Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1878157, member: 289"] THE PLAYERS JASON GIAMBI was a bad guy turned good guy. He built a career on steroids and, after being caught and apologizing, prove he could hit without them, (we hope). After playing for Long Beach State and representing the US on the 1992 Olympic team, Giambi was signed by the Athletics. He made the big club in 1995 and became their regular first baseman. He put up some huge numbers in Oakland, really getting on a roll at the end of the decade: .295-27-110 in 1998; .315-33-123 in 1999; .333-43-137 in 2000; .342-38-120 in 2001. He then left the team to sign with the Yankees, precipitating the “Moneyball” Era in Oakland, at least according to the film of that name. (Actually the Moneyball concepts had been pioneered by Billy Beane’s predecessor, Sandy Alderson before that. Alderson made some of the moves attributed to Beane. And the 2001 team had a higher on base percentage than the 2002 did.) The onslaught continued in New York with a .314-41-122 year in 2002. His power numbers remained excellent the next year as he hit 42 home runs and drove in 107 runs but his batting average mysteriously fell to .250. He reported feeling fatigued. He was tested for several diseases and infections but what they found was a benign tumor in his pituitary gland. He refused to discuss the tumor or even confirm its location. At this point he had already testified in the BALCO case and there was speculation that the tumor could have been related to steroid use. It was a lost season, as Jason only played in 80 games and batted .208 with 12 home runs. Feelings were mixed. He was victim to fans because he had the tumor, (which was successful treated), but also a perpetrator because he was using steroids, which he finally admitted to Congress early the next year. But Jason didn’t just fade away. He recovered to .371-32-87 in 2005, winning Comeback Player of the Year, and .253-37-113 in 2006. A foot injury limited him to 83 games in 2007 in which he hit .236 with 14 home runs but he made another comeback the next year, hitting .247 with 32 home runs. He was now 37 and the injuries were piling up as they tend to for older player. He played for another six seasons but, after playing in 102 games in 2009, he never again hit triple digits. He retired in 2014 having hit .277 with 441 homers lifetime, productive numbers but nothing exceptional in his era. That and the fact that he admitted using steroids, even if he “came clean”, will keep him out of the Hall of Fame. If we accept that the notion that he did not use steroids to make his comeback, he at least proved that you don’t need them to be productive in baseball if you have the natural talent for it. What is interesting is that he did not lose his power: he lost his average. He went from a perennial .300 hitter to the mdi .200 range. Like many sluggers of the era, he was a selective hitter. He over 100 times in seven seasons, with a high of 137. That continues to be an under-rated factor in evaluating the numbers put up in this period. Jason also had a clutch reputation. He was known for his walk-off home runs, including a rare Grand Slam walk off and he was the oldest player ever to hit a walk-off home run at age 42. Like Jose Canseco, he had a brother (Jeremy) who was much less successful than he was, (52 home runs in a 6 year career). TOOD HELTON hit .316 with 369 home runs lifetime. In his peak year, 2000, he won the NL batting title with a .372 average, hit 59 doubles and 42 home runs and drove in 147 runs while scoring 138. He had several other years with close to those numbers. He won 4 silver bats and 3 Gold Gloves for his work at first base. He was not accused of using steroids, (one broadcaster described him as being “on the juice”, but retracted it , saying he meant Creatine and other dietary supplements). He spent his entire career with one team and became “the face of the franchise”. Sure sounds like a Hall-of Famer, doesn’t it? But, like Giambi, he may never get in. He didn’t need steroids because he played in Colorado, where the ball travels 15% farther. Other players have but up big numbers there, too, but they haven’t been taken seriously in MVP voting because of where they play- and how they play when they aren’t there. in his career, Helton hit .345 with 227 homers in 1141 home games, (32 per 162 games). On the road he hit .287 with 142 homers in 1106 games, (21 