03-09-2010, 10:08 PM
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#81 (permalink) | ||
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October transactions
October 24
------------ The Philadelphia A's traded RF Pablo Valenzuela (.252, 0, 10 in the minors) to the Toledo Mud Hens (affiliate of the Phillies) for SS Raul Soto (.221, 5, 40 in the minors). (The Philadelphia Athletics traded Joe Zapustas (outfielder/space-filler) and cash to Toledo (American Association) for George Detore (non-major league 3B/SS.) October 25 ----------- The Chicago White Sox traded 2B Desmond Chandler (.326, 7, 43 in the minors but blocked by Monte LaPoint) and MR Spencer Mayer (1-2, 4.38) to the Montreal Royals (affiliate of Cleveland) for Chad Smalls (2-9, 8.28 in the majors but 6-1, 2.40 in the minors and a 20-game minor league winner the season before). (The Chicago White Sox traded Charlie English (little-used middle infielder) and Chad Kimsey (not very good relief pitcher) to Montreal (International) for John Pomorski (relief fodder).) October 30 ------------ The Philadelphia Philies trade a player to be named later (rumored to be 2B Cisco Gonzales (.222/1/18)) and SS Bob Brady (.176, 0, 0) to St Paul (Pittsburgh affiliate) for 3B Dan Bresnahan (.225, 1, 33, but he is only 19). The Philadelphia Phillies traded a player to be named later, Jack Warner (light-hitting middle infielder) and cash to St Paul (American Association) for a player to be named later and Marty Hopkins (not really great 3rd baseman). The Philadelphia Phillies sent Otto Bluege (banjo-hitting middle infielder) (January 6, 1934) to St Paul (American Association) to complete the trade. The St. Louis Cardinals purchased 2B Earl Race (.253, 2, 51) from the Red Sox. The St. Louis Cardinals purchased Johnny Hodapp (pretty decent starting middle infielder, though he never played in the bigs after '33) from the Boston Red Sox. The Baltimore Orioles (affiliate of the Dodgers) purchased CF Steven Bartels (.288, 3, 35) from the Boston Red Sox. Baltimore (International) purchased Tom Oliver (good glove no-hit CF) from the Boston Red Sox.
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03-10-2010, 12:23 AM
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#82 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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Hot Stove League - November
November 6 ------------ The A's traded Dallas Demers (3-7, 6.37) and Brian Barnes (7-7, 4.76) and cash to St. Paul (PIT affiliate) for CF Ray Hurst (.192, 0, 16 but only 20 and projects well). The Philadelphia Athletics traded Gowell Claset (horrible pitcher), Tony Freitas (not very good reliever with some potential) and cash to St Paul (American Association) for Rip Radcliff (solid LF prospect). November 12 ------------ The Phillies purchased Prince Oana from the Portland Beavers (PCL). The Philadelphia Phillies purchased Prince Oana (stud OFer who for some reason never played in the majors) from Portland (PCL). November 15 ------------ The New York Giants traded Bob Billington (2-2, 3.18 and the closest thing to a "not very good pitcher" the Jints have) to their rivals the Cincinnati Reds for 3B/SS Dean Backman (.280, 1, 30 and at least backs up Emory Jefferson at 3rd instead of just 2nd and short). The New York Giants traded Glenn Spencer (not very good pitcher) to the Cincinnati Reds for George Grantham (part-time middle infielder, who will add to the 5,000 the Giants already have). The Cardinals traded 3B Lester Archie (.324, 15, 89) to the Phillies for C George Forest (.325, 1, 24) and 3B Rich Gartman (.243, 0, 12). The St. Louis Cardinals traded Jimmie Wilson (All-star level 2nd baseman) to the Philadelphia Phillies for Spud Davis (starting catcher with some pop in his bat) and Eddie Delker (backup middle infielder). November 17 ------------ The Pirates traded OF Lyle Salters (.331, 1, 17) and SS/CF Steve Mangum (.263, 1, 30) to the Reds for P Ted O'Toole (20-17, 3.49) and 2B Keith Jones (.231, 2, 10). The Pittsburgh Pirates traded Adam Comorosky (backup corner OFer) and Tony Piet (starting 2B) to the Cincinnati Reds for Red Lucas (league average pitcher) and Wally Roettger (part time, aging 2B).
