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Transaction Oracle— A Timely Look at Transactions as They Happen
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Boston Red Sox
Acquired P Matt Duff from the St. Louis Cardinals for IF Tony Womack.
I hated the Red Sox signing of Tony Womack awhile back, but have to eat my words a little now. Not that Womack isn’t a no-field, no-hit weight, but that the Red Sox actually turned a pointless signing into an actual body. Duff is your typical minor-league veteran reliever - doesn’t throw a blazing fastball, but can control the strike zone well and keep his stuff down. The Sox could turn to Duff in an emergency and get some decent fill-in time from him.
As for Womack, just hope that TLR thinks of him as an uber-utility guy rather than a serious contender for time at second and maybe even left.
Dan Szymborski
Posted: March 23, 2004 at 01:25 AM | 6 comment(s)
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-- they can sign such players to contracts calling for more than the maximum 20% cut in salary;
Basically Abbott mastered AA, so they sent him to AAA. He hit .330 something in AAA, and so they sent him to AAA again and he hit .320 something. Then they put him on the bench in the majors and he eventually won a starting job by the end of the year. He was the starting LF for 50 at bats and he slumped, and the Sox decided Carlos Lee was a LF instead of a 3B, and Abbott was pretty much done for.
Basically, Abbott's another one of those "what if" guys, a guy who was ready for his big league opportunity but didn't get it because Danny Tartabull was just too irrestible. And then didn't progress an inch from that point (for whatever reason).
The strange thing was that Abbott was even a fairly well regarded prospect in an organization trying to cut costs and go with a youth movement (Top 100 guy), and the shot just didn't come.
I still think that at 29, he could respond to a shot. He'd hit .300 if given a chance, even if he didn't do much else.
This could be an incredible move for the Sox. As a Yankee fan I hate this. Veras is perfect for the Sox, exactly what they need as a leadoff man/second baseman. I wonder if this means Offerman will end up in the OF, or perhaps even a bench player? He's only ever played one game out there, CF in 1996.
He'd probably be better at 3B than Hillenbrand, who wasn't all that great with the leather anyway, and had a .291 OBP. Hillenbrand is still developing, while Jose is declining, so it's a crapshoot there, let them battle for the job in the spring. It'll be an interesting spring in Fort Myers. This would be a pretty solid lineup:
Veras 2B
Quilvio Veras, 7 years, 767 games, in the majors continuously since 1995. He's even been to the playoffs and world series. Surely that's enough ML experience even for the Red Sox.
If he's healthy, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Veras opening at 2B for the Sox.
All else being equal, I'd take a base hit over a walk. So if we're talking about equal OBPs, the more that comes from base hits, the better, in my opinion.
I know the numbers guys will get all over me for this, but I don't think Rickey is that good. He's a hanger-on, hence the longevity-type records. I would contend that no team he was on ever won because of Rickey.. someone pointed to his '85 NYY season as a reason to pick him over Ichiro, well that's an awful year to choose. Hitting behind him Don Mattingly put together one of the best, if not the best, offensive seasons of the 1980s .324/35/145/938OPS.. Rickey was always the beneficiary of a great supporting cast.
By the way: Your 2002 World Champion New York Yankees open camp today!!!
I realize this is sort of a nit to pick, but I think it's questionable whether Hornsby was really a good enough player to deserve two spots in the top 20.
I know Bill James doesn't like Hornsby, but I think he's pretty good. 8 SLG titles, 9 OBP titles. He played in a similar offensive era to Henderson's and put up much better numbers. Was his defense lousy? Well, James thinks so and I'll have to trust him I guess. So move him to 3B or LF and he's still one of the greatest hitters ever. (I don't have a problem leaving him outside the top 20, I guess.)
SM in DC--
Look at it this way, if we assume that they were approximatley equal as hitters that year (which seems fair...Mattingly: .938 OPS, Henderson: .935), Henderson also stole *80* bases and was only caught 10 times, and played LF instead of 1B. It seems clear to me that Henderson was the better player that year.