per 162 games.) If he’d played all 2,247 games of his career in an average stadium, (as represented by his road numbers, he’d be a .287 hitter with 288 home runs. Those are almost the exact numbers of Bobby Abreu. Helton was further held back by back problems that robbed him of much of his power in the last decade of his career. He never hit more than 20 home runs from 2005 onward. He hit 251 home runs in his first 1135 games and 118 in his last 1112 games. So he probably would have bene a 500 home run man if he hadn’t hurt his back. Would that have put him in the Hall of Fame? I don’t know. It still says “Colorado on his jersey. Will they ever have a Hall of Famer out there? Atlanta had one in CHIPPER JONES. He came in at the same time as (the unrelated) ANDRUW JONES, force the rest of baseball to “keep up with the Joneses”, which was hard to do. The first big splash was made by Andruw, (yep, that’s how it’s spelled), who came up as a teenaged center field sensation in 1996. He grew up on the island of Curacao, off the coast of Venezuela, where his father Henry had been the best baseball player there anyone could remember. At 13 Andruw was hitting 400 foot home runs and looked like an adult playing the field. “Andruw’s first big break came when he was spotted by Giovanni Viceisza, a businessman who watched a lot of baseball in his travels around the Caribbean basin. Viceisza doubled as a part-time scout for the Atlanta Braves.” (jockbio.com) Viceisza alerted the braves, who sent scout Paul Snyder to look at him. Snyder timed the 15 year old Jones at 6.73 in the 60 yards dash – with his 46 year old father right behind him. The Braves could not sign him until he turned 16 and sweated it out until then, hoping nobody else would discover the young Phenom. Jones hit .336 for Danville of the Appalachian League in 27 games and immediately was list one of the 10 ten prospect in all of baseball. The next year he was the Minor League Player of the Year, dominating the South Atlantic League at the age of 18, hitting .277 but with 41 doubles, 25 home runs 56 steals, 100 RBIs and 104 runs scored. It had bene 30 years since a player so young hit that many home runs. His one problem would plague him throughout his career: breaking pitches. He struck out 122 times. He started 1996 with Durham in the Carolina League, moved up to Greenville in the Southern League, then Richmond in the IL and finally the braves, who wound up in the World Series. He’s probably the only player who began a season in the Carolina League and wound up in the World Series. For the year he hit .316 with 39 home runs, 33 steals, 106 RBIs and 126 runs scored. He became the youngest player to hit a home run in the World Series, breaking a record that had bene held by Mickey Mantle. But everyone talked about his defense comparing him to Willie Mays. He didn’t turn out to be Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays but he had a very productive career. He played 17 seasons, hitting 434 home runs, driving in 100 runs five times with a high of 129 and scoring 100 four times with a high of 122. He reached the 50 home run plateau, with a high of 51 in 2005. He won ten gold gloves in a row in center field. He had the most put-outs of any Braves center fielder since Sam Jethroe in 1952 and led the league with 20 outfield assists in 1998. But he only hit .254 lifetime and struck out 1,748 times, 129 times per every 162 games. As his career progressed, there were complaints. Some felt he didn’t go all out in playing the game. He seemed to have a “relaxed” playing style. He put on weight over he years, going form 170 pounds to 210. Towards the end of his Gold Glove run some players felt he was getting them more based on reputation than actual achievement. His production declined sharply in 2007, hitting .222 with 26 home runs two years after hitting .263 with 51 homers. He then opted for free agency and played five more injury plagued years for the Dodgers, Rangers, White Sox, and Yankees. He never did play on a championship team, having missed the Braves 1995 title. He wound up trying to review his career in Japan, by now a designated hitter. He officially retired in February 2016. Chipper had already begun his career when Andruw made his spectacular rise. He’d had a cup of coffee with the ’93 braves, spent 1994 nursing an ACL tear. His real debut was with those 1995 braves for whom he hit .265 with 23 homers. He had a big