Friday, May 24, 2013
MLB: Don Sutton never shy about voicing his opinion
(mlb.mlb.com)
Sutton: Because that’s where the defaced money is.
Read More...The outspoken Sutton—who came up with the Dodgers in 1966 and pitched with them for 16 of his 23 seasons—has his own opinion about everything.
He said in an interview last week that he hates pitch counts.
“I say it with a laugh in my voice when I broadcast: ‘That’s 100 pitches. On the next one, he’s going to turn into a troll.’ At 101, you just disappear. Poof, you’re gone,” Sutton said.
...MLB.com: Did you cheat?
Sutton: No, I never got ...
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Jason Michael(s) Bourn Identity Crisis posted on September 21, 2012 at 10:08 AM # hit 0 | hit 0The next HoF shortstop is going to be Derek Jeter, followed by Alex Rodriguez (if you count him as a shortstop). That's going to make it very difficult for Rollins to shine by comparison.
Are we writing off Omar Vizquel at this point? I think he's still got a puncher's chance, though he's going to be one of the ones hurt by the expected ballot backlog that's coming.
Re: Rollins: We asked my 3-year-old nephew to do something the other day, and he said "how about no?" It was pretty funny.
I've always said, since there are baseball players older than me and fatter than me, then I must not be that old or fat. With Omar's retirement at the end of this season, there will be no MLB players older than me. For this reason, I wholeheartedly endorse Omar Vizquel for the Hall. He kept me young for another year. I also endorse Bartolo Colon, compared to whom I am positively sveldt.
I was wondering that, too. 3 WAR is very optimistic.
You look like a skinny prairie?
Sorry, just having some fun with words at your expense over the conflation of svelte and veld(t).
He sat at the table next to me at Voula's cafe for breakfast a couple weeks ago. Not the type of place you go to get back into playing shape, unless you're playing bowling.
I think the best chance for Rollins would be hanging around for a few years, then hitting a one-year dry spell as the top guy who didn't get in the year before. He has enough markers (MVP, ring, AS games, hits) to be a compromise guy. Not sure if that year will come for him.
Either way, he's nowhere close to Trammell (67.1) and no real chance of catching him unless he's allowed to use Barry Bonds' training methods with impunity. He'd need to repeat his 2007 MVP season each of the next 5 years (ages 34-38) to pass Trammell.
The player he's closest to, by career to date, is Alvin Dark (98 OPS+, +34 fielding, 1828 games). Travis Jackson is another close one (in the HOF, but not a selection to brag about). Another close one is his exact contemporary, Rafael Furcal (96 OPS+, +63 field).
Player Rfield PA OPS+ 3B SB PosDave Bancroft 93 8248 98 77 145 *6/457
Dick Groat 48 8179 89 67 14 *6/543
Jimmy Rollins 45 8196 97 105 403 *6/4D
Jim Gilliam 41 8322 93 71 203 *457/983
Al Dark 34 7833 98 72 59 *65/74391
Chris Speier 33 8155 88 50 42 *654/3
Maury Wills 1 8306 88 71 586 *65/4
Buddy Myer -1 8190 108 130 157 *465/79
Joe Sewell -4 8333 108 68 74 *65/4
Jay Bell -12 8525 101 67 91 *64/53D
Tony Taylor -37 8501 88 86 234 *45/376D
Ray Durham -94 8423 104 79 273 *4/D8
Michael Young -128 7995 104 55 89 645D/3
Some overlap with the Maury Wills list I did for a Wills thread awhile back. Dark, as AROM notes, is a very close comp. The two HOFers are Bancroft (a better glove; not in the HOM) and Sewell (an HOMer with a significantly better bat, at the outer range of my search). The list is populated by your basic heck-of-a-ballplayers who could make substantial contributions to a championship club, as many of them in fact did.
Also should be pointed out that he's had four lousy seasons. He's not even close to HOF. I don't care how good his defense is.
You are looking at bWAR. The speaker was looking at fWAR, which is higher for Rollins (and others) because, I believe, of a lower replacement level.
This happens with P-I all the time. From the very beginning, I'm surprised you've never noticed before.
Sean, if you're listening, P-I needs an update. There are way too many stats you can't access through P-I, most obviously oWAR and dWAR given the whole point of those is to be able to rank across positions. It would also be good to be able to do P-I on more self-constructed rate stats -- for hitters we're still limited to selecting based on K-rate or BB-rate but not both.
Without 3000, probably not. He's not enough of a story, same as Trammell. Unusual player but not Unique and Unprecedented like say Eckersley or Ichiro.
Both of the above apply to Rollins as well. I'd say that Rollins has a shade of a chance of being the first 3000 BBWAA excludee, but then the VC will get him eventually.
Vizquel will be interesting to watch. I suspect he'll be left out, both because of the upcoming logjam and because no player from the MVP voting era has received so little MVP support (3 total balloting points in his career) and been elected by the BBWAA. But precedent is not a guarantee, and he does have the superficial similarity to both Aparicio and Ozzie that his supporters can use to build a case for him.
He does seem pretty likely to be selected by some iteration of the VC at some point.
1. Historically speaking, the BBWAA loves defensive SS -- Maranville, Aparicio, Ozzie and Concepcion hung on the ballot all 15 years. By traditional standards, Vizquel is a great defensive SS -- i.e. 2nd most GG to Ozzie. So he's in the mix and you'd think should do at least as well as Concepcion.
2. That said ... Marnville was the greatest; then Aparicio; then Ozzie ... and nobody thinks Vizquel was as good defensively as Ozzie. It's hard to see the BBWAA getting excited about putting in the 2nd best defensive SS who didn't hit.
3. Aparicio is not a bad comp ... and Aparicio has one of the strangest voting histories ever. He was steadily climing then jumped from 41 to 67% in one year; he jumped another 17% the next year. Those are two of the biggest single-year jumps in HoF voting history.
4. Vizquel gets dinged for few AS appearances. That's kinda fair and kinda not. It was a great era for SS in the AL but, after Larkin, there was nothing in the NL. He'd probably have 10 AS appearances if he'd been in the NL all those years. He'd probably have done better in MVP voting too without various combinations of ARod, Nomar, Jeter, Tejada around.
I think he'll do pretty well. Like I said, at least as good as Concepcion (which is similar to Mattingly or Parker). I don't know that he'll make much progress -- he might jump for a couple of years, then Jeter will hit the ballot and he'll drop. Then he'll climb again and ARod will hit the ballot and he'll drop. Plus the backlog. But he seems a pretty good bet for a VC induction.
He's got him beat on peak stats (6.0, 5.3, 4.7 vs 4.8, 4.8, 4.3) and will soon pass him in career WAR, so I guess so, but I admit my heart isn't really in it. If I had to draft one, hmm.
They're similar as hitters. Rollins is a better basestealer (he's a better basestealer than most people - 403 SB, 83 CS), has been more durable, and has stayed at shortstop longer. Fernandez has career length (although that probably won't be true for long). If you give any weight to postseason performance, Fernandez has a fairly substantial edge there, highlighted by an 11th-inning homer to win the pennant for the '97 Indians.
There's one sure future HOFer on this Phillies squad -- Halladay -- and a few possibles: Utley, Howard, Lee, Hamels, Papelbon. Rollins isn't one of them.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.