I was as surprised as anyone that Ken Griffey Jr was activated today. There were bound to be some odd roster moves made to get him back active and Ruben Mateo was the first casualty. The Reds have a good reason for activating but not playing Junior, but I’m not able to explain it. The plan with Griffey is to play him and hope he helps the team. Good plan. Tim Kremchek was quoted on SportsCenter (via ESPN Radio) as saying there’s “significant risk of his shoulder popping back out while swinging the bat.” I’d like to see the entire quote and I hope my upcoming article on Dr. Kremchek sheds some new light on him. It’s not news that Griffey (and Jeter) have risk of re-injury, and any injury to a superstar player is significant. Teams take risks all the time and they’re not taking one they think they will lose.
On the other hand, it’s getting painful to watch Barry Larkin. I’ve said time and again that if I were a major league player, I wouldn’t hang ’em up gracefully…you’d need to drag me out of the game. At some point, someone needs to grab Larkin and start dragging. Once again, his calf has betrayed him, just another in a series of parts succumbing to age and tarnishing memories. Once he’s gone, we’ll forget the painful end part and remember a great shortstop. Barry, I think it’s time.
Andruw Jones’ defense has declined, the imprisonment of Johan Santana must end once and for all, and B.J. Upton is showing the kind of plate discipline not usually seen among Devil Ray farmhands. Plus other news and notes out of Atlanta, Minnesota, and Tampa.
Your favorite player hit .360 last season. If you know nothing else, what can you expect him to hit this season? This isn’t meant to be a trick question; let’s assume the guy had at least 500 at bats in the previous season. Gates Brown and Shane Spencer need not apply. What’s your best guess? .350? .340? Not likely. The evidence is overwhelming. Let’s look at all hitters since WWII who hit .350 or better in at least 500 at bats; the only other requirement is that they had at least 250 at bats in the year following.
There’s only one game this season I’ve gone back and watched again from start to finish: Mike Mussina’s May 7th start against the Mariners, where he pitched eight innings, gave up five hits, one a homer, struck out 12, and walked none. Mussina’s been otherworldly so far this year, and watching him I know that it’s not that he’s particularly lucky–he’s working with top-shelf stuff and great command. Batters are left walking back to the dugout shaking their heads and asking their hitting coach: “What am I supposed to do with that knuckle-curve he’s throwing for strikes?” And the coach shrugs, because he doesn’t know either.
It was a great game, because it made me sit and think about what pitchers are and become: Mussina was almost forgotten last season, his years of excellence not recent enough, and now he’s offering a traveling clinic on how to pitch.
And this, in turn, leads me to wonder about Freddy Garcia’s failure to move from future ace to ace. I wrote about this a little last September and found that Garcia had been lucky in his good seasons with seeing balls put into play turned into outs by the fine Mariner defense of 2000-2001.
The buzzards are circling over Jerry Manuel, the Cards wouldn’t gain much by swapping Vina for Alomar, and the Rangers’ pitching woes continue. Plus news and notes on Billy Koch, Eli Marrero, and Colby Lewis.
For the second time in a week, Joe dips into the ol’ e-mailbag, this time answering questions about Rafael Palmeiro’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame.
Eli Marrero could be gone for a while, Ken Griffey Jr. could be back soon, El Duque is following in Robb Nen’s footsteps, and Will admits that he soon will Think Different [TM].
The Astros sort through their mess at shortstop. The Brewers have gone high school-happy in the draft. Eric Byrnes creates a pleasant problem in Oakland. Plus news on Richard Hidalgo, David Krynzel, Barry Zito, and Tim Hudson.
If there is any one theme to Baseball Prospectus, it’s that we look at the game in a different way. This is the legacy of Branch Rickey that we all aspire to and hope will change baseball for the better. The stathead outlook is well established, if regularly assailed. The medheads are developing as an offshoot of performance analysis, looking at one new way to analyze things. There is no performance unless a player walks on the field and even then, so many things are colored by health that it is next to impossible to understand performance without understanding health. Kerry Wood throws 141 pitches and we all rail, but he throws zero pitches without the invention of Dr. Frank Jobe and the intervention of Dr. Jim Andrews.
Kerry Wood makes pitch count advocates shriek in horror, Mike Piazza may see a dramatic decrease in his squatting, Jose Canseco is no Jim Bouton, and Billy Beane has some sort of waffle-related disease.
Craig Counsell has played on two World Championship teams, for the Florida Marlins as a rookie in 1997, and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001. After getting off to one of the best starts of his career with a .387 OBP this season while playing everyday at shortstop and third base, Counsell dislocated his right thumb and suffered a torn ligament. He was pronounced out for 10 weeks. After surgery to repair his thumb, Counsell hopes to begin rehab in three weeks, while spending time with his wife Michelle and their first child, born May 3. Counsell recently chatted with BP about coming back from injuries, the virtue of plate discipline, and his approach to hitting.
Yesterday, Rafael
Palmeiro became the 19th player in major-league history to hit 500
home runs, joining the club with a three-run blast to right field in the
seventh inning off the Indians’ David
Elder. His achievement has been met with lukewarm response, unusual
for someone reaching such an important milestone. Not only has no eligible
500-home run hitter ever been left out of the Hall of Fame, none have ever
sparked serious debate over their candidacy.
Palmeiro’s accomplishment, though, is being hailed not as the signature feat
of a great player, but as an example of just how “cheap” home runs
have become in the early 21st century. Palmeiro’s qualifications for the Hall
are being questioned, and he’s being lumped in not with Reggie
and Eddie
and Michael
Jack, but with modern DHs like