You Rickey Haters need to get over it. Do you think Saint Don would have driven in 145 runs in '85 if Rickey had not been on base AND IN SCORING POSITION about every third or fourth time Mattingly came to the plate? As Darren astutely pointed out, Rickey's OPS was a mere 3 points behind the left-handed hitting first baseman with the cozy right field bleachers at Yankee stadium.
And longevity records?
Great players, especially the ones you put in any Top 10 had that 'magic' quality to beat you from the bench because you were thinking about them all game long. Rickey never did that.
It's funny that you say that no team ever won because of Rickey, then tout the greatness of Mattingly, whose teams never won anything!
You don't think opposing managers worried about Henderson getting on base?
As for Rickey, its a personal bias... I just don't like the guy. Is he a good player? Without a doubt. Does he put up numbers? Absolutely. Was he a selfish, self-serving prick for most of his career? Yes. Could he play on my team? No chance.
As far as the general question of what "type" of leadoff hitter is better -- high-walk component of OBP vs. high-average component of OBP -- I would say that other things being equal, the high-walk guy is more valuable. Yes the other guy will convert RBI situations better, but those are generally rare for leadoff hitters. More often a leadoff hitter's task is just to get on base, and a walk almost always consumes more pitches than a hit. Moreover, even when high-walk hitters are retired, they have usually consumed more pitches to do it than a high-average hitter. Exacting your "pound of flesh" from the pitcher helps all the other hitters in the lineup.
Most typically cited example:
ALEX RODRIGUEZ
funny you should mention Pete Incaviglia hanging on, he's the guy who signed with the Padres a couple days ago and I assume will be competing for Rickey's role there. The Inky signing may well have contributed to Rickey's departure from SD.
Oh, and most leadoff homeruns ever
Really. Those facts alone cinch it, huh?
Please provide your list of the 21st thru 30th top players of alltime.
Given that these players are so similar, how many slugging titles do we think Ichiro! is going to win before he retires? He better start pounding them out if he wants any chance of being compared favorably to Cobb.
He was born more than two years AFTER Rickey. Six full seasons have passed since he retired.
Mattingly's career OPS was .829.
Rickey's career OPS today, including the last several years of "hanging around", is .822. Considering that he played a great deal in Oakland, a notorious pitcher's park, Rickey probably has a better park-neutral career OPS than Mattingly. Being charitable to Mattingly, call it a wash.
Rickey has had that OPS output over approximately 13,000 plate appearances.
Mattingly did it over approximately 7,600 plate appearances.
Mattingly probably owes a great deal of his RBIs to Rickey's OBP.
Mattingly was comparable to John Olerud. Rickey doesn't know who Olerud is, and probably didn't know who Mattingly was, and 30 years from now the casual fan isn't going to have any idea who Mattingly was either.
But they are going to know the name Rickey Henderson, because he was one of the all-time greats.
No. No, he didn't. Henderson was superior to Mays and Cobb in two skills: running the bases (though Cobb is right on his tail, and Mays not far at all behind either), and drawing walks (though Cobb wasn't bad at this; Mays was not comparable in this regard).
Henderson didn't even begin to compare to either Mays or Cobb as an all-around hitter; he didn't have a whisper of Mays' power or Cobb's ability to hit for average, and, Mays was a better hitter for average than Henderson (how many batting titles did Rickey win?) and Cobb was a better power hitter than Henderson (how many SLG titles did Rickey win?).
Plus, Henderson wasn't a good enough defensive outfielder to be able to play anywhere but left field. Both Cobb and Mays were center fielders, and Mays' defensive skill at the position is probably among the top few of all time.
"Cobb is basically 20 or so years of Ichiro"
No. No, he isn't. You have to understand Cobb's statistical performance in the context of the conditions under which he played. Ichiro is a very good player (though not as good as Rickey, I agree), but Ichiro doesn't even begin to compare with Cobb. Not even close. Cobb was a brilliant all-around hitter with very good power. There was a thread in which we discussed this very issue a couple of months ago, and the general consensus was that Cobb's hitting ability was somewhere in between George Brett and Stan Musial. Ichiro is nowhere near that neighborhood.
