Today's Birthday Team features the last two Tigers 20-game winners:
C: Brian McCann
1B: Tom O'Brien
2B: Frankie Gustine
3B: Harry Raymond
SS: Charlie Babb
LF: Shane Spencer
CF: Sam Rice
RF: Tommy Henrich

SP: Justin Verlander
SP: Bill Gullickson
SP: Livan Hernandez
SP: Clyde Wright
SP: Dave Davenport
RP: Roy Face

RP/PH: Derek Lilliquist
Megaprospect: Jurickson Profar
Quad-A Speedster: Donzell McDonald
Too good not to mention: Muddy Ruel
Negro Leagues Great: John Donaldson

Megaprospect: Jurickson Profar

Comparing him to Babb and Gustine, he appears to be roughly two solidly above average years away from a starting spot.

Mariners on the verge of a trade, most likely dealing Mike Carp, according to Rosenthal.

Mariners on the verge of a trade, most likely dealing Mike Carp, according to Rosenthal.

Alas, it probably won't be to Hiroshima.

Carp to Boston for cash.

Mike Carp has one of my favorite athlete Twitter handles: CarpusMaximus20.

Presumably there was already a CarpusMaximus.

Dan, or even 19 other CarpusMaximi! CarpiMaximi? CarpiMaximus?

I hope Lyle Overbay got an opt-out.

More back-page notes from today's paper, Jim Thorpe memorial edition:

Hollow Horn Bear To Be Indian Orator

Hollow Horn Bear, a Sioux, will be orator for the Indians at the laying of the cornerstone of the new monument to be erected in New York harbor in honor of the Indians, next Saturday.

The Chippewa, Crows, Cheyennes, Flatheads, Grosventres, Ariekarans [sic], and Mandans will have representatives present in charge of Major James McLaughlan, veteran Indian inspector.

- In 1913, Hollow Horn Bear led a group of Indians to the inauguration parade of President Woodrow Wilson. He caught pneumonia during the visit and died.

- The National American Indian Memorial was never built.

Twins sign Kyle Davies to a minor-league contract. I hope this doesn't lead to him getting a few relief appearances and losing his status on the worst-starting-pitcher leaderboards.

Bill James has been running a series of articles on Hall of Fame manager qualifications. They're pay site, so I can't link, but highlights:

Wilbert Robinson’s election to the Hall of Fame, I think it may be said, was a capricious selection not justified by his record as a manager.

Harry Wright. . .well, we can give him a little extra credit for inventing professional baseball.

Whitey Herzog, as much as I like him, may not fully meet the standards of a Hall of Fame manager, based solely on the record of his accomplishments.

Billy Martin is the first manager [going chronologically since the 1950s - TDA] we have found whose record—not including his record of punching out strangers in bars—would justify his selection to the Hall of Fame. He’s not overwhelmingly qualified; he would rank near the bottom of the Hall of Fame group. But he’s qualified.

there are four recently retired managers who meet the historical standards of Hall of Fame selection, and three who far exceed that level [Lou Piniella "meets the historical standards"; Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre "far exceed that level" - TDA]

Of the 30 [current] major league managers... there is only one who I think is a fully qualified Hall of Famer at this point. That one is Davey Johnson.

there are three other guys who are very close to that level, and then behind them there are other strong candidates. Dusty Baker has, in my opinion, 94% of a Hall of Fame resume.

In plain English, Dusty Baker may well be as much of an idiot as many of you claim that he is. I don’t really care; it’s not my problem. Good manager or bad, he has enjoyed a significant amount of success over a long period of time.

As best I can measure it, [Jim] Leyland is just one point behind Dusty Baker as a Hall of Fame candidate, 94 points to 93. And yes, I would rather have Jim Leyland managing my team than Dusty Baker, but that’s just my opinion.

Like Baker and Leyland, [Mike] Scioscia does not have a Hall of Fame record at this time, but is very close; I have him at 91... If he can put together one more big season—and God knows he has the talent to work with—Scioscia will have a Hall of Fame record.