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03-10-2010, 01:52 AM
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#83 (permalink) | ||
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Hot Stove League - November (Continued)
November 21 ------------ The Cubs traded 1B Ethan Hardin (.299, 1, 12), P Ernie Hawks (1-1, 6.08), 2B Ed Lantz (.219, 7, 34), and $65,000 to the Phillies for CF Charles Payne (.281, 27, 86). The Chicago Cubs traded Harvey Hendrick (part-time 1B/OF coming off a good year), Ted Kleinhans (pitching prospect, albeit not a good one), Mark Koenig (part-time infielder) and $65,000 to the Philadelphia Phillies for Chuck Klein (aWesome OFer). November 23 ------------- The Reds claimed 2B Alvin Rourke (.291, 2, 41) off waivers from the Cardinals. The Cincinnati Reds selected Gordon Slade (somewhat decent middle infielder) off waivers from the St. Louis Cardinals.
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03-13-2010, 02:36 PM
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#84 (permalink) | ||
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Hot Stove League - December
December 1 ------------ MR Juan Mendoza (0-0, 5.79) sent from the A's to Jersey City (Boston (A) affiliate) in an unknown transaction. Dick Barrett (not very good P, although he pitched pretty okay during the war years) sent from the Philadelphia Athletics to Jersey City (International) in an unknown transaction. The Dodgers purchased P Luis Lopez (11-11, 4.06) from the Tigers. The Brooklyn Dodgers purchased Art Herring (middling pitcher) from the Detroit Tigers. The Reds purchased P Anastasio Perez (4-6, 2.75) from the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Cincinnati Reds purchased Joe Shaute (pretty decent reliever) from the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Giants traded Dave Jackson (.293, 1, 20) and cash to the Portland Beavers (PCL) for CL Bob Bush (no record). The New York Giants traded Gil English (backup SS) and cash to Portland (PCL) for Joe Bowman (ace reliever).
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03-13-2010, 03:01 PM
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#85 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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 Boston Red Sox Overview The Sawx haven't done a lot since their streak from 1922-26 when they won 4 pennants in 5 years but things look like they're beginning to turn around in Beantown. A 17-9 September gave them their second consecutive winning season. The hitting is as good as any in the league: they finished 2nd in runs scored with 722 and were also just off the league pace with their .277 average. One place this righty-heavy team can improve is against right-handed pitchers: although the tema creamed lefties with a 22-16 record, they were just 57-59 vs the other side. Pitching looks like a bit more of a problem, as their ERA was just 4th. The Sox have a new manager going into the 1933 season. George Hubbard previously coached the Cleveland Indians from 1925-27, and although his record is not good it must be stated that those were some bad, bad teams. He took them from a 47-107 record in 1925 to 63 wins in '26 and 75 in '27. They haven't won that many games since. Pitching Although the Red Sox have been keen on retooling their pitching staff, it appears that Paul Mair will still be the staff ace. Mair lives on the knife's edge in that his stuff is just not good enough to get him by when his control isn't there. It was mostly there in 1933 and as a result he sported an ERA more than a run lower than his career average. With Roger Sayers and Brian East out the door, Christian Stanton will be called on as the #2 man in the rotation. Stanton brings a high-80s fastball that has a good deal of movement on it and a big, breaking curveball. In order for him to become a truly great starter, he's going to need to develop his change of pace. Elsewhere, Irwin Boulanger is the Red Sox' lifetime leader in games started but he's not likely to play at all in 1934 after tearing up his elbow August and indeed his entire career may be in doubt. In the mix for 1934 are Michael McQuaid, who looked much better as a closer in the last month and a half than as a starter, Al Rees, who turned in a great year in the bull pen but who did start 35 games between New Jersey and Boston in 1932, and Walt Kropp, a prospect who posted a 3.00 ERA in the minors last year. