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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1910894, member: 289"] THE PLAYERS The “post-steroids era” brought back an emphasis on all-around players, guys who could hurt you, (or help you, depending on how you look at it), in many ways, one of which was to hit the ball of the fence from time to time. One player who had a full skills et who could hit the ball over the fence more than just occasionally was CARLOS BELTRAN. He came up with the Royals and was lauded as the team’s next superstar, posing with George Brett. He seemed to always disappoint people yet he’s put together quite a career. He would have a bad season every few years and that frustrated people who expected him to be good all the time. In his first full year, 1999, he hit .293, belted, (Beltran and Adrian Beltre both hit a lot of home runs and had great names for it), 22 home runs, stole 27 bases, drove in 108 RBIs and scored 112 runs. He also led the league with 395 put outs and 16 assists as a center fielder. He was a five tool player. He followed that great year up with .247-7-13-44-49. The pitchers were finding the weaknesses in his swing. He had trouble with breaking pitches. He was also accused of loafing in the field. He even lost his job as the starting center fielder. He came back with four straight 100 RBI, 100 runs scored seasons. He averaged 70 extra base hits a year, including 29 home runs and also averaged 37 steals 411 put-outs and 12 throw-outs. In the last of these years, his contract was running out and negotiations were at an impasse so the Royals traded him to the Astros just before the All-star game, which produced a bizarre situation. He’d been selected as the AL’s starting center fielder for the All Star game but was no longer in the Al at the time of the game. Ken Griffey Jr. was the NL’s starting center fielder but he was on the disabled list so Beltran was named his substitute. He had been selected for one All-Star team, then played for the other team! But what people remember is how he played for the Astros. He only hit .258 but hit 23 homers and stole 28 bases in 90 games, driving in 53 runs and scoring 70. For the year he hit 38 homers, stole 42 bases, drove in 104 runs and scored 121. But even that paled to his work in the playoffs, where he went 20 for 46 (.435) with 8 home runs, 14 RBI and 21 runs in 12 games. He set a record with five straight post season games in which he hit a home run, a record broken last year by Daniel Murphy. He then signed with the New York Mets who were delighted that they were getting a superstar. Beltran fizzled, hitting .266 with 16 homers, 17 steals, 78 RBIs and 83 runs scores. A quad injury and a collision with Mike Cameron that gave him vertigo for a time didn’t help but he seemed to succumb to the pressure of maintaining his incredible performance of the previous year. Some Met fans, (including a local radio host), still view Beltran as a failure or at least a disappointment during his tenure with the Mets based on his first year there. In fact, he again came back with a number of highly productive years. On a team full of stars like Carlos Delgado and youngsters David Wright and Jose Reyes, Beltran was the best all-around player, hitting .275 but with 95 walks, a career high 41 homers, 18 steals, 118 RBis and 127 runs scored despite missing 22 games. He also had 375 put outs and a dozen assists from center field. He made only 2 errors for a .995 fielding percentage and won his first Gold Glove. Unfortunatley he made the alst out in the NLCS against the Cardinals with his bat on his shoulder, taking a curve for a third strike and that’s what Mets fans remember most from that season, even though Carlos hit 3 home runs in that series and scored 8 times in 7 games. He followed that up with .276-33-23-112-93 and .284-27-25-112-116 and winning two more Gold Gloves in 2007-08. In 2009, the year everybody got injured, Carlos was hitting .325-10-11-48-50 when his season ended. Carlos had one of the highest stolen base percentages in history, 87.7%. he also scored many runs for his batting average and on-base percentage of .282-.354. he scored over 100 runs 7 times and averaged 100 runs scored per 162 games. But the injuries piled up. He had unauthorized knee surgery in January 2010 and was unavailable until July 15. He played only 64 games and hit .255 with 7 homers and 3 steals. The next year the Mets were cutting payroll due to their financial crisis and traded Beltran, who was having a decent comeback year with .289 and 15 homers in 98 