James then runs down how close the other current veteran managers are, ending with an attempt to make Vlad's head explode (my emphasis):

Jim Tracy, although I think he is also a very good manager, is only at 25 points.

I'd be curious to hear the case against Herzog. Not an exemplary winning percentage? Leyland is barely .500.

Best I can do in terms of a case against Herzog: His tenure in St. Louis is completely indecipherable. He'd either win the pennant or lose 85 games, and each season was seemingly a coin flip as to which one you'd get.

I don't know if the fact that the entire rotation and Bruce Sutter sucked in '83 and/or everybody just decided to stop hitting in '86 should be held against Herzog. But it certainly isn't a mark in his favor.

Royals, James basically comes up with a system to rank managers, and that system doesn't put Herzog above the "line". It certainly doesn't rate Whitey poorly. He gets 88 points where the "line" is 100. Wilbert Robinson and Harry Wright, as mentioned, do much worse. And there are three other HOF managers under 100 (counting up from Herzog, those would be Ned Hanlon, Bucky Harris, and Dick Williams.) But it does put Whitey below it.

To briefly sum up the system, it adds together these components:
A) Wins divided by 40
B) (Wins minus Losses) divided by 10
C) 3 points for division champ, 6 points for league champ, 9 for World Series champ (non-cumulative)
D) 1 point for every 5 wins over expectation in a season (i.e., 1 point for +5 wins, 2 points for +10, etc.)
[Expected winning percentage = ((W + L two years prior) + (2*(Wins + Losses previous year)) + 162 W + 162 L)), then divide W by (W+L)]

I don't know if the fact that the entire rotation and Bruce Sutter sucked in '83 and/or everybody just decided to stop hitting in '86 should be held against Herzog. But it certainly isn't a mark in his favor.

i sometimes wonder if whitey had as much control of the clubhouse as his fans seem to think he did. the years they sucked it seemed like nobody on the team was happy, and 1983 was just a train wreck what with the hernandez thing.

in that book of his, he kind of suggested they quit on him in 1990, so he retired.

Thanks DA. I figured it was a formula, but I was kinda scratching my head why Herzog would perform on par with say Leyland (who are both great managers).

WIP: Phillies aggressively in pursuit of Marlins OF Giancarlo Stanton.

).

Phillies aggressively in pursuit of Marlins OF Giancarlo Stanton.

If the Marlins trade him, they might as well close the stadium to spectators and save money on staff.

Phillies aggressively in pursuit of Marlins OF Giancarlo Stanton.


The Phillies don't have enough young talent in the organization. I can't see a direct trade; the only possibility is that Cliff Lee goes to third team for some top caliber prospects and they get bundled with some of the Phils top prospects. The Phils could get Nolasco in the deal to relieve MIA from the salary and to fill the Phils' rotation.

Or they are being aggressive with a silly package.

Or they are being aggressive with a silly package.

My dating strategy all through college.

Stanton for Ryan Howard. Loria press conference: "You pathetic taxpayers want the team to "try to win" by giving players big salaries? Here's a big salary, you ####### peons!"

Birthday League update:

February 6           87  45  .659 ----      
February 5           85  50  .630  3.5    
January 31           79  53  .598  8.0  
February 10          78  54  .591  9.0        
February 18          75  57  .568 12.0  
February 17          75  57  .568 12.0