year in 1996, hitting .300 for the first time at .309 with 30 homers, 110RBIs, (the first of 8 straight 100 RBI years) and 114 runs scored, (the first of 6 straight such years). But after the World Series, Andruw was the guy everyone was talking about. The quiet Chipper just concentrated on getting better and better. He stuck out 99 times his first full year but his strikeouts declined through his career. He walked as many as 126 times in a season, He hit .300 ten times, with a high of .364 in 2008 at the age of 36. He was National league MVP in 1999 with .319BA 45HR 110RBI and 116 runs scored. It was his only season with 40+ homers. He wasn’t fast but stole as many as 25 bases early in his career. He never won a Gold Glove at third base. But he performed steadily at a high level through his career and wound up with a .303 lifetime batting average, with 468 home runs in 19 years, all with the Braves. VLADIMIR GUERRERO came up the same time as Andruw Jones and they were lauded as the next great superstars of the game. He was compared to Roberto Clemente because of his powerful arm, which he loved to show off. He had the same capacity as Clemente for swinging aggressively at anything he thought he could hit and yet hitting for high average. But he had more power than Clemente. It just seemed to be a question of how great he could be. He was born in the Dominican Republic so poor he drank from puddles. When he got to Montreal he was so shy due to the language barrier and his lack of education that he rarely talked to anyone and lived in an apartment with his mother. But on the baseball field he was a fish in water and gloried in his own abilities. He hit over .300 for a dozen years in a row from 1997-2008 and hit .318 lifetime. Also hit at least 25 home runs twelve times. His best years were 1999, when he hit .316-42-131, 2000, when he hit .345-44-123, 2002, when he hit .336-39-111 and also stole 40 bases and 2004 when he hit .337-39-126 and had a career high 124 runs scored. Those were numbers Clemente, perhaps because he was stuck in Forbes Field in Ford Frick’s 1960’s, (say that three times, real quick) never obtained. Guerrero jumped to the Angels in 2004 because they had become the first major league team with an Hispanic owner. Injuries began to pile up late in the decade and his performance declined- but not a lot. As late has 2010 he hit .300-29-115 for the Rangers. He retired a year later with his .318 lifetime batting average, 449 home runs and 181 steals. He averaged 34 homers, 113 RBIs and 100 runs scored per 162 games. He wasn’t accused of using PEDs and didn’t make other negative headlines. He was well-liked, even if he kept to himself. He invested some of his baseball earnings in a baseball academy back in his home country. Why isn’t he more famous? These explanations don’t really cover it but here goes: He played in an era of big numbers. He never led the league in batting average, homers or RBis and in runs scored only once. Despite his fearsome throwing arm, he never won a Gold Glove. He played for the Expos, the Angels, the Ranger and Orioles, none of whom won a championship when he played for them. He only played 16 years, not 19-20 and didn’t get to 3000 hits or 500 home runs. He didn’t play in Boston or New York. You’re right. It’s not enough. Why isn’t he more famous? Maybe it was because of ALBERT PUJOLS, who was also from the Dominican Republic and became the most productive hitter of the decade, (since Barry Bonds tailed off in mid-decade). He also had a difficult childhood, due to an alcoholic father who was a baseball pitcher. Young Albert “often had to take his father home when his father got drunk following the games. Growing up, Pujols practiced baseball using limes for balls and a milk carton for a glove.” (Wikipedia). The family emigrated to New York City but, after witnessing a shooting, moved to Missouri, where Albert wound up being drafted by the Cardinals, where he eventually replaced Mark McGwire at first base. He had one of the greatest rookie years any player ever had, hitting .329 with 47 doubles, 37 homers, 130RBIs and 112 runs scored. That became a typical season for Albert. In the first ten years of his career he hit between .312 and .359 with between 33 and 51 doubles, between 32 and 47 home runs, between 103 and 137RBIs and between 99 and 137 runs scored. Even after he began to decline, he was able to hit as many as 40 homers in 2015 and