"The thing about Rickey is that there is no real comparable player to him in history"
His uniqueness is remarkable. In and of itself, however, it means nothing other than that he is unique.
"the fact that he was ALWAYS the best at what he was makes him one of the top five"
First off, Henderson hasn't ALWAYS been the best; he's had injuries and slumps, and there have been periods in which he wasn't the best leadoff man in the game. Generally he has been, but certainly not ALWAYS.
Second, just being best at one thing isn't the key issue -- the key issue is what's the value of that one thing you're best at. Getting on base is a terrific skill, but hitting home runs is still more valuable. Give me a lineup of 9 Sammy Sosas and I'll beat 9 Rickey Hendersons every time.
"bottom line is he put runs on the board no matter what"
I don't know what this means. Didn't Cobb and Mays put runs on the board no matter what? Didn't Mark McGwire or Ralph Kiner?
Well, that and the fact that Puckett was a CF, while Mattingly was a 1B. Call me crazy, but I think that's pretty significant.
Well, Tom, you're entitled to your opinion, but I assure you that you haven't given me the slightest particle of a reason to agree with it.
No argument that Henderson has a great eye, and his ability to draw walks is excellent. But let's not overdo it here: he's only led his league in walks twice. There have been several other leadoff men in history who were better than Henderson at simply drawing walks: Eddie Yost, Max Bishop, and Richie Ashburn come immediately to mind.
Henderson's exceptional brilliance is that he combined the great speed with very good OBP and decent power. That's the complete combination that no other leadoff hitter has ever displayed as well.
A question has come to mind. IBB's weren't kept track of back in Ruth's day, but surely Rickey has a pretty impressive lead in all-time unintentional walks. He's had only 61 career IBB. And what about the in-season unintentional walk record. Anybody have any idea who holds that record?
Weirdest Rickey top 10 sim score? I'm torn between Le Grand Orange and Brooks Robinson.
Henderson never played more than a few innings in CF.
Rickey was the regular CF for the Yankees in 1985-1986.
Mays has a higher career walk rate than Cobb.
Chris M wrote: Getting back to the other question, it seems to me that one would rather have a high avg/high OBP (I'll call him Young Rickey) over a high walk rate/high OBP guy (let's call him Old Rickey).
Rickey might not have walked as much in his early 20s as he does now, but he always had a superb walk rate. Through his first 6 seasons, he walked once every 5.6 at bats, and had over 100 walks 3 times. I wouldn't exactly call that a low walk rate.
Actually, it was four times?1982, 1983, 1989, and 1998. He's been in the top ten 16 times.
... as for the Don/Rickey debate -- I really regret starting this whole deal... over the length of their careers the edge goes to Rickey, but in '85, I'll still take the AL MVP every day (and twice on Sunday).
Don gives us Yankee fans the same kind of "what if" factor that Munson and Mantle give us -- I wonder if, with a healthy back, would Giambi be taking the mantle from Donnie Baseball?
In his day, there wasn't any player, not Mattingly, not Brett, not Boggs who was more valuable offensively.
The 1973 Go-Go Red Sox
Um ... Wilson stole 83 bases in 1979, before Rickey had had a full-time ML season. Omar Moreno, Ron LeFlore, Lou Brock, Rodney Scott, Larry Lintz, Miguel Dilone -- just among the guys who were very serious base stealers in the 70s. Maury Wills stole 104 bases in 1962.
No argument that Henderson was the best of them all. But the notion that he alone somehow revolutionized the game is just not right.
"In his prime, I don't think there was any player in baseball a team feared more than Rickey Henderson."
I agree with that statement, Robert. But where do you stand on the question of where Rickey rates overall on the all-time list of players? Is he in the top 5, as some have contended in this thread? Top 20? (My judgement is he's somewhere between 20 and 50.)
And BTW, in my opinion pitchers count as players.