games, to the Giants, 9for Zach Wheeler). The Giants were the first of four teams the aging Beltran has played for since. He’d lost his speed and wasn’t a center fielder any more. But he hit .311 with 7 homers in 44 games for the Giants. The next year he had 32 homers and 97RBI for the Cardinals and followed that up with a .296 year with 24 home runs. He wound up back in new York with the Yankees and didn’t do much his first two years but came back strong at age 39 in 2016, hitting .304 with 22 homers in 99 games before the Yankees, going for youth, traded him to the Rangers. As of this writing he’s .297-28-92 on the season. In 19 seasons he has 2,615 hits with 536 doubles, 420 home runs and 312 steals. He was an excellent center fielder in his prime and a superb baserunner. Someday surprised Royals and Mets fans may find him on a plaque in the Hall of Fame. When DAVID WRIGHT came up with the Mets, a scout said “he’s the type of guy you can hand third base to and not worry about it for a decade. And that’s about how long he lasted. The Mets have had 162 third basemen in their history. I’ve seen comical montages of all their baseball cards. But David has played 1,585 games there, almost twice as much as the next man, Howard Johnson, (811). As of this writing, his career may be over due to spinal stenosis and a neck injury. It’s been quite a run. David grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where the Mets triple A farm teams was and was a fan not only of the Tides but also their parent team. It was a dream comes true when the Mets drafted him. He had been planning to go to college but put that off to sign with his favorite team. David worked his way up the Mets farm system, hitting .341 with 35 doubles, 18 homers and 22 steals in 91 minor league games. Then he took over at third base for the big club at age 21 and hit .293 with 14 home runs the rest of the season. The next four years he hit over .300 each year with a high of .325, and averaged 29 homers, 22 steals, 112 RBIs and 106 runs scored. He won Gold Gloves in 2007-08. He is a boyishly handsome guy. I remember a co-worker who had his picture in her cubicle and smiled at it when she came in every day. He also had a lot of leadership ability and became a spokesman both for and to the team. He could often be seen talking to players in the dugout, not with angry lectures but with encouragement and teaching. He became the face of the franchise and the team captain. The opening of Citi Field was a splendid occasion but did not yield splendid recruits for a power hitter, due to the expansive outfield fences. . In 2009, David hit .307 but had only 10 home runs and 72 RBIs. He tried to make up for it with 27 steals. Then came the injuries. He was beaned in August 2009 and suffered a concussion. His back was first injured in 2011 when he developed a stress fracture in his lower back after collision at third. In 2012 he fracture the little finger of his right hand diving back to firs to avoid a pick-off. He hurt a hamstring in 2013. In 2014 it was a “eft rotator cuff contusion”. In 2015 it was his hamstring again, followed by the diagnosis of spinal stenosis, an old man’s disease. In 2016 it was herniated disc in his neck. He bravely fought through all this to hit 29 homers with 103 RBIs in 2010 and .306-21-93 with 41 doubles in 2012. He hit .3017 with 18 home runs in 112 games in 2013. But he hit .269 with only 8 homers in 134 games in 2014 and has played only 75 games in the last two years. He still has his youthful looks but he has the body of an much older man and, at age 33, he may be done. Lifetime, he’s a .296 hitter with 242 homers and 196 steals. But if you look at his numbers per 162 games, he’s averaged 25 homers, 20 steals 99RBI and 97 runs scored. People are calling him the Mets version od Don Mattingly, who hit .307 with 222 homers, 20 per 162G with 100 RBI and 91 runs. It seems to fit. We wonder what might have been but we know what was. At the same time Wright came up, right next to him was another star quality player in JOSE REYES. Take away that pesky “W” and they are alliterative: Wright and Reyes. He was good fielder with a strong arm. He could hit and had some power. But the big thing with Jose was his speed. He was greased lightning on the base paths and a reason unto himself to see a Mets game. In 2001 in the South Atlantic league he hit .307 with 15 triples and 30 steals. The next year, for two teams he had 19 triples and 58 steals. He was called up halfway through the 2003 season and hit .307 with 19 extra base hits and 13 steals in 69 games. The