has 110RBIs as of this writing in 2016, (137 games). His batting average did suffer and he hasn’t hit .300 since 2010. He starred for the Cardinals 2006 and 2011 champions. Even with the decline in his batting average, he’s still at .309 lifetime and has 589 home runs and counting. Per 162 games he’s averaged 40 home runs and 121RBI’s, the definition of a “big gun” in the center of your line-up. He’s a big guy, (6-3 240), and he was, like Mike Piazza, a low draft pick (#402). The nature of the times led people to question how he became so productive. There was even an article in Sports Illustrated in which he told fans “You can trust me”. The secret to his consistency seems to have been: consistency. “Pujols's swing has been praised for its consistency. "It's the same swing every time", former teammate Lance Berkman once said. "He has the ability to repeat his swing over and over and over, which leads to him being very consistent", Cardinals' video coordinator Chad Blair said. Sports Illustrated writer Daniel G. Habib described the swing as "quick" and "quiet." Pujols uses a 32.5-ounce bat against right-handed pitchers, but he uses a 33-ounce bat against left-handers to avoid trying to pull the ball when he swings. He has credited his hitting ability partly to guessing what pitchers will do: “I can tell right away from the first pitch if they're going to pitch to me or not with men on base. I need to be aggressive and make sure I look for my pitch and be ready. If it's there, be ready to swing. If it's not there, take it. There's just something there in my mind and you know right away the situation will dictate the situation you're in.” (Wikipedia) Or maybe it was because of DAVID ORTIZ, still another Dominican slugger. Ortiz had a slow start to his career due to wrist and knee injuries. In six seasons with the Twins, he played 455 games and hit .266 with 58 home runs. He wasn’t much of a fielder, mostly DHing. The Twins released him when they couldn’t find anyone who wanted him in a trade. It seemed the end of an unremarkable career. Then the Red Sox took a chance on him. He started out as a bench player, pinch-hitting and occasionally batting as the DH. Then Grady Little decided he might be better than Jeremy Giambi. He was right. “Big Papi “ became a modern Babe Ruth for the Red Sox- a legendary slugger who came through over and over again the clutch. A huge, guy carrying a lot of weight but a big smile to go with it. He helped bring the Red Sox not one but three championships, (the name number Ruth won with the team), after 86 years of futility. He became the most popular player in baseball. Ortiz hit 8 home runs in July 2003 and 11 in August. He wound up hitting .288-31-101, with much more to come. In the Sox breakthrough year of 2004, he hit .301-41-139, then topped that with .300-47-148 in ’05 and .287-54-137 in ’06. He never hit that many home runs again but in their second championship year of 2007, Ortiz hit only 35 homers with 117RBis but batted .332. A wrist injury slowed him in 2008 and he got off to a terrible start in 2009. In the first 34 games he hit .206 and had no homers in 178 at bats. He was 33 years old by now. Was he beginning to lose it? He eventually broke out of his =slump but hit only .238 with 28 homers. He’d been critical of PED users but in 2009 it was revealed that he’d tested positive in 2003. “Ortiz held a press conference before a game at Yankee Stadium and denied ever buying or using steroids and suggested the positive test might have been due to his use of supplements and vitamins at the time. When asked which supplements he had been taking, Ortiz said he did not know.” People forgave him for any transgression and it was virtually forgotten, quite a contrast to Barry Bonds, who was disliked and became the symbol of the steroids era. He also made a strong comeback on the field. He hit 32 homers with 101 RBIs in 2010, then .309-29-96 in 2011. He tore his Achilles tendon in 2012 and only played 90 games but hit .318 with 23 homers. The next year came the Boston Marathon bombings and it was Ortiz who spoke for the Red Sox and gave an uncensored but honest statement: “"This is our () city, and no one is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong." Big Papi was the symbol of “Boston Strong”. He hit .309-30-103 in 137 games and led the Red Sox to a third championship. He hit .295-17-60 in 82 post season games for his career, including 20 for 