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA *Paul Mair 26 17 17 0.500 39 39 0 307.2 353 127 14 89 57 3.72 *Roger Sayers 27 14 18 0.438 38 35 0 282 289 118 15 120 98 3.77 Brian East 28 11 11 0.500 24 24 0 193.1 202 70 15 48 68 3.26 Christian Stanton 23 7 4 0.636 16 16 0 114.1 123 45 5 41 20 3.54 *Irwin Boulanger 32 4 8 0.333 14 14 0 108.1 136 51 5 21 32 4.24 Michael McQuaid 22 3 7 0.300 24 15 5 97.2 101 44 1 65 32 4.05 *Jason Moore 25 4 2 0.667 18 10 1 74.2 72 21 4 32 32 2.53 Al Rees 25 5 2 0.714 33 0 1 61.1 58 14 1 14 16 2.05 Bob Cooke 29 7 5 0.583 34 0 11 56.2 46 19 5 22 19 3.02 Phil Hendrix 34 0 1 0.000 16 0 1 25 27 12 0 15 12 4.32 Tim Collins 32 3 0 1.000 11 1 1 24.2 26 6 0 10 7 2.19 Lester Willday 39 1 0 1.000 12 0 0 19.2 17 4 0 3 9 1.83 Alfredo Aquino 30 0 0 0.000 6 0 0 8 9 2 1 3 4 2.25 Donald Spaeth 23 1 0 1.000 5 0 0 7.1 7 6 0 8 4 7.36 Howard Long 20 2 0 1.000 4 0 0 6 7 1 0 3 1 1.50 Team Totals 27.7 79 75 0.513 294 154 20 1386.2 1473 540 66 494 411 3.50 It was not a pretty year behind the plate for Boston but in the end Paul Washington looks like the kind of kid who can be a serviceable starter for the next decade. Charlie Maynor came into the year having been the Red Sox' #1 receiver since 1923 but fielding concerns coupled with a strangely disappearing bat led them to hand Washington the starting job and eventually move Maynor to the Cubs in the Tom Battle trade. Washington doesn't have a world-class arm himself but is a bit more mobile behind the plate and did throw out 36.2% of men who tried to run on him. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Paul Washington 26 114 91 345 40 103 30 2 4 65 0 0 23 24 0.299 0.339 0.432 C Charlie Maynor 33 53 52 173 11 31 7 1 2 17 0 0 11 16 0.179 0.231 0.266 C Walter DeLong 20 16 10 49 5 14 5 1 0 14 0 0 1 7 0.286 0.294 0.429 C Jim Bartlett 33 1 1 5 1 1 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 0 0.200 0.200 0.800 In 3 1/2 seasons as a starter, Mark Hanke has collected 681 hits and 338 RBIs, tops on the team. Last year the power stroke he'd acquired in 1932 disappeared as he actually failed to reach double digits in homeruns a year after slugging 28 of them. Still, the Sox are not complaining. Earl Race had a rough year with the Sox after winning the ROY award with the Yankees in '32 and never really worked out for the team. He has been traded away, leaving the job up for grabs. The main contender is Troy Donahue, who came to Boston from the New York Giants in 1931 and set career highs in at-bats, hits, RBIs, and total bases last year. However, Bob Coffee has worlds of potential and did a fairly good job in 34 September at-bats. He projects to be a guy who could challenge Hanke for the league batting title in five years. Kinnojo Maeda lost almost 40 points off his batting average last year but thanks to added durability actually registered 13 more hits in '33 than in '32. The Japanese import just missed the century mark in runs scored, was in the mix in AL Gold Glove voting at third, and even played in the first All-Star Game. After an injury-plagued 1933, Alan Powell enters 1934 as the front-runner for the starting shortstop job. He's not considered a great defender but the Red Sox as a team are not particularly fielding-oriented so that should not slow him down much. Erik Shelly ended up starting most of the games at the position last year and while he combined soft hands with a .284 average, his skill-set seems better suited for a utility role. Code:
1B Mark Hanke 25 150 149 616 80 207 24 7 9 96 1 0 49 51 0.336 0.384 0.442 2B Earl Race 25 104 103 450 53 114 22 4 2 51 0 1 20 28 0.253 0.288 0.333 2B Troy Donahoe 29 77 38 198 26 62 11 3 0 15 1 5 13 30 0.313 0.355 0.399 2B Bob Coffee 21 10 8 34 3 9 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 5 0.265 0.265 0.265 2B Mathew Conroy 23 3 2 10 0 4 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.400 0.400 0.500 2B Colton McWhorter 25 1 1 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.333 0.500 0.333 3B Kinnojo Maeda 27 147 147 609 97 175 42 7 6 62 0 1 55 47 0.287 0.348 0.409 SS Erik Shelly 33 98 80 331 49 94 21 2 5 41 1 2 23 53 0.284 0.331 0.405 SS Alan Powell 24 62 55 193 40 57 8 2 3 20 1 4 35 15 0.295 0.409 0.404 SS #Kent Edge 21 44 32 120 9 24 1 0 0 5 2 2 8 8 0.200 0.248 0.208 The outfield was very much in flux for the entire year. Hollis Ramsdell started and ended the season in left but was pushed into center with the injury to Bill Hampton. Ramsdell proved to be a passable center fielder and led the team in homeruns. The only thing keeping the Sox from using him up the middle full-time next year is the possible return of Hampton; although he didn't play much, he looked pretty decent when he did get in there. Steven Bartels will try to ply his trade in Brooklyn this year. That leaves one and maybe two spots to be filled by Randy Collis, a power hitter who hit 18 homers between Boston and Jersey City, Tom Battle, the former Cubs star who has had a lot of trouble staying healthy the past two years, and Manuel Ortiz, who once hit .345 in Forbes Field but who didn't show a lot of ability to hit for average at all last season. Code:
LF Randy Collis 25 88 80 310 42 79 5 0 10 41 0 0 31 27 0.255 0.320 0.368
LF Roland Hardy 25 21 21 75 11 26 5 0 1 10 3 1 8 3 0.347 0.405 0.453
LF *Glenn Desmond 31 31 6 46 3 10 2 0 0 2 1 1 4 3 0.217 0.280 0.261
CF Hollis Ramsdell 28 132 131 531 76 162 25 5 20 92 3 5 43 38 0.305 0.360 0.484
CF *Steven Bartels 26 103 67 319 52 92 7 5 3 35 16 4 14 28 0.288 0.315 0.370
CF *Bill Hampton 32 36 27 107 17 31 3 0 1 15 1 1 11 8 0.290 0.367 0.346
CF Eric Propst 31 14 5 29 4 6 2 0 0 3 0 0 0 4 0.207 0.200 0.276
CF Jack Sawyer 23 11 6 27 4 11 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 3 0.407 0.393 0.407
RF Manuel Ortíz 30 60 56 228 21 60 15 4 2 29 5 2 10 25 0.263 0.293 0.390
RF *Tom Battle 27 37 37 144 23 41 9 3 6 34 3 2 10 16 0.285 0.329 0.514
RF *Jim Stephens 24 26 23 93 6 19 5 2 0 10 0 1 9 22 0.204 0.275 0.301
RF Trevor Fouts 35 12 4 21 5 5 2 1 0 2 0 1 3 4 0.238 0.333 0.429
Team Totals 27.2 1745 1386 5513 722 1529 272 49 75 704 38 33 393 515 0.277 0.326 0.385
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03-13-2010, 06:10 PM
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#86 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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 Boston Braves Overview The Braves were just bad, bad, bad last year. As of July 1, they were 22-54, on pace to be the worst team of all time. A 24-27 record in July and August saved them from that distinction (held by the 1925 Indians with 107 losses) but, as if to prove that no, they were not actually an improved club, they lost 19 of their last 25. As one would expect from a team that basically just threw out whatever they could sign, the Braves finished dead last in the National League in both pitching and hitting. In a season characterized by a big drop-off in league offense, the Braves' pitching looked like it was stuck in 1932, yielding a 4.78 ERA, allowing 865 runs, and allowing an incredible 701 men to reach base on balls. The offense was every bit as inept, although the approximately 13 Braves fans left in Boston can take solace in the 69 home runs hit by their men, good for 5th in the league. The Braves' state of affairs is such that they've tapped Alfonso Durango