Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
Washington Times, June 12, 1918: Friend Wife will have to have the feed bag ready early today, for Mr. A. Fan will be rushing off to Oriole Park to see the Dunnmen get down to work at 6 o’clock. Today 6 o’clock starts will be inaugurated by Manager Dunn as an experiment.
The wording leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s cool that the Orioles were experimenting with night baseball as early as 1918. It couldn’t have come any earlier that 1918 - these 6:00 starts were made possible by Daylight Saving Time.
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1. Jefferson Manship (Dan Lee) Posted: June 12, 2018 at 10:43 AM (#5690281)C: Red Dooin (3.84 WAR)
1B: Ryan Klesko (26.99 WAR)
2B: Otto Knabe (9.64 WAR)
3B/Manager: Sol White (0 WAR)
SS: 1880s Jack O'Brien (9.59 WAR)
LF: Joe Hornung (7.9 WAR)
CF: Hideki Matsui (21.23 WAR)
RF: Matty McIntyre (20.58 WAR)
SP: Bill Foster (0 WAR)
SP: Sean Newcomb (2.9 WAR)
SP: Kyle McClellan (2.41 WAR)
SP: Gerry Arrigo (2.22 WAR)
SP: Lou Schettler (-0.01 WAR)
RP: George Kontos (3.82 WAR)
Fun name: Bitsy Mott
Fun nickname: Darrel "Kool FM" Akerfelds
Umpire: Dutch Rennert
Writers: Neal Russo, Richard Ben Cramer
.237/.364/.490
.228/.360/.509
Harper's hitting to a perfectly respectable 131 OPS+--he is the 2nd line there--but probably not the line he (or Boras) wanted in his walk year. Even his defense has been Dunn-ish: -4 Rfield in 63 games (about -10 over a full season). If he were 2015 Harper, he'd be looking at $600MM+ contract. 2017 Harper would probably still be looking at $400MM or even $500MM. What does 2016/2018 Harper get?
1. David Ortiz (2408, 4th overall)
2. Current player, two-time World Series champion and three-time .300 hitter (1691, 27th)
3. One-time World Series winner had a four-year stretch in which he managed five homers over 2500+ PA and still managed an OPS+ of 124 (1667, 28th)
4. Two-time World Series winner, weakest regular on one of history's most famous teams (1522, 40th)
5. Twice qualified for the batting title with an average under .200 (1493, 41st)
6. Two-time World Series winner, reached 500 PA only three times and led the league in caught stealing all three seasons, 1990s player (1379, 47th)
Harper is his last four seasons has hit .330, .243, .319 and .228, which is Roy Campanella-esque. I'd expect him to eventually stabilize around his career average of about .280, which would make him a perennial All-Star but probably not win him any more MVP awards.
Alfredo Griffin?
the Melk Man?
If he keeps deviating so widely from your estimated career average, there is no reason that I can think of why he couldn’t win another MVP, at least as long as he is not in the same league as Mike Trout. After all, Campy won three (whether they were all deserved is another question).
Some of Harper’s problems have been with injuries, but as far as I have heard, he is healthy this season. His next contract will be interesting. At some point, you have to stop basing your evaluation on potential and base it on what he has actually done. Harper is in his seventh season, and IMO every season except his rookie season and 2015 has been a disappointment.
I get the injury reference, but what do you think he has been stubborn about?
27 WAR accumulated in 6.5 seasons. Just over 4 WAR per year. Hasn't turned 26 yet. Not too shabby honestly. Batting titles and MVP's are very different things. I have no love for Harper but he's a good baseball player. Whether he deserves 300 billion dollars or whatever is another thing.
COKE to Hank w/r/t batting titles.
And the season following that 4-year run, Matty A. had 201 hits with OPS+ of 87. How often has a 200-hit season been accompanied by OPS+ that low? (or lower?)
Pierre had four 200+ hit seasons with OPS+ of 82, 89, 94, and 107. He also had a 77 in a year when he had 196 hits.
We like to call that a Juan Pierre. JP had 3 seasons of 200+ hits and an OPS+ below 100, with a low of 82, the lowest on record. Alou's 87 is 3rd worst, behind JP and Doc Cramer (84)
I'm imagining him having a lingering health issue that doesn't prevent him from playing, per se, but does negatively impact his effectiveness. Rather than going on the DL and letting it heal, he stubbornly plays through.
It was 139 before his last start. Then he faced another 29 batters without issuing a walk.
He is working on a string of 26 consecutive quality starts. The last time he didn't get a quality start was August 18. He only gave up one run in that start, but he had to leave with one out in the sixth because he twisted an ankle covering first. The last time he gave up more than 3 runs in a start was July 29, or 31 starts ago.
Didn't Juan Pierre have a reputation for being a stellar teammate, and a hard worker? He would have made a fantastic fourth outfielder and pinch runner.
Yes and yes.
I actually met JP. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Marlins pitcher Tom Koehler, from Brooklyn, organized a Sandy relief fundraiser at Marlins Park. He and other current and former Marlins players held a clinic for kids. I brought half my LL team. JP did a base running clinic. He was great with the kids and looked truly happy to be there.
As a regular OF he was mostly useless. But by all accounts a great human being.
And, while announcing his retirement, he tweeted:
I do have one regret I finished with 18 homeruns really wanted to get 20 so if any team wants to sign me for 3yrs that should be enough time
Yes, he is a good baseball player. But that’s not what the expectation was. He was supposed to rival Trout for best player in baseball, with 8-9 WAR seasons every year. There was talk of his contract possibly breaking $600 million, because they thought 2015 was the true Bryce Harper. There was also the belief that the Yankees had the edge in signing him. But then Judge had his breakout year and they traded for Stanton. Considering Stanton’s contract, do they want to spend even $30 million a year for another slugging outfielder?
Not that it is fair to compare anyone to Trout anymore, but with the season 41% completed, Trout has 5.7 WAR. If he does not get injured again, he he headed towards a season for the ages.
To be a bit frank, but at least intellectually honest, I'm half-inclined to regard him as Rico Petrocelli with a good rookie year.
Then again, given how long it took for Stephen Strasburg to finally have a season to match his publicity (and, so far, it doesn't look promising for him to have another just like it), it could just be that someone associated with the Nationals has a gift for insuring publicity beyond actual accomplishments.....
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