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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Posnanski: Jeters never prosper …
Poz is a fan of Jeter, Sizemore...and Babblerock? Go figger.
The announcer during Monday’s game actually called Grady Sizemore, “The best player you’ve never heard of,” which made me think about 11 different things all at once.
1. Are there really baseball fans who have never heard of Grady Sizemore?
2. Really?
3. Wasn’t he, like, on the cover of Sports Illustrated?
4. Have people heard of Sports Illustrated?
5. If Chip Caray’s name happened to be Chip Babblerock, would he be announcing playoff games on national televeision?
Repoz
Posted: October 09, 2007 at 02:51 PM | 92 comment(s)
Related News: General, Cleveland, NY Yankees, Announcers, Television
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He makes Joe Buck sound like Vin Scully its so dreadful. My apologies to Mr Scully.
Even fewer know him biblically.
....while giving commentary about it?
Untrue. You must've missed Dusty Baker's commentary on the radio broadcast of Sunday night's game.
wasn't he on the Flintstones?
In order for someone to be a bad commentator, doesn't he need to actually make comments? I heard about an inning and a half on the way home and it just seemed like he would be silent so long you'd forget anyone but Miller was in the booth. Then Miller would ask him something to try and get him involved, and Dusty would mutter some words that when strung together did not form a sentence. Then Dusty would go back to watching the game and wishing Miller would stop interrupting his enjoyment of it.
In order for someone to be a bad commentator, doesn't he need to actually make comments? I heard about an inning and a half on the way home and it just seemed like he would be silent so long you'd forget anyone but Miller was in the booth. Then Miller would ask him something to try and get him involved, and Dusty would mutter some words that when strung together did not form a sentence. Then Dusty would go back to watching the game and wishing Miller would stop interrupting his enjoyment of it.
This is spot on, and I had no problem with it. I really prefer a one person radio call anyway.
I had a long drive home Sunday night and had the glorious opportunity to listen to Dusty. Wow, he brings bad to another level. Not Ron Santo bad, where he's screaming and grumbling like a drunk fan, but inaudible, five feet from the mic, no actual comments on what he saw. Did he lose a bet with Kruk on who had to leave the studio?
I think Dick Butkus did (still does?; it's been a while) this during the radio broadcast of Bears games. Every once in a while you'll hear him say something, but it's never actual commentary.
But it's Dick Butkus. He can do whatever the hell he wants.
Butkus hasn't done Bears games in a long while. Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer are the Bears' radio announcers now. They're solid. Thayer used to yell "Ball! Ball!" on fumbles; maybe he still does.
I'm pretty sure Kelly Johnson is the best player no one has ever heard of. Him or Matt Diaz.
While we're on the subject of bad broadcasters -- is there any more secure profession in the world? I'm trying to remember a PbP man that lost his job for anything other than an illegal/blatantly immoral act that didn't get another. It seems they get recycled more than managers.
Extrapolating from myself to the rest of the world, I will now go to the ESPN stats pages to find out who the best player is that I'd never heard of. Middle relievers will not be eligible because those guys appear and disappear all the time.
By 2007 OPS, limited to players with more than 200 at-bats, it appears to be someone named "Dan Ortmeier". Upon further inspection of this person, I am unimpressed and believe his .814 OPS this year to be a fluke.
The next person on the list is Franklin Gutierrez, who I only heard about for the first time after the season was over. He appears to be a real prospect and likely to maintain his performance, and most conveniently, he's on a team that's still in the playoffs!
Therefore I hereby dub Franklin Gutierrez the "best player nobody's heard of". However, he will soon become too well-known for this title, because of the playoff publicity. Then who will the mantle pass to?
Have you heard of Geovany Soto?
I encourage others to submit their nominees.
For pitchers I can find AJ Murray, Brad Salmon, Juan Gutierrez, Felipe Paulino, Zach McLellan, Nick Blackburn and the obvious winner of the title, Brian Wolfe.
The best pitcher, by adjusted ERA+, is Jim Devlin, who's tied with Brandon Webb and Roger Clemens on the all-time list. Carroll and Devlin have both been dead for more than 100 years.
Yu Darvish
Ross Porter. Paul Olden. Scott Graham. Jerry Trupiano. Many others; that's just over the past three years. They lost their jobs for not being young, yappy idiots.
You know, I was actually surprised to find he's still only 24. For me, it seems like he's been around forever. That's from playing fantasy baseball and reading Baseball America all the time. He's gone from hot prospect to not-so-hot-prospect to a pretty solid player.
Raffy Betancourt. I know of him because of the ALDS, but prior to that, I had never heard of him.
EDIT: Matt Capps is also in the running. I think because I pay so much attention to the minor leagues, there are going to be few players I've never heard of.
According to this ranking I agree.