44, (.455) in the World Series with 3 homers and 14 RBIs in 14 games. But he wasn’t done. In 2014 he hit 35 homers with 104 RBIs, then 37 with 108 in 2015. As of this writing he’s hitting .318-33.114 with a league high 45 doubles in 2016. He’s announced his retirement, despite those numbers, telling a bewildered Mike Trout “You don’t have my feet” to explain it. Lifetime he has hit .286 with 536 home runs, (tied with Mickey Mantle), and 1,752 RBIs. Per 162 games he hit 36 homers with 119 RBIs. Another great hitter who was primarily a DH was Seattle’s EDGAR MARTINEZ. He was not a Dominican. His family was from Puerto Rico but he was born in New York. He was still a third baseman when he won his first batting title with a .343 average in 1992 but became the first DH batting champion with .356 three years later. He batted over .300 eleven times in his career, including over.320 eight times. His lifetime batting average was .312. He wasn’t the slugger that Pujols and Ortiz were but he hit 309 home runs, with a high of 37 in 2000 and 514 doubles with a high of 52, (twice). He retired in 2004. He was a part-time player his first three of 18 years. He didn’t play in the field after 1995. He played his entire career with the mariners. These things were not helpful in getting him recognition outside of Seattle, where they named a street after him. He’s never gotten more than 43% of the vote in Hall of Fame elections, (75% is needed). But the New York Yankees know who Edgar Martinez was. In 1995 Martinez hit .571 (12 for 21) against them in the playoffs and was on base 18 times in 5 games, driving in 10 runs and scoring 6. In game four he hit a 3 three run homer to tie a game and a grand slam to break it open. Then in game 5, he hit the game-winning double in the 11th inning. I’ll bet his home town would vote for him. As good as he was, Martinez never created the excitement of ICHIRO SUZUKI, who came over from Japan. Nintendo, a Japanese company, bought the Mariners in 1992 and so the franchise was a natural entrée into major league baseball for the Japanese star. He turned 27 that year but had been playing with the Orix Blue Waves since the age of 18, for whom he’d hit a cumulative .353 with a high of .385. Unlike most of the stars of this era, Suzuki, or Ichiro, as everybody called him, was not a slugger, which caused some people to under-rate him. I remember Colin Cowherd making the ridiculous, (and attention grabbing) statement that Suzuki’s presence in the line-up ”was proof that the Mariners don’t have a commitment to winning”. Well, in his first season in Seattle, they won 116 games, breaking the 1998 Yankee’s American League record and tying the 1908 Cubs’ major league record. He was major reason why. He hit .350 with 34 doubles, 8 triples and 8homers and stole 56 bases. He drove in 69 runs, a good total for a lead-off man. More importantly for a lead-off man he scored 127 runs. He also was superb in the field, with a strong and accurate throwing arm. He won the first of 10 straight gold gloves that year and was named both AL MVP and rookie of the year. Basically, he did everything but hit home runs and did everything else better than most of the home run hitter did it. And he was as consistent as a metronome, hitting over .300 ten years in a row, with a high of .372. He scored over 100 runs eight times. He played over 160 games 8 times and over 150 another 5 times. He’s still playing at the age of 42, now for the Marlins. His combined numbers for an incredible 25 season career in Japan and the US are a .324 (literally) lifetime batting average with 4,305 hits, (more than Pete Rose), of which 918 were for extra bases and 2,053 runs scored. He’s already in the Japanese Hall of Fame and entrance into Cooperstown seems inevitable as well. Unless Colin Cowherd is doing the voting. CARLOS DELGADO came north from Puerto Rico to star for the Toronto Blues Jays, (and their Syracuse farm team), and later the New York Mets, which gives him a special place in my heart. He was a big, handsome, proud guy who hit with power and thought with power, too. Wikipedia: “Delgado was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico to Carlos "Cao" Delgado and Carmen Digna Hérnandez. He grew up in the El Prado section of Aguadilla.There, he attended elementary school alongside his three siblings.