If this is true, then pitchers and pitching coaches are stupid. It's far more important for them to focus on getting batters out than it is to prevent stolen bases.
If indeed pitchers shortening their stride with men on base has been just as important a factor in the offensive boom of the 90s as any other factor -- ballparks, weight training, etc. -- then pitchers have made no kind of a reasonable tradeoff at all. It's simply impossible to conclude that allowing more stolen bases to occur would result in more runs scored than allowing fewer hits and home runs would.
The increase in runs scored in the 90s has in fact corresponded with a decrease in stolen bases. If pitchers want to reduce scoring -- and that is of course their job -- and they have a means to do so by lengthening their stride, then they should get to lengthening their stride. If that's all it would take to eliminate the 60 and 70 HR seasons, then pitchers ought to be sued for negligence.
Well, if 'his day' was around 83 to 89, I'd say Boggs was more valuable. But if you're talking whole career, it's pretty close.
Sure it would be ironic if the Sox went and traded for him after taking a pass on him over the winter. But that in and of itself shouldn't be a reason for them not to make such a move, if it turns out to make sense at the time.
I think one of the things that separates good organizations from bad ones is that good organizations don't often allow themselves to get "locked in" or "locked out" of making a given move because of how it might "look." If you sign a guy to a big contract and he turns out to suck, you shouldn't keep playing him just because you signed him to the big contract. And if you choose not to sign a guy because you think he isn't worth it, and later on it appears as though he might be worth it, you shouldn't be afraid to acquire him then.
If teams worried less about "saving face" than making smart moves, they'd be better off.
That said, Pokey sucks.
-- MWE
It's not a transaction, it's a nice gesture.
And if he actually is healthy and capable of contributing .0001 above replacement level, bonus.
There were other Angels than DiSarcina who disliked Edmonds. I'm not sure how they all felt about Kent Bottenfield however.
More details on DiSar in the second item of this notebook story:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/047/sports/Sling_of_bad_luck_haunts_Crawford+.shtml
His greatest liability is that he played leftfield. Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were better, I think. Maybe Stan Musial too, but it's close. Other than that, Mickey Mantle (peak) and perhaps Ty Cobb (though his defensive value was probably less than most people think).
Not too many other outfielders were better.
It's hard to compare infielders or pitchers but I might say Schmidt, Morgan, Wagner, Collins, and Gehrig were better. After that it gets harder for me to make a judgement without doing a hell of a lot of analysis.
I disagree that Boggs was more valuable OFFENSIVELY. Overall, quite possibly he was, since he was a pretty good third baseman. Boggs scored fewer runs than should have been expected based on his stats and I think it was mostly because he was slow. Rickey's runs scored totals in the 80s were phenomenal.
And you and your .321 OBP don't exactly scream "told you so," either.
And if the above quotation is accurate then I wonder why Chris Kahrl isn't also discounting the achievements of Raffy, IRod, ARod and especially Frankie the Cat, since they had all those other great hitters in the lineup making it easy for them to rack up big numbers.
Frankly, I don't think Kahrl's theory amounts to a hill of beans. There isn't a great deal of differnce between the 9th and 11th man on the pitching staff, so a few extra PA against the 10th and 11th men shouldn't have much of an effect.
Listing the pitchers that Sierra hit homeruns off is useless. It's easier to hit homers off bad pitchers - there's a surprise. The sample size is so small (14 homeruns) that any sort of conclusion about Sierra's abilities against good/bad pitching is unwarranted. Why didn't he at least list who Raffy and AROD homered off of by way of comparison.
Why didn't he mention that the other teams in Texas's division all had excellent pitching and defense. With the unbalanced schedule, that should have made life tougher for Texas hitters. The Rangers themselves had very bad pitchers but AROD, Ruben and company were not allowed to pad their stats against them.
Chalk another one up for Kahrl under "stathead" dogma.
There's a double standard at work.
