Archive for October, 2009
To complete the minor league week here on Batters Box let’s look at the movement in the top 30 lists from 2008 to 2009. Five players graduated to the major leagues, replaced by five players who are new to the organization since last season. Thirteen players dropped off the list from 2008 and thirteen players made it on to the lists despite being overlooked last year.
Graduates:
Travis Snider, #1 in 2008
Brett Cecil, #2
Ricky Romero, #9
Marc Rzepczynski, #10
Scott Richmond, #16
Newcomers:
Zach Stewart, #1 in 2009
Chad Jenkins, #4
Sean Ochinko, #19
Ryan Schimpf, #25
Jake Marisnik, #29
Dropped:
Kevin Ahrens, #5 in 2008
Scott Campbell, #8
Brian Jeroloman, #12
Eric Eiland, #13
Balbino Fuenmayor, #15
Kyle Ginley, #19
Zack Dials, #21
Davis Romero, #22
Jon Talley, #23
Kenny Wilson, #24
Mark Sobolewski, #26
Joel Carreno, #27
Marcus Brisker, #30
Added:
Henderson Alvarez, #3 in 2009
Carlos Perez, #8
Danny Farquhar, #9
Yohermyn Chavez, #12
Brian Dopirak, #15
Gustavo Pierre, #16
Bobby Bell, #17
Darin Mastroianni, #18
Eric Thames, #20
Luis Perez, #21
Reidier Gonzalez, #27
Trystan Magnuson, #28
Chuck Huggins, #30
Are there any themes evident here? Most of the players dropped were ranked in 2008 based on potential. Players such as Ahrens, Jeroloman, Eiland, Wilson, Brisker and Sobolewski were newly drafted and ranked highly based on their draft positioning. They had not yet delivered great results but that would come in year two or three. well in most cases it still hasn’t come and now they have to show us.
Injuries also played a part, Ginley missed most of the year and Dials, Sobolewski and Wilson missed a good part of the year with injuries. Of these players I would pick Kenny Wilson as the most likely to turn it around in 2010, he has the speed and he was just starting to produce in 2009 when he was injured.
More than 50% of the newcomers were players whose first season, or part season, was in 2008 and we did not get a good read on them last year. Alvaez, Perez and Peirre played in the GCL last season while Farquhar, Bell, Thames and Huggins were 2008 draft picks. Chavez, Mastroianni and Magnuson had much better years in 2009 than they did in 2008.
Who just missed?
The next five were:
Scott Campbell
Yan Gomes
Kevin Ahrens
Carlos Pina
Kenny Wilson
Who made the biggest move up?
Moises Sierra, up 23 spots
Andrew Liebel, up 16
Tyler Pastornicky, up 13
Tim Collins, up 7
All four had good years
Who dropped the most?
John Tolisano, down 15 spots
Bobby Ray, down 9
Justin Jackson, down 7
.
I have always been a fan of Wilson, but I have to say, seeing news like this gives me mixed feelings.This will be shocking news for Wilson fans, but some of you who will say that you saw it coming. I’m pretty surprised. Wilson is awesome, I really hope this doesn’t affect the season.
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WILSON is at it again -
“Alex Anthopoulos is moving quickly to put his stamp on the organization. Today the Jays announced a number of changes which included relieving Dick Scott and Jon Lalonde of their present duties. Scott leaves the organization while Lalonde takes on new responsibilities.
The first press release states:
The TORONTO BLUE JAYS have made the following changes to their Player Development Department which will operate under the direction of TONY LaCAVA; CHARLIE WILSON has been appointed Director, Minor League Operations and DOUG DAVIS has been appointed Minor League Field Coordinator while DICK SCOTT and MIKE BASSO have been relieved of their duties.
This release suggests that Tony LaCava is taking over for Dick Scott and he will run the farm system. Charlie Wilson and Doug Davis increase their responsibilities under Scott.
The TORONTO BLUE JAYS have made the following changes to their scouting department; ANDREW TINNISH has been appointed Director Amateur Scouting, PERRY MINASIAN has been appointed Director of Professional Scouting, JON LALONDE has been named Professional Scout and ROB DUCEY has been relieved of his duties.
Lalonde moves from amateur scouting director to be a professional scout. Andrew Tinnish who was in charge of professional scouting is now in charge of amateur scouting.
These moves can be made quickly because Anthopoulos has been working with all these people over the last several years. Dick Scott was a friend of JP and his departure based on that is not a surprise. In addition the last Blue Jay season ended in some controversy with the firing of several hitting coaches. Scott has had mixed results over the last few years, the Jays have done a very good job with pitching development, in thanks to Dane Johnson and his pitching coaches. With hitters some of the high draft picks have played well but the Jays system has been generally weak in hitting recently.
It will be interesting to see what changes LaCava might make with the on-field staff, like Anthopoulos he has been around for years so he knows the personnel.