to manage the squad next year. Durango has no managerial experience at any level but was revered for his ability to handle pitchers during his 4-year playing career with Cincinnati, which concluded in 1918. He's kicked around the free minors since then, where it is said he's picked up a big back of tricks which he hopes to bring to the majors. Pitching The lone bright spot in the Braves' pitching staff was 3rd year player Lamont Hall, who went 8-22 with Detroit and the St. Louis Cardinals in 1931, a season in which he was obviously put into pressure situations too early. Last year he showed that he can keep the ball in the lower half of the strike zone as well as anyone in the league. His groundball ratio of 64% was 8th best in all of baseball. After him, it was not pretty. Boston tried 16 pitchers last year, a number perhaps skewed low by the fact that they made the curious decision to stick with a 3-headed bullpen of Bartolo Martinez, Steve Petrie, and Willis Morin throughout much of the season despite their age and relative ineffectiveness. The fact is, the Braves simply did not have anybody in the minors they could trust with the ball after the 7th inning. They really didn't have much they could rely on in the rotation after Hall either. The next 4 men after Hall in games started were a combined 22-60. The lowest ERA of any of them belonged to Dorian Wright with a 4.30, which itself was more than half a run over the league average of 3.70. It's not a good situation and it's hard to see how it's going to get any better. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Lamont Hall 22 15 9 0.625 27 27 0 194 173 74 6 111 70 3.43 *Alex Mossman 26 7 14 0.333 25 25 0 180.2 239 97 8 81 82 4.83 Dave Crosby 27 6 14 0.300 24 24 0 179 215 90 10 75 66 4.53 Hank Sheppard 30 5 19 0.208 35 21 0 177.1 237 128 11 102 64 6.50 Dorian Wright 22 4 13 0.235 18 18 0 138 158 66 7 59 65 4.30 Bill Salyer 29 4 4 0.500 12 12 0 80.1 97 35 4 29 19 3.92 *Bartolo Martínez 30 2 9 0.182 52 0 8 76.1 103 40 4 46 27 4.72 Matt Snyder 38 4 1 0.800 8 8 0 59.1 46 15 4 15 12 2.28 *Jim Jacobs 32 2 6 0.250 15 9 0 59 64 35 0 43 15 5.34 Steve Petrie 37 0 0 0.000 34 0 3 54.2 60 24 1 32 14 3.95 Clyde Cornett 26 1 6 0.143 15 6 0 52.2 64 44 3 55 15 7.52 Willis Morin 36 2 2 0.500 34 0 6 50.1 64 24 2 12 14 4.29 Rubén López 20 1 0 1.000 16 0 0 28.2 36 22 3 17 9 6.91 Matt Boley 22 0 3 0.000 4 4 0 17.1 35 19 2 14 10 9.87 Tim Collins 32 0 1 0.000 12 0 0 17.1 22 13 1 9 2 6.75 Iestyn Truelove 31 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1.1 3 0 0 1 1 0.00 Team Totals 28.8 53 101 0.344 332 154 17 1366.1 1616 726 66 701 485 4.78 As bad as they were last year, the Braves really shouldn't have expected much better from Brad Brown and Neal James than what they got last year. Neal James had started in '31 and '32 but although he possesses a gun for an arm, the Braves were dissatisfied with his performance at the plate. So they tried Brad Brown instead. Brown doesn't have nearly the defensive ability as James but was expected to give a little more on the offensive end. He just didn't do it. At the same time, James' hitting got even worse and one can't imagine the Braves wanting to trot out a guy with a .239 slugging average either. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Brad Brown 26 123 96 358 30 77 17 1 4 35 0 0 24 57 0.215 0.263 0.302 C Neal James 28 68 53 155 12 34 3 0 0 6 0 0 12 6 0.219 0.278 0.239 Bill Norman didn't take over the full-time first base job until June (following a trade of Norm Burnett) but he still ended up the most valuable hitter on the Braves team. 11 of his 17 homeruns came in the second half of the season. The future really looks bright for this kid, whether it's in Boston or somewhere else. The role of pinch-hitter is going to be fought out in spring training; right now it looks to be between Gerald Anderson and Walter Carlson, who was added to the team in a naked publicity stunt