News and notes:
* February 17 by month: 16-10, 13-18, 17-9, 12-16, 17-4.
* Babe Ruth (February 6) is still Babe Ruth: .368/.494/.806, leading the league in OBP, SLG, runs (139), home runs (51), RBI (114), walks (120), intentional walks (22), strikeouts (115), longest hit streak (20), RC/27 (16.4), total bases (377), wins (21), winning percentage (.955), ERA (1.63), HR/9 (0.08), and opponent BA (.196).
* Charlie Jamieson (February 7) is third in batting average (.366), first in hits (185), and fifth in RC/27 (8.4). He's currently got a 20-game hit streak, and would pass Ruth atop the leaderboard with a hit in his next game.
* Honus Wagner (February 24) is, unsurprisingly, playing great ball. He has 46 doubles in mid-August, is fifth with 91 runs scored, third with 171 hits, second with 57 steals, sixth in RC/27 (8.2), and playing his standard terrific defense.
* Ruth has 37 home runs against RHP. Hank Aaron (February 5) is second in the league with 26 total home runs.
* Frank Fennelly (February 18) drove in nine runs on August 21.
* Bill Slayback (February 21) is 3-20 in only 12 starts and has a 6.66 ERA. He wasn't a particularly bad pitcher in real life, but an awful team is tough to overcome.
* Nolan Ryan (January 31) leads the league with 257 strikeouts, 98 whiffs more than second-place John Patterson (January 30).
* Jaime Cocanower (February 14) has thrown 19 wild pitches in 132 innings. At first glance, that seems...excessive, though in real life his 162-game average was 17 WP.

Leaderboards, stats, standings, and box scores here.

Arguably interesting thing happened in Neyertown. Rob, discussing Mike Piazza's recent autobiography:

here's Piazza's take on Tom Glavine, his teammate with the Mets for a few years ...

At any rate, I certainly respected his professionalism, and for the most part we managed to get along well enough, I thought. He's Catholic, and we often went to church together on the road. Frankly, I was a little surprised when Glavine later took a backhanded swipe at me in his book Home of the Brave, implying that he'd grown up with a lot less privilege than I had. I thought I'd gotten past all that.

Okay, so here's the weird thing ... I cannot find any evidence that Tom Glavine ever did a book called Home of the Brave. Glavine did "write" a book called None But the Braves: A Pitcher, A Team, A Champion. I have it. But that was published not "later" but rather in 1996, seven years before Glavine joined the Mets and became Piazza's teammate. There's never been a baseball book called Home of the Brave...

Ah, but while checking Glavine's literary oeuvre, I noticed that he plays a big role in John Feinstein's book, Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember. I have it. The season is 2007, and the two pitchers are Glavine and Mike Mussina. Feinstein talked to Glavine quite a bit, and the book is indexed. Maybe this is where Glavine said that thing about Piazza.

Nope. By 2007, Piazza had been gone for a couple of years. The only mention of Piazza in the entire 525-page book comes in a brief aside about 2003, Glavine's first season with the Mets: "Mike Piazza was aging and balking at moving from catcher to first base."

That's Feinstein, not Glavine.

Piazza's co-author then posts in the comments:

Rob: I hate to say it, but it appears that you’re absolutely right. You’re right, also, that it’s a very weird thing. I can’t explain it. There’s a reference to that book in my notes, but I’m at a loss to say why it wasn’t checked and verified. As I’m sure you’re aware, in a book like this it seems that there are about a dozen items that have to be checked in virtually every paragraph. Fortunately, the Internet age makes it comparatively easy, most of the time. And this would definitely fall under the category of checkable. So I can offer no defense. I can only acknowledge that it was clearly, regrettably, my mistake. Sorry. I’d like to assure you that nothing in the book was published willy-nilly, without accountability, but I’m afraid your catch has challenged that statement. Hopefully, it’s the only error of that kind. Meanwhile, the editor has assured me that the passage will be corrected in the next printing.

Maybe Glavine was the ghostwriter of David Klass's young-adult soccer novel Home of the Braves.

I'm not sure if the tweet about the Phillies going after Giancarlo should be taken seriously. The tweet was 1pm yesterday. If it had any legs at all, we'd've heard a lot more of it by now.

enunciators will be installed at the South Side park

I like this idea.

"Hey, Schalk, time for you to hit da showers."

"hit THE showers."

"Dat's what I said."

"That's what I said."

"No, dat's what I said."

"No, THAT!"

"What?"

"Oh heavens."

"Hey Cominsky, pull dat bum Cicotte."

"Comiskey."

"Dat's what I said."

"Look, I don't see why you can properly pronounce Cicotte but you can't pronounce Comiskey."

"Hey, it's the seventh inning stretch."

"Hooray! Everybody in section 7, along with me now ... the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain."

"Da rain in Spain ..."