.:”
Tell us your opinion!
Take a look at a video of WILSON trying his thing:
wilson baseball wilson boro pa
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young is at it again,
For those who don’t recall, James—a popular and successful junior league coach in western Canada—was convicted in 1997 of sexual abuse after one of his former players, NHLer Sheldon Kennedy, confessed that James had abused him for several years. Although Kennedy was the only one who spoke out, James himself implied that there were other kids involved. He was often accused of giving special treatment to his “favorites” and also severely punishing those who fell out of line. Since Fleury was a protege of James and even played on the same team as Kennedy when they were 16, some had long believed that he was also a victim. (Kennedy says now that he new Fleury was also abused, but refused to “blow the whistle” on anyone.) Fleury had a fantastic pro career, but spent most of it addicted to drugs and alcohol, problems that he directly attributes to James’ abuse. He also says in the book that he “failed 13 drug tests during his career, but was never prevented from playing.” (He was eventually suspended indefinitely in 2003 and then failed in his comeback attempt this season.) The new book will certainly revive interest in the scary tales of young, impressible hockey kids being shipped off into the care of unscrupulousness traveling teams and their creepy coaches, but James was clearly an exception and not the rule. Plus, he’s out of jail and coaching in Spain now so he can’t hurt anybody there, right? Theo’s secret Calgary Sun
Hockey observers had long suspected that something was not right with former Calgary star Theo Fleury and now he admits in a new book what they knew all along—he was sexually abused by youth hockey coach Graham James.
Theo Fleury claims sexual abuse by junior hockey coach in new book On The Forecheck
Sheldon Kennedy: “I hope Theo’s ready for what’s going to come out” Calgary Herald
Theo Fleury: I was sexually abused by junior coach ESPN.
I bet nobody saw that coming!
Take a peek at a vid of young:
T206 1909-1911 Cy Young Ghost Baseball Card The Holy Grail
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young sure has been in the news a lot lately,
The Boston Herald has the harrowing tale of two female Red Sox fans—who are also sisters (wink, wink!)—who took a terrifying journey to Angel Stadium, where they were set upon by a swarthy mob of L.A. fans who hurled “sexually explicit” insults at them, like “Hey, sit your fat (derriere) down!” And she’s not even a plus-size model! The night took a more upsetting turn for the ladies when one of their boyfriends lunged at one of the boorish “hooligans” (who is probably an illegal immigrant, btw) and security took him down with a taser. Fortunately, the completely irrelevant suitor was “hit with a weapon that only delivers a fraction of the shock of a full stun-gun blast,” which made the incident slightly less traumatic for the girls, Christina Rivas, 24, and her sister, Kerrianne, 20. Not that they will ever feel safe enough to attend a baseball game again. What if the boyfriend challenges another cop to a fight? Why must their adorable shoulders bear the weight of all mankind? Hellish game for Sox sisters Boston Herald
What kind of a world do we live in where two attractive young women can’t go to a baseball game without getting heckled by opposing fans? Sure, one of their ugly boyfriends was tasered….but what about their feelings?
UPDATE: Now with (possible) video of the fight!.
What do you think?
Take a look at a clip of young trying his best work:
Young Ryan Howard - East Coast Extreme 11U Baseball Team
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I wonder how young’s serious fans feel,
If you’ve been reading Da Box over the past four or five years, you know one of the sidelight features in Baseball’s Hall of Names deals with players who share(d) certain initials. We’ve assembled teams for every possible double-initial, as well as many other obvious ones like MD, PR, BS and others.
Recently I got to thinking about baseball initials … you know, the kind you scratch on your scorecard during a game, abbreviations like HR, RBI and HBP. Forget building a roster of these guys — it’ll be hard enough to find representatives for all the obvious baseball abbreviations we can think of. So go ahead, play along … what initials are missing? And who would be better to fill a role in the existing All-Baseball-Initials roll-call that follows? …
Let’s kick things off on the mound …
There’s only one “natural ERA” in baseball history, that is, a player whose first-middle-last initials were ERA. That’d be 1975 World Series controversy epicenter Ed Armbrister (a Cincinnati OF who hit .245, 1973-77) whose full name is Edison Rosanda Armbrister.
Apologies to some guy in the current Yankee infield, Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez, but AER doesn’t work, and to Edward John “Rube” Albosta, as the nickname makes the abbreviation E”R”A … and ooh, you just missed out, Elden Le Roy Auker! So Eddie Armbrister is it, apparently.
If our pitcher wants to plunk (not “Eric Plunk,” jut hit ‘em straight up) someone, there has never been a major league player with the natural initials HBP. Although those initials became well-associated with the aforementioned ‘75 Armbrister controversy, the closest we get is Harold William “Buddy” Pritchard, an .091-hitting middle infielder with the 1957 Pirates, who has that whole nickname thing going again. But as a bonus, the “B” could stand for two different things, his nickname of “Buddy” or a shortened form of his given middle name, “Bill.”