at the end of the year. Carlson, just 2 hits away from 3000, got them, but after 12 Braves at-bats decided that perhaps his career wasn't quite over after all. It had certainly looked that way after he failed to break .200 with the Athletics. Corey Parry looked like he had some potential in '32 but completely stunk in '33. Problem was, nobody the Braves tried to replace him with hit either and as such he has as good a shot as anybody to start 1934 as the Boston Braves' second baseman. Gary Kirkland looks like his primary competition. Sam Prendergast didn't start because he was really that good so much as the Braves just didn't want to deal with another position controversy. Prendergast didn't embarrass himself in the field and was adequate at the plate in his rookie year. He's still very young and so could turn into a major league player. Bob Rose's Rookie of the Year award was more a sign of a weak rookie class than of any real greatness on the part of the Braves shortstop. His 38 errors were the 2nd most in the National League (behind the 47 by Cubs shortstop Fred Harris) and he really didn't show a lot with the stick to make up for that. His 8 home runs were second on the team, so there is always that. The Braves insist that they're satisfied with his progression but a move off of shortstop seems likely and his bat at this point is really not strong enough to carry him anywhere but short. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Bill Norman 22 126 107 430 71 124 27 3 17 57 1 0 48 56 0.288 0.368 0.484 1B Norm Burnett 24 72 63 235 32 70 12 3 6 24 0 0 29 20 0.298 0.377 0.451 1B Gerald Anderson 28 66 9 79 12 20 4 0 2 9 0 0 13 5 0.253 0.359 0.380 1B Walter Carlson 38 3 3 12 0 4 0 1 0 3 1 0 0 2 0.333 0.333 0.500 2B Corey Parry 28 86 78 320 36 67 13 2 4 23 6 2 19 39 0.209 0.253 0.300 2B Jack Ambrose 26 29 27 114 8 18 4 0 0 6 1 2 10 2 0.158 0.226 0.193 2B Victor Lankford 24 25 24 101 8 22 4 0 3 12 2 1 3 8 0.218 0.255 0.347 2B Steve Jordan 28 18 8 33 0 7 3 0 0 3 0 1 0 4 0.212 0.206 0.303 3B Sam Prendergast 22 104 101 445 49 113 20 4 1 39 3 4 21 56 0.254 0.288 0.324 3B Gary Kirkland 33 63 61 250 20 61 7 2 2 30 4 4 7 23 0.244 0.266 0.312 SS Bob Rose 23 123 117 427 42 105 26 4 8 49 0 1 29 32 0.246 0.293 0.382 SS Warner Craver 35 39 32 114 12 26 3 1 0 17 2 2 18 17 0.228 0.333 0.272 SS *Henry Adams 24 11 8 29 4 8 3 0 1 3 2 0 3 3 0.276 0.333 0.483 SS Colin Richards 26 11 6 19 3 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 2 0.158 0.238 0.211 Bill Lowry was one of just two Braves, along with Bill Norman, to qualify for the batting title. He was pretty far off from winning it, of course. The 25 year old seriously regressed from a promising 1932 (.310, 14 homers, 61 RBI). He's not a terribly good fielder, so he probably won't be able to continue for very long with this sort of production. Then again, this is the Braves. What kept Pat Prentiss on the bench for so long? Sometimes perception is greater than reality. We say this because, despite a fantastic 1930 season with the Red Sox that saw him hit .371 with 42 doubles, he's been pigeonholed as a backup outfielder and pinch-hitter. As the season progressed, the Braves realized there is no good reason to leave him on the bench - he's actually a pretty decent outfielder - and got him in the lineup more and more. He still finished with just 25 at-bats against left-handed pitching, but that will probably change in 1934. The Braves are very high on Kenneth Kennedy, although his production last year didn't really match expectations. He looked great in August, as he hit .277 and slugged .406 with 20 RBIs, but then wrapped up the season with a dismal .218 performance in September. If he's not worthy of the task, David Conder is still available. Conder hit .314 in '32, but it was an empty .314, and when he hit .217 in May, the floundering Braves began to look elsewhere. Code:
LF *Scott Molloy 27 95 61 261 31 68 7 2 5 35 11 5 23 18 0.261 0.323 0.360