[2] Both his father, "Don Cao", and his grandfather, Asdrúbal "Pingolo" Delgado, were well-known figures in the town. Carlos has said that this made him feel "protected", but that it also demanded that he had to behave properly. Carlos attended Agustín Stahl Middle School and José de Diego High School, from which he graduated in 1989. Delgado has expressed his strong feelings of pride in being an Aguadillano, noting everything he holds dear is found in the municipality, and his off-season house is located there. He developed friendships with several of the town's inhabitants, with whom he began playing baseball in the little leagues.” He broke in to the majors with a bang in 1994, hitting 8 home runs in April. He slumped badly after that and wound up the season in Syracuse, which was allowed to keep him through the end of the season, including the playoffs due to the strike. The (Sky)Chiefs also had him at the beginning of the enxt season. Carlos played a total of 175 games in Syracuse during which he hit .318 with 41 homers and 132RBI. His bat led Syracuse to the finals of the 1994 Governor’s Cup and he was on the last Chiefs team to win a post season game. He finally stuck in Toronto in 1996 and played for them for the next 9 seasons. After a year with the Marlins, the Mets, who had almost signed him out of high school, finally got his services for the 2006 season and he led their renaissance. From 2006-2008 they had the best team in the National League but couldn’t seem to close the deal, losing to the Cardinals in the 2006 playoffs and being caught by the Phillies in the final games of the season the next two years. But it was hardly Carlos’ fault. He hit 100 home runs in those three years and drove in 316. His average output from the 1996 season through 2008 was .282-35-112. He wasn’t a .300 hitter normally but did reach that mark three times with an surprising high of .344 in 2000. He hit over 40 homers three times with a high of 44 and had 134, 137 and 145 RBIs in those seasons. In 2009 he became the first player to hit a home run into the Pepsi Porch at Citi Field. “Eight days later on May 18, the Mets announced that Delgado had a bone spur and a torn labrum in his hip, and he would have to undergo surgery.[22] The Mets reported the next day that the surgery was successful and Delgado would be out for approximately ten weeks, which would delay his quest for 500 home runs.” (Wikipedia). He never got there. He was never able to come back that season. “In February 2010, Delgado underwent another hip operation, this time to reconstruct the labrum on his right hip; he also underwent a micro-fracture procedure on his hip socket. Although Delgado had reportedly received interest from Major League clubs (including the Mets and Florida Marlins), he felt pain in his hip and decided to undergo the second surgery to be better prepared for the coming season.” the Red Sox signed him to a minor league contract. But the best he could do for Pawtucket was to hit three singles in 13 at bats. He announced his retirement early the next year, winding up with 473 home runs, a total that would have put him in the Hall of Fame in a different generation. Delgado was a social activist who protested the use of the island of Vieques in his native Puerto Rico for bomb testing and also the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. “Delgado protested the war by silently staying in the dugout during the playing of "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch. Delgado does not make a public show of his beliefs, and even his teammates were not aware of his views until a story was published in July 2004 in the Toronto Star. Delgado was quoted as saying "It's a very terrible thing that happened on September 11. It's (also) a terrible thing that happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, ... I just feel so sad for the families that lost relatives and loved ones in the war. But I think it's the stupidest war ever." The story was the subject of a media frenzy, mostly in New York, where on July 21, 2004, as was anticipated, Delgado was booed by Yankee fans for his passive protest during a game at Yankee Stadium.[36] Delgado had explained that the playing of "God Bless America" had come to be equated with a war in which he didn't believe. In a New York Times interview, Delgado said this is what he believed in, and "It takes a man to stand up for what he believes." (Wikipedia) That’s how I’ll remember Carlos Delgado- as a man. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?