next year his season debut was delayed until June 19th due to a hamstring injury. I still remember him run with a limp but still doing it faster than any other player on the team. But a back injury limited him to 53 games in which he stole 19 bases and scored 33 runs. The next year he was fully healthy and played 161 games, hitting .273 with 17 triples and 60 steals, scoring 99 runs. But he only hit 7 home runs. In the Mets’ big year of 2006, Jose’s talents were on full display. He hit .300 with 194 hits, 30 doubles, 17 triples, 14 homers, 64 steals, 81 RBIs from his lead-off positon and he scored 122 runs. I remember people wondering who would wind up having thee greater career: Derek Jeter who was in mid-career and already had played on 6 pennant winners and 4 World Series championships or Jose who was just starting out on a career that seemed to some just as promising. He continued to be the most productive lead-off hitter in the league with 60 extra base hits and 78 steals with 119 runs scored din 2007 and 72-56-113 in 2008 but the Mets were caught by the Phillies in the final week of the season each time. What happened in 2009? He got injured, of course. The Mets had 20 players on the DL that year for a combined 1,436 days, an average of 72 days per player. Someone figured out that they were the most injured major league baseball team since the 1953 Cincinnati Reds. Jose outdid even his teammates, sustaining three injuries. He strained a calf, then tore it, then tore a hamstring. He played in 36 games that year. He came back in 2010 to hit .282 with 50XBH and 30 steals. In 2011 He won the NL batting title with .337 with 54 XBH and 39 steals and 101 runs scored. But with the Mets’ financial problems they didn’t feel they could re-sign him . he became a Miami marlin, a Toronto Blue Jay and a Colorado Rockies. He still put up good numbers. He hit .287 with 60XBH and 40 steals for Miami. His numbers declined after that, not by a lot but he seemed kind of lost in the woods, on the periphery of baseball, playing for mediocre teams away from the spotlight. He got in serious trouble with a domestic violence charge that got him suspended for the first 51 games of the 2016 season. The charges were eventually dropped as his wife refused to cooperate with the prosecution. The Mets were back in contention but they were not scoring runs because of a home-run heavy offense that could not manufacture runs. They decided to take a chance on Jose despite the legal troubles and allegations that his skills were declining, (the Rockies had assigned him to their Triple A team in the PCL). Jose seemed re-energized by returning to the Mets. He’s hit .268 with 25 XBH, 9 steals and 45 runs scored in 57 games. The Mets scoring has gone up from 3.7 runs per game to 4.6 and the team ahs somehow stayed in contention for the wild card despite losing three starting pitchers, all three basemen and a reserve outfielder to injury. Jose is playing David Wright’s old positon, third base, for the first time in his career and he’s playing it very well. He may not be Derek Jeter but he is Jose Reyes and that’s plenty. The Mets seemed set to be the dominant team in the National league in the late 2000’s but JIMMY ROLLINS and his Philadelphia teammates had other ideas. He proclaimed his team “the team to beat” in the NL East. And they eventually backed up his words, catching the Mets in the final week in both 2007 and 2008 and won the World Series in the latter year- the second in Phillies history. They repeated as pennant winners in 2009 as the Mets fell apart but lost to the Yankees in the series. There were other stars on that team- Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels but Jimmy Rollins was the leader of that team and their spokesman. I remember seeing him interviewed on 60 Minutes once and wishing my Mets players were being interviewed on 60 Minutes. I’ve always thought the mets and Phillies could become a National league East version of the Yankees and the Red Sox but the teams never seem to be good at the same time. Wikipedia: “Growing up, Rollins admired Rickey Henderson, one of the best leadoff hitters in MLB history, and especially early in his career, sought to emulate Henderson at the plate. This contributed to his propensity to swing early in the count, and chase high pitches, seeking to hit home runs rather than get on base, the stereotypical role of a leadoff hitter. Consequently, he struggled to make contact with the ball, striking out too much, and rarely walking. To help alleviate those predominantly negative tendencies, he worked with Tony Gwynn, Sr. prior to the 2003 season to work on using the whole field, and hit more ground balls than pop-ups. Overall, he "always had a hard time accepting that he is vertically challenged at 5-foot-8", which contributed to his inclination to strive to hit for power rather than contact, and to seek to pull the ball rather than use the whole field.