Woo, we’re off to a rip-roaring start, huh?
Of course, a pitcher’s primary concern is probably his W-L mark. Believe it or not, there has apparently never been a big league player who was both given and went by a W.L.-initialed name. Oh, you can make arguments for three All-Star pitchers in lefty William “Spaceman Bill” Lee or righties William “Big Bill” Lee and William “Billy” Loes but all three went by B.L. names, as did Negro League Hall of Fame 1B Walter “Buck” Lee.
That win/loss mark matters more if the innings pitched number runs up higher, of course, so what about IP players? (And no, that has nothing to do with intellectual property, legal beagles.) In fact, there are only two candidates — and one, John Lloyd “Ike” Powers, a RHRP for the 1927-27 Athletics — only gets there via the nickname route. That leaves us with Irv Porter, an outfielder who singled in four at-bats in his only game with the 1914 White Sox.
If our pitcher wants to intentionally pass a batter to first base and is tired of the H”B”P route, there’s only two options, that is, players with the initials IBB … Isaac B. Benners, an outfielder who hit .185 for two teams in 1884 (and, most intriguingly, has a career line showing one homer and zero RBI … is that possible?) and Isaac Burr Butler, a RHSP who was 1-10 with a 5.34 ERA for the 1902 Baltimore Orioles. Makes sense to go with the pitcher …
Now, from the offensive side, using the newfangled metrics of the Jamesian age, there has NEVER been a big league player with either the initials OPS or OBP. But the old tried-and-true pre-sabremetric measure of greatness, the home run, still provides us with numerous options, including an All-Star middle infield in 2B Harold Reynolds and the still-active shortstop Hanley Ramirez.
Lost in the didn’t-go-by-it haze are a couple of former Dodger greats in another shortstop, Harold “Pee Wee” Reese, and OF Harold “Pete” Reiser. A more recent All-Star OF, Henry Rodriguez, does qualify, but Hall of Fame SP Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn, not so much. With all those HRs on the board, shockingly there is only one natural RBI in big league history, 1990s Tigers/Twins OF Riccardo Benay Ingram. Still, even with the lack of RBI, there is only one man “left on base” (LOB) in big league history, in Luther Owens Barnes, a .243-hitting middle infielder for the 1972-73 Mets.
We should note that we are ignoring even the most common one-letter abbreviations (like H and K and E) — there would simply be too many possibilities and we’ve gone down that road previously anyway, building Hall of Names rosters back in 2004-05 for teams of players whose last/family names began with each letter of the alphabet. (Well, except “X” — there has never been a big league player with a last name starting with “X” … Oh, 1985-90 minor league catcher Joe Xavier, why couldn’t your talent vault you to the big leagues?)
Still, there are plenty of other abbreviations out there that do call to mind some significant All-Star, even Hall-of-Fame-level players. For instance …
- GB (Games Behind) … HOF 3B George Brett
- SO (Strikeouts) … All-Star RHP Steve Ontivero
- BB (Walks/Bases on Balls) … All-Stars like Bert Blyleven? Bobby Bonds? Barry Bonds? Bob Boone? Bill Buckner? Many others … again, we have done an entire roster just of the double-initial BB players …
- SB (Stolen Bases) … All-Stars like Steve Busby? Steve Blass? Sal Bando?
- AB (At-Bats) … With an eye on 2009 rookie All-Star Andrew Bailey and a nod to Hall of Fame umpire Al Barlick, let’s go with Albert Belle …
- SS (Shortstop) … More double-initials! Sammy Sosa? Scott Sanderson? Steve Sax? Steve Stone?
- LF (Left Field) … A number of All-Stars you’ve never heard of (Lou Fette, Lou Finney, Larry French), so let’s go with Lonny Frey, a fine three-time All-Star 2B who hit .269 over 14 seasons between 1933-48.
- CF (Center Field) … A huge number of All-Stars you HAVE heard of, including Cecil Fielder, Chuck Finley, Chone Figgins, Cliff Floyd, Curt Flood (arguably the most influential player in the history of the game OFF the field) and Carl Furillo. Oh, and one Hall of Famer, Carlton Fisk.
- RF (Right Field) Jammed with HOFers including non-qualifying pitchers like Robert “Bob” Feller, Rube Foster and Red Faber, which leaves us with a battery of Rick Ferrell and Rollie Fingers along with guys who were “just” All-Stars like Ryan Franklin, Rafael Furcal, Ron Fairly, Robert Fick and Ray Fosse. All that said, we’ll go with Fingers … hands down (Har!).