It might be Nick Markakis, but there's a higher likelihood that the average casual/bandwagon fan has heard of him because most or all casual/bandwagon fans follow the Yankees or Red Sox.
Then when you get down to 19 Win Shares there are several candidates for third including Yuniesky Betancourt (but how could such a great name go unnoticed?) and the aforementioned Kelly Johnson.
Finally, according to the Win Shares rankings (which don't value a player who only played the last part of the season), in 2007 the best player I had never heard of was actually Chris Snyder. Hey, I knew the Dbacks catcher was a young, mediocre white guy, there's no need for me to know his name. After him the next guy is more than 100 lines down. And he is, as I had guessed, a middle reliever. And so is the next guy, and the next guy.
I think that was mainly a Hub Arkush thing. I don't think they do it anymore since they gave Hub the boot. Also I believe it was just a single "BALL!!!!!11111!!!!11"
At least Butkus will never go up there.
Take a look at all these guys and if you can still say that, I'll be impressed.
"Mauro Zarate"? WTF?
I actually like Ron Santo, but just because of how bad his broadcasts are. He's bad, but it's a friendly bad.
Worst football radio announcer I've ever heard was Paul James for BYU football games. "He's at the 30, the 20, the 10.... and he's down at the 31."
I saw it live on TV and heard the call later on the radio. It was as follows:
He takes the snap...........................................Oh no! It's a touchdown! He caught it!
That's pretty much his style. Completely unable to describe ongoing action with any semblance of detail.
Let's see, I estimate that there were about 60 people at each September game who were actually watching the Pirates play instead of waiting for fireworks, waiting for the Styx concert to start, or cheering the opposing team. And out of those 60, I estimate that 52 of them were friends and relatives of the various no-names who showed up in September to play for the Pirates. So the answer to your question is yes.
I had never heard of Carlos Maldonado either, and I've been to several Pirates games this year.
Or Marty McLeary, Dave Davidson, or Brian Rogers.
Wow, that was a challenge. Harvey Garcia stumped me. I've heard of John Gall, Nate Field, Erasmo Ramirez and Marcos Carvajal, but I had no idea they played in the bigs this season.
I was going to say that I had heard of everybody but then I looked at the Marlins. I have no idea who Jason Wood is.
The Marlins had 30 different players pitch at least one inning last season. I think it's fair to say that I haven't heard of a lot of them. Of course none of them are any good so they don't qualify for the best player you have never heard of.
This drives me crazy. It's their ####### job. I expect them to know more about the players than I do. This wouldn't require advanced study. All it would take is to read the boxscores everyday. But the lazy, unqualified, piece of crap guys who get paid to comment on baseball still manage to not know anything about anything. It's really a disgrace.
"Cross them off then."
As for players (entire career post 1900) who I've never heard of, the best of them by OPS+ is Benny Kauff (8 seasons of 149 OPS+).
Minimum of 10 seasons? Jack Fournier (15 seasons of 142 OPS+).
Pitchers? John Hiller (15 seasons of 134 ERA+). That's pretty embarrassing since his time does cross over mine (pitched until 1980), but I was much too young to remember him and he was just a relief pitcher.
As for the current group of teams remaining in the playoffs, I have to admit that the Rockies are a pretty unknown bunch for me (except for the really big names). For example, I had no idea that John Mabry was still playing baseball, but he appeared in 28 games for the Rockies. Active batters? Ryan Spilborghs doesn't ring any bells for me at all.
Pitchers? For a guy who appeared in 78 games, you'd think I might have seen one highlight where they mention the name Manuel Corpas.
Holy cow! Dan Serafini made it back to the majors?
I don't have a problem with knowing players, I have a problem of knowing players and connecting their names to their actual ethnicities.
Manny Corpas is the Rockies' closer. You'll hear about him soon enough. He's real good.
I've only heard of Devlin because Bill James wrote a bit about him in the NBJHA. He was involved in, and destroyed by, an early game fixing conspiracy. There's an interesting write up of his career in the Baseball reference bullpen section.
Here are the Cliff Notes version of Kauff Hiller and Fournier:
Kauff - Ty Cobb of the Federal League - after joining the Giants had a run in with Landis over a car theft ring.
Fournier - 1b for the White Sox in 1916 - they dump him and replace him with Chick Gandil which leads to the whole mess. He goes to the minors for a couple of years before resurfacing as 1b for a couple of NL teams for about a decade.
Hiller - had a heart attack mid- career and came back - might have had the best single season ever for a lefty reliever.
Do you mean Khalil Greene instead of Sledge? Because I just checked on Sledge and he sure as hell looks black to me. But I'm the guy who thought Justin Fargas was white for a long time.
Reliever - Saul Rivera - top 10 in games played. Know nothing about him.