[85] The Phillies all-time leader in hits, he also is second in Phillies history in stolen bases….A "supreme defensive shortstop", Rollins has won four Gold Glove Awards, and only Omar Vizquel has a better fielding percentage among shortstops who have played at least 10 seasons. Rollins attributes some of his defensive prowess to experience, noting that he has played in MLB for a long enough time to know most hitters' tendencies and to learn how to read swings, both of which help him appropriately position himself to get to as many balls as possible. In their 2011 season preview, Lindy's Sports commented that Rollins is an upper-echelon shortstop "with soft hands, excellent agility and plus range left and right", going on to praise his strong throwing arm, especially from the hole.” Rollins became the Phillies’ regular shortstop in 2001 and was a triples machine, hitting 89 of them in his first 8 seasons, with a high of 20. But he hit 306 doubles, (high of 45) and 125 home runs, (high of 30) in those years. He’s never hit .300 in his career but he was flying around the bases so much nobody cared. He scored over 100 runs six times, with a high of 139 in 2007, probably his best overall year. He hit .296, with 212 hits, 38 doubles, 20 triples, 30 homers, 41 steals and 94 RBIs to go with all those runs. He was a force of nature and MVP of the league. He didn’t fall apart after that and continued to be productive until this past season. He played for the Phillies until 2014, then moved on to the Dodgers and then the White Sox released him on June 10th. His numbers may not quite get him to the Hall of Fame: a .264 batting average with 237 homers and 470 steals. But he had 857 extra base hits, was for a time perhaps the best player in the game and the face of one it’s best teams. Another thorn in the side of my Mets was HANLEY RAMIREZ, who not only helped his Marlins eliminate the Mets in both 2007 and 2008 but got mad at the Mets for celebrating a must win over the Marlins prior to the 2008 elimination. But even a Mets fan could see he was a major talent. His problem was sustaining excellence. Ramirez was big for a short stop: 6-3 195 and he became bigger, currently 235 pounds, making him perhaps the biggest shortstop of all time. He started out as a switch-hitter in the minors but had greater success when he switched to the right side full time. He was never a great defensive player but his offense was so strong to many it didn’t matter. But when his offense faded, he became trade bait. Ramirez started out as a Red Sox prospect but was traded for the Marlins and played his first full season with them in 2006. He had one of the best rookie season ever with a .292 average, 46 doubles, 11 triples, 17 home runs, 51 steals and 119 runs scored. He was an obvious choice for rookie of the year. The next year he had almost the same year except he hit .332 and belted 29 home runs. He had 48 doubles, 51 steals and scored 125 runs. His RBIs went from 59 to 85. He continued to improve in 2008. His batting average fell to .301 but he hit 33 home runs and walked 92 times giving him a .400 on base percentage. He scored another 125 runs, to lead the league. In 2009 he won the batting title, hitting .342. with 24 homers and had his first 100 RBI year with 106. In 2010 he had a dispute with his manager, Fredi Gonzalez over claims he didn’t hustle. But it was Gonzalez who lost his job soon afterwards. He still put up good numbers, hitting .3000 for the fourth straight year, on the nose, with 21 homers and 32 steals. In 2011, he had his first down year, aggravated by a shoulder injury. But even before that he was performing at a low ebb. He wound up hitting .243 with 10 home runs in 92 games. Jack McKeon benched Ramirez as soon as he took over the job in mid year. In 2012 when the Marlins signed Jose Reyes, they wanted Hanley to switch to third base, which he did very reluctantly. He was traded to the Dodgers July 25. The trade to Los Angeles and a switch back to shortstop seemed to revitalize Ramirez. He’d hit .246 for the Marlins but .271 for the Dodgers. Overall he was .257 with 24 homers. In 2013 he missed 6 weeks due to a broken thumb and later had a hamstring problem. But he came off