- DH (Designated Hitter) … Sorry, “Doc” Halladay, we’re left with All-Stars like Danny Haren, Dave Henderson, Don Hoak, Dave Hollins and Dick Howser. You’ll remember that last guy more as a manager than a shortstop, which he was, but his combined success in those two areas — he started at shortstop in the All-Star Game as a 1961 rookie AND managed a World Series champ in the 1985 Royals — earns Howser this spot.
- SP (Starting Pitcher) Apologies to many fine candidates, but can this be anyone other than the greatest Starting Pitcher who ever lived, Satchel Paige? (I know, I know, that’s a nickname. So sue me.)
- RP (Relief Pitcher) Rafael Palmeiro? Roger Pavlik? Let’s go with Rico Petrocelli.
- CL (Closer) Clem Labine or Cliff Lee? It will probably be Lee in the long run, but it’s a tossup now and given what the abbreviation stands for, we’ll go with the 96 saves (and two NL save titles) racked up by Labine.
- PH (Pinch-Hitter) Pete Harnisch or Pat Hentgen? This is a Blue Jays site, I’m not dumb. It’s Hentgen, and pretty easily.
- LCS (League Championship Series) There have only been two, and with all due respect to the 19th century utilityman Leonard Clark Stockwell, we’ll look sideways past the nickname rule and Louis Francis “Chief” Sockalexis, the fine young OF from whom, legend has it, the Cleveland Indians took their name.
- NL (National League) This one’s pretty easy — Hall of Famer Napoleon Lajoie.
- AL (American League) Options are surprisingly limited, so here’s to another former Jay in Al Leiter.
- MLB (Major leage Baseball) A number of players had these most generalizable of all baseball initials, but the best, such as they were, ended up being 1990s RHRP Melvin Lynn Bunch Jr., 1980s-’90s RHSP Michael Lawrence Birkbeck and our leader in the clubhouse, SFG OF Marvin Larry Benard, who hit .271 with 54 homers from 1995-2003.
Woo. That’s enough of that! But what other baseball initials or abbreviations can we use on this list, and who are the best players to bear those initials? Is there anyone missing from the above list? Over to you, Bauxites …
what do you think?This will be shocking news for young fans, but some of you who will say that you saw it coming from a long way away. I can’t say I’m all that surprised though. young is sweet, I hope this doesn’t affect the rest of the team.
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Ian O’Connor provides a tangible reason for Captain Intangibles’ rediscovered greatness: a fitness trainer who loosened up Jeter’s stiff left hip, which previously had turned him into statuary any time a ball was hit toward second. So clutch! Bergen Record
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I have always been a fan of young, I have to say, seeing news like this gives me mixed feelings.How do you think this news about young will affect the rest of the team this season?
Here’s a clip of young:
1 of the Best 10U Baseball Player N the Nation Markus Bracey
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America has its first postseason goat, and he is Harry Christopher Caray III, better known as Chip, the nepotistic unemployable who was so bad in Tuesday’s tiebreaker that he momentarily made baseball fans forget that the Tigers were totally jobbed.
The reaction against Chip has been universal. According to a survey of Twitter, Chip Caray is …
… ass
… sucking
… awful
… an awful announcer
… terrible
… just plain terrible
… a TERRIBLE play-by-play man
… such a terrible announcer
… a new level of horrible
… a horrible, terrible announcer
… the WORST
… the nut worst
… the absolute worst
… the worst announcer in baseball
… quite possibly the worst announcer of all time
… the worst piece of shite announcer I have ever heard
… the worst play by play man in the history of history
… the sorriest excuse for a baseball announcer. Period.
… a bad announcer
… such a bad announcer
… hiiiiiiilarious
… such an idiottttttt
… doing a terrrrrible job
… no Harry Caray
… a professional son/grandson
… the child of the more talented Harry Caray
… going through puberty in this inning!
… 11 & at his first live ballgame, still trying to adjust his depth perception & thinking any hard-hit ball is a HR
… talking to the “casual baseball fan”..much like himself
… doing his best John Sterling impression this evening
… a very poor man’s Joe Buck
… so bad he makes Joe Buck sound like Gus Johnson
… the white Gus Johnson
… as bad as joe morgan
… as lame as jose Molina’s bat!
… is having the kind of playoff game Jake Delhomme had last January
… really pissing me off
… killing me
… driving me up the wall
… making my ears bleed
… dead to me
… already ruining the playoffs for me
… a fool
… an idiot
… a retard
… moron
… total moron
… a fucking idiot
… a real piece of work
… a weird person
… into some freaky stuff
… apparently obsesses with fisting
… back on the “balls being fisted” train
… going to get offered a job by Larry Flynt if he says “fisted” one more time
… an enjoyable October tradition
Wait, come again?
ripping on Chip Caray is becoming an enjoyable October tradition
That’s more like it.
Photo via Sussman’s Twitter
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Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Barry’s here tonight.