BP types tend to overvalue young unproven players. The fact is that most so-called "excellent" prospects never become quality regulars. The odds are against them. And yet anytime a 30 year old is signed, preventing a young prospect from getting major league playing time, the consensus stathead reaction will be a big thumbs down.
Ruben Sierra was once an all-star. If the Texas Rangers, in scouting Sierra, determined that he was hitting the ball better than he had in years, then that changes the odds that a gamble like that will pay off. Statheads do not have access to that kind of information and yet they pretend to know roughly what the chances of success of the Sierra gamble working out are.
There's no use comparing a Mike Lansing or Gary DiSarcina to Ruben Sierra: those first two never were never all-star types (DiSarcina being an all-out bad player). Jose Canseco would be a better comp for Sierra.
Note also that Sierra was signed by the Texas Rangers to a minor league contract, so it was almost a risk-free gamble.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl827694379d&hl=en&selm=98rebg$ac3$3@bob.news.rcn.net
There was nothing wrong with giving Ruben Sierra playing time last year when Greer and Kapler and Mateo and everybody else all had injury problems. It's always good to have guys that can hit a little lying around.
Tactical mistake:
Leaving your bench filled with Terry Jones, Glen Barker "role player" types, and then throwing them in the lineup when injuries (especially the nagging kind where the guy can't play but you're not ready yet to DL him).
Despite the fact that a bunch of these guys get upwards of 150 at bats or more in a season, you think they'd figure out that these guys bats _do_ matter, and look for guys who can get by defensively and on the basepaths, but can hit a damn baseball. Teams try and get cute and try and fill out a bunch of "roles" instead of just going with the best players available. If you consider Catalanotto an infielder, Sierra was almost certainly one of the five best outfielders the Rangers had (Greer, Mateo, Kapler, Ledee, Sierra). Considering he didn't cost what he used to, I don't see the problem with his presence, since:
a) He wasn't listed as a starter
(Let me say this: I think the Kahrl excerpt posted above _is_ silly. Chris would have looked better to say, "Oops," or "Fluke" for that matter then to come up with silly rationales to explain away Sierra's performance.)
As for Robert's comment about Texas scouts seeing something, that's silly monday morning quarterbacking. They also tried him out the previous year, and he hit 233/281/283. If you take the universe of 700 OPS players and give them 350 plate appearances, several will end up with 800 OPS and a few will end up at the 900 OPS level. Are those few going to be used to indict writers?
BTW, Doug Melvin? Everyone has their decisions criticized, unless they work at McDonalds.
Like him or not, I wouldn't say he was an "all out bad player." Not that its dispositive, but he did make an all-star team, if I'm not mistaken. And its pretty tough to question the value he had to the Angels in the '95 season.
As was hinted at, DiSarcina is considered the point man in running Jim Edmonds out of Anaheim in a deal that at the time and now in retrospect didn't look like a very good one for the Angels.
For a player of DiSarcina's questionable talents, it probably rubbed some Angel fans the wrong way that a questionable player would have the pull to run one of the team's best players out of town.
Adam Kennedy has his uses, but he's not much as payment for Edmonds.
<i>You seem to be forgeting how incompetent Angel management has been over the years. The press in LA sure seemed to play up the fact that Gary was a clubhouse leader that had management's ear.
Start doing back-flips on the way out to the field and you'll be a sure fire first ballot hall of famer.
Since none of us were in the Angles lockerroom than this ENTIRE argument is pure speculation. But that's what makes baseball fun...even Angels baseball.
As for the conjecture thing, go ahead and make any argument you want. It just seems odd to me to criticize an argument as being conjecture, than use conjecture to make a counter-argument, but thats neither here nor there. No hard feelings.
I think it CAN matter on the field if a player is a dick. Clubhouse chemistry can have an effect. It doesn't have to, but it can. I'd put it this way:
If some players are bothered by a teammate's personality or antics, and those players choose to use the fact that they are bothered as an excuse to not prepare or compete as well as they would otherwise, then it will have an on-field effect.
In other words, whether negative clubhouse chemistry has a negative effect on performance is in the hands of the players themselves.
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