the DL to help ignite a 46-10 run that brought the Dodgers the divisional pennant. He hit a career high .345 with 20 home runs that year in only 86 games. He hit .500 agaisnt the Braves but only .133 agaisnt the Caridnals in the playoffs before having his season end with fractured ribs after he was hit by a pitch. In 2015 he returned to his original team, the Boston Red Sox. He slumped with the , (.249 but with 19 home runs in only 105 games), and his fielding continued to be a problem. He was shut down due to injuries on August 26. But then he made another comeback, moving to first base, a place where his huge body seemed more at home. he’s helped lead the Red Sox to the AL East title with .288, 25 home runs and a career-high 110 RBIs, so he isn’t done yet. At age 32, he could have several good season left. He’s presently a a .295 lifetime hitter with 239 home runs and 276 steals. But he hasn’t fulfilled the promise of those first few seasons. GRADY SIZEMORE got off to a great start but injuries prevented him from having as productive a career as the others on this list. Grady came up with the Indians in 2004. He was a classic center-fielder. He hit only .246 in 43 games that same year but his signature line was in doubles, triples, homers and steals: 6-2-4-2. The next year he played 158 games and upped his batting average to .289 with 37 doubles, 11 triples and 22 homers and steals. He drove in 81 runs, a lot for lead-off hitter and scored 111. In 2006 he upped just about everything, playing in all 162 games, hitting .290 with 53 doubles, 11 triples, 28 homers and 22 steals. He drove in 76 and scored 134 runs. One bad thing was his tednecany to strike out. He did walk 78 times but struck out 153 times. He never did bat higher than .290 because of his impatience at the plate. He was strictly “see the ball…hit the ball”. 2007 was the height of his career. He was the subject of a Sports Illustrated cover story in which Indians' general manager Mark Shapiro calls Sizemore "without a doubt one of the greatest players of our generation”. He won his first of two straight Gold Gloves that year and played in another 162 games, hitting .2777 with 63 extra base hits, 33 steals, a career high 101 walks but with a career high 155 strikeouts. But he had 78 RBIs and 118 runs score. In 2008 he hit a career high 33 home runs and won the Silver Slugger award. He became a 30-30 man with 38 steals and a career high 98 RBIs with 101 runs scored. Then came the injuries. He had a sprained ankle in 2008. In 2009 he Injured his left groin that resulted in a hernia. He had an operation for that and also on his left elbow. In 2010 he had micro-fracture surgery on his left knee. And in 2011 on his right knee. In 2012 he had back surgery. It left his career in ruins. He played only 210 games from 2009-2011 and none at all in 2012 or 2013. He tired a comeback in 2014-2015 with three different teams playing in another 209 games. But the numbers weren’t there: His batting averages ranged from .253-.211. he hit a total of 39 home runs and 88 other EBH with 26 steals from 2009-2015. He hasn’t retired but also didn’t play in 2016. He’s 33 years old. [I]For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been' . - John Greenleaf Whittier [/I] MICHAEL YOUNG labored in relative obscurity but had a pretty strong career anyway. Bud Poliquin has suggested that If he played for the Yankees and Derek Jeter played for the Rangers, Young would be the more famous player. Mike Lindsley jumped all over that, citing Jeter’s career numbers which were superior to Young’s. But he didn’t acknowledge that Young’s career began later so his career numbers weren’t going to have caught up to Jeter’s. Also, Bud had not said that young was the better player: just that if they switched teams, Young would be more famous. And he probably would. Young came up as a second baseman in 2001, then switched to shortstop the next year. He was their shortstop for the next 11 seasons, during which he hit over .300 seven times, with a high of .338 in in 2011, when he led the league in hits with 213. He won the batting title with .331 and a league-leading 221 hits in 2005. Like Jeter, he had some home run power but was not a threat to lead the league. He had four 20 home run season, with a high of 24 2005. He was doubles machine, getting as many as 52 in 2006. He had two 100 RBI seasons and four more with 90+ and a high of 106 in 2011. He scored 100+ runs four times with a high of 114 twice. He wasn’t a big-time base stealer but he hit double figures four times. His walk-to-strikeout ratios were