’s name was never linked to PED’s. Therefore, he just might be the only slugger of his era whose exploits aren’t thought to have been chemically enhanced. Given that, there is nothing to stop Griffey from entering the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

So, was Griffey the best center fielder in the history of the game? It’s pretty difficult to think that Griffey was as good an all-around player as Willie Mays, and he clearly lacked the outward passion of Ty Cobb, and it’s not like there aren’t two all-time greats who roamed centerfield for the Yankees in Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle. In the end the question will continue to be debated, but I feel completely comfortable in stating that Ken Griffey Jr. was the greatest all-around center fielder this scribe ever had the privilege of watching play the game of baseball, and while that might not mean a thing to Mr. Griffey, it means the world to me.

By Ray Flowers

The Chosen One?

Like Roy Hobbs straight out of a scene from The Natural, 16 year old Bryce Harper has burst onto the scene. Certainly those scouts that have followed this kids’ development over the past few years are hardly shocked at the rate at which he continues to dazzle everyone who sees him grace the diamonds in his home state of Nevada, but for those of you unaware of the burgeoning legend, he was recent a cover boy on Sports Illustrated, here are some of the highlights.

1- The kid throws a fastball that has been clocked as high as 96 mph. That’s faster than most of the fastballs from Tim Lincecum (his average fastball is 92.4 mph this season.). Don’t worry though, he doesn’t pitch most of the time, he plays catcher.

2- He once reportedly hit a home run 571 feet. Yes, 571 feet. The longest major league home runs that has officially been verified to my knowledge was a 565 foot bomb hit by Mickey Mantle. Oh yeah, Bryce was 15 years old when he that bomb. Fifteen. He also has the longest home run in Tropicana Field history, you know the park where the Rays play their home games. His blast there was a mere 502 feet, though that was only 502 feet because it smacked into the back wall of the stadium. During the home run derby in which he slugged that Ruthian blast he hit six consecutive home runs that traveled an average distance of 469 feet. Must have been the aluminum bat huh?

3- At 16, he already stands 6’3″ and weighs 205 pounds. And don’t even think of steroids, the kid has never touched the stuff and has no need for it.

4- He played for USA Baseball’s under 16 team at the Pan Am Championships in Mexico facing the best players in the world that are his age. All he did in that tournament was hit .571 with four home runs and six stolen bases in eight games to earn tournament MVP honors.

5- Bryce Harper has decided to skip his junior and senior years of high school and take the GED which he will likely pass with flying colors given his 3.5 GPA. Why? So that he can enter junior college in August of this year, and then become eligible for the major league draft in 2010 in which, conceivably, he could become the number one overall pick in the country.

Is he ready for all of this? We can sit here and debate all day whether or not he can handle the pressure, after all he isn’t even old enough to watch an R-rate movie, to vote, or for that matter he is just barely able to drive a motor vehicle. But in this day and age of 15 year old tennis stars, 14 year old Olympians, and tennie boppers in the entertainment world who aren’t even old enough to watch a PG-13 flick, it’s really a bit of a surprise that it has taken this long for someone to be so good in baseball as to push us all to consider just how young is too young (teams routinely sign foreign players at 16 years of age anyway). As for his skill and the change of him a top-5 pick in the 2010 draft, here is one what National League scouting director had to say about Harper.

“I scouted A-Rod, Chipper Jones, Manny [Ramirez], all those guys in high school. God was very, very good to this kid. He’s stronger than they all were in high school. Never mind next year. If he’d been in the draft this year, he would have gone very, very high.”

Oh, and it appears that Harper will be represented by Scott Boras who almost certainly will look to make the argument that Harper is the greatest athlete since modern man crawled out of the Fertile Crescent in Africa some 100,000 years ago.

It will likely end up being a wild ride for this kid. I can only wish him the best and hope that he turns out to be more Ken Griffey Jr. than Todd Van Poppel.

By Ray Flowers