Matt Albers - started 18 games for Houston - thought he was a character on Studio 60.
Oddly enough I had heard of Albers, but never heard of his fellow Astros starter Chris Sampson, who actually pitched a lot better this year.
Brett Carroll was a bigtime slugger at Middle Tennessee State. Still showing power but is a bit of a big swinger.
Chris Sampson, ex-Texas Tech shortstop.
McLeary is an oldish minor league vet. Brian Rogers is from Ga Southern and was picked up last year in a some deadline trade. Control guy with softer stuff
Matt Albers is actually considered a good prospect. 6foot 200ish. Texas boy I think, there were rumors of a drinking problem in the past.
The Marlins list is unfair since I've seen too many with the Mudcats. I had no idea who the heck Zurate is though.
Who is John Gall? *rimshot*
If Terrmel Sledge is white, then I'm an albino.
In fairness to you, Steve Jeltz is French!
Houston has another Mark McLemore. This confuses me.
And Kansas City has another Billy Buckner. And another Billy Butler.
Or Marty McLeary, Dave Davidson, or Brian Rogers."
Yoy. McLeary's on his third big-league season, even.
And color me shocked that there are reasonably-attentive fans who've never heard of Matt Capps. He's the ####### closer! Not to mention that he nearly set the rookie record for games pitched in '06...
"The best hitter ever, by adjusted OPS+, that I've never heard of is Fred Carroll."
You should hear about Fred Carroll. He's awesome. He had a pet monkey that became the first mascot of the Pirates, and when it died they gave it a pregame funeral and buried it under home plate at Exposition Park.
I would be pretty good at the BTF version. I looked at the all-time OPS+ leaderboard and I really don't know who Dave Orr is at #14. I mean, I have seen his name there before, and now I guess I am a lot more familiar with him than I was earlier this morning, but I can't tell you anything about him other than he's #14 in adjusted OPS+.
Jim Devlin neither, though I feel OK in that he only pitched 157 games and was out of baseball before my great-grandparents were born ...
Edit: typo
Sounds like fun. Can anybody beat Moby Dick?
I know everyone who played in the majors by the time I run projections for the next year, so January or so, but it's easy to miss players if they just come up in September, since I usually focus on fewer teams as the season draws to a close whereas in the summer I try to vary the teams I see.
Sounds like fun. Can anybody beat Moby Dick?
The Koran?
I wonder how much time these guys have to do this. Jerry Remy seems to spend alot of time appearing on radio stations, doing ads, and making public appearances.
This thread is just so wrong for the board. Baseball fans don't read books. The appropriate answer is "all of them".
This is news to me.
And Kansas City has another Billy Buckner. And another Billy Butler.
And another Ryan Braun.
A year ago, you'd have been right.
There are a lot of young players I haven't heard of, particularly in the National League.
There are a LOT of players I've heard of, but couldn't pick out of a lineup. Following 30 teams would be a full-time job.
Ok, now, this is just absurd. You honestly didn't hear anything about him all year while he was hitting home runs left and right?
Ed Walsh and Dan Brouthers.
J.D.'s Narration: Okay, you know he's an athlete of some kind. Just say something general!
J.D.: Still, I love it when Bonds wins at the game that he plays
From memory, Brouthers was a 19th-century guy. I don't know much more than that.
Ed Walsh was the best pitcher on the 1906 "Hitless Wonders" White Sox team that beat the heavily-favored powerhouse Cubs in the World Series.
C'mon, you guys. There's no excuse for not knowing Hall of Famers. Stop watching so many games and stick your nose in a book once in a while.
My highest-ranking OPS+ that I've never heard of is Ed Swartwood. ERA+ is Jake Weimer.
You're going to go blind.
RDF.
John Clarkson and Charley Jones.
I can't believe that nobody's impressed by Carroll's monkey. He took a money with him on road trips! That's almost as cool as Tycho Brahe's pet moose!
Dave Orr and Jim Devlin are the first guys I know nothing to little about. The Runs Created and Pitching Wins lists seem more familiar to me.
I'm aware of Ryan Church because of some thread here about him, but I'm not sure if I could pick him up out of a book of mugshots.
In the NL, the best players I had never heard of until looking them up to make this post are Geovany Soto, JR Towles and Joe Dillon.
There are several players that I know a lot about who I couldn't identify visually, even in uniform -- and I watch 400+ hours of baseball a year.
For this reason, I think everyone should have continued to refer to him as Adriano Rosario. Also, it sounds a lot cooler.
- This site and the linked articles that sound interesting
- Phillies fan blogs
- Royals fan blogs
- Philly newspapers
- Pittsburgh newspapers
so the NL West players are almost as obscure as the AL West players to me.
I don't have cable and don't do fantasy baseball. So it's you guys's fault for not mentioning Dan Ortmeier enough.
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