not impressive. He won a Gold Glove in 2008 and participated in 7 All-star games, winning MVP in 2006. Here is his career average with the figures per 162 games: .300BA .346OBP .441SP 47W 102S 195H 36D 5T 15HR 7SB 85RBI 93RS 340 bases and 163 runs produced. Here are Jeter’s: .310BA .377OBP .440SP 64W 109S 204H 32D 4T 15HR 21SB 77RBI 113RS 371 bases and 175 runs produced. So I guess Jeter was slightly better. But Young was good enough that the Yankees could have won championships with him. And I don’t know that Jeter would have pushed the Rangers to a title. I think Bud is right. CURTIS GRANDERSON extended his career by re-inventing himself. Like Sizemore, he came up in 2004 (with the Tigers) as a fleet center fielder who had some pop in his bat. He wasn’t as good a fielder, (he has no throwing arm), but he put up Sizemore-like numbers: In his first full year, (2006), he hit .260 – with a league-leading 174 strike-outs, 31 doubles, 9 triples and 19 homers. He had only 8 steals but score 90 runs and drove in 68, again, good for a lead-off hitter. His big year in Detroit was 2007 when he became the 4th player in major league history to achieve at least 20 in every hit category and steals. His batting average was.302 on 185 hits of which 38 were doubles, 23 triples, 23 home runs and he stole 26 bases. He drove in 74 runs and scored 122. His numbers declined after that but he remained productive with 61 EBH and 112 runs scored in 2008 and 30 home runs in 2009. After that the cash-strapped Tigers traded him to the Yankees. His first year he only batted .247 with 24 home runs. Granderson looked at the cozy dimensions of the new Yankee Stadium and decided to really swing for the fences. In 2011 he mashed 41 home runs, added 26 doubles, 10 triples and 25 steals and drove in 119 runs, scoring 136. He only batted .262 and struck out and alarming 166 times but his production was so good he won a silver slugger award. He did walk 85 times and was the first play ever to have 10 triples, 40 homers and 25 RBIs. He followed that up with a 43 home runs, 106 RBI season in 2012 but only batted .232 and struck out a ridiculous 195 times. His 2013 season was ruined by being hit by his being hit by pitches: one broke his right forearm in spring training and another broke a knuckle on his left hand after he finally came back. He somehow managed to play in 61 games but hit .229 with only 7 homers. The Yankees let him go as a free agent and my beloved Mets singed him. I wasn’t sure it was a good move because of Grandy’s low batting averages and high strike-outs and the Mets played in a pitcher’s park where home runs were hard to come by, although the team moved the fences in to try to change that. Curtis moved to right field, where his arm was even more of a liability and back into the lead-of spot. He’s since become one of my favorite players. He crouches down to give the pitcher the smallest possible strike zone. He still hits for power and stiles out too much but he walks a lot, (as many as 91 times) and has gotten his on-base percentages into the mid .300’s , which still isn’t ideal for a lead-off hitter but with his power and speed still makes him an effective player, (he’s scored as many as 98 runs. And he kits big home runs, including becoming the first player to ever hit two extra inning home runs in the same game. He has set a franchise record with 17 lead-off home runs. He can also be a clutch fielder, as shown by his tremendous catch in this year’s wild card game. He’s also a great teammate, a very well spoken representative of the team and the game, (as far back as 2007, he was being hired as a studio commentator for playoff games when his team wasn’t in them), an ambassador for the game abroad. “He has traveled to England, Italy, the Netherlands, France, South Africa, China, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan to promote baseball.” (Wikipedia) he’s also got the Grand Kids Foundation, which raises money for inner city kids and has “served as something of an unofficial baseball ambassador to the African-American community, often participating in and initiating dialogue about the lack of black players at all levels of the sport/” (same). He donated $5 million to build a baseball station at his alma mater, Illinois-Chicago. Commissioner Bud Selig said of him “There are so many fine young men playing Major League baseball today, but I can think of no one who is better suited to represent our national pastime than you." I guess I can live with the strike-outs. [/QUOTE]

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