LF #Leo Gerhart 23 29 29 107 15 28 5 3 1 12 1 2 10 4 0.262 0.325 0.393
CF *Dave Conder 24 96 88 363 33 97 19 7 6 41 3 3 20 44 0.267 0.303 0.408
CF Kenneth Kennedy 22 82 82 301 41 76 12 5 2 45 7 1 52 25 0.252 0.359 0.346
CF *Pat Prentiss 27 104 39 210 31 64 12 1 3 23 0 0 17 12 0.305 0.352 0.414
CF Gayle Boisvert 32 12 4 20 6 7 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 3 0.350 0.409 0.450
RF *Bill Lowry 25 141 136 548 76 149 35 5 4 58 11 7 43 43 0.272 0.322 0.376
- #Tommy Howard 29 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
Team Totals 27.6 1859 1386 5347 593 1317 248 45 69 567 55 35 410 534 0.246 0.300 0.348
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03-13-2010, 08:20 PM
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#87 (permalink) | ||
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 Brooklyn Dodgers Overview In allowing 300 fewer runs compared to the season before, the Dodgers dropped from the truly horrible to the mediocre. They're still a far cry from the team that won the World Series in 1927 and were NL runners-up the next two seasons, but these Brooklynites look like they're on the upswing. They've been very active in the offseason as well. One issue they will need to overcome is the effect of the Ebbets Field boo-birds. Last year the Dodgers actually had a winning record on the road: 39 wins, 38 losses. That means they weren't just worse at home but just plain terrible. One thing that may help with that situation is if the team gets out of the gate better. Last year they were 11 games under .500 after the season's first 50 games; although they were close to even the rest of the way, the damage had been done: the front-runners began to commute to the other boroughs to watch good, winning baseball, and those who stayed behind heckled their own men as much as the opposition. Ed Sunderland returns to the Bums for his 4th season. It would seem that he would be on the hot seat after 3 losing seasons with a high of 70 victories, but he's also one of the few members of this club that the community enjoys. The former Cincinnati Reds great is still occasionally talked of when looking at people to place in the Hall of Fame. His tenure as manager of those Reds was less than heroic but compared to what he's done with the Dodgers it looks mighty fine indeed. Pitching As hitting-oriented as the Dodgers are, and also taking into account the fact that in 1932 this team just missed recording a 6 ERA (5.96), it's a bit surprising to note that their pitching actually isn't that bad. Nobody's going to compare their rotation with the New York Yankees but there are definite points to grow on. First and foremost, Cristobal Rodriguez, who began his minor league career with those Yanks, was very unlucky last year but just missed being one of seven people in the game to strike out twice as many men as they walked. He finished 5th in the league in strikeouts as well even though some men in the league started 17 more games than he did. Behind him, you've got Justin Mason, Bert Dawkins, and Tom Koehler. Manson led the team in wins and dropped his ERA by a run and a half from the season before. A flyball guy who pitches to contact, he had some issues last year with the longball. Dawkins had a similar single-season turnaround; his ERA dropped from 6.20 in 1932 to 3.79 last year. Koehler's record belies a similar drop in ERA. A control artist, Koehler's walks per 9 innings rate was 8th best in the NL. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Justin Manson 25 13 10 0.565 28 28 0 198 204 87 19 63 62 3.95 *Bert Dawkins 30 11 11 0.500 26 26 0 197 218 83 9 49 67 3.79 Tom Koehler 27 7 14 0.333 31 30 0 190 240 87 19 54 49 4.12 Cristóbal Rodríguez 28 8 13 0.381 25 25 0 189.1 206 72 13 52 101 3.42 Terry Cole 29 6 8 0.429 27 14 0 127.1 144 67 9 35 37 4.74 Damon Boulanger 23 6 4 0.600 47 7 0 122.2 110 42 3 40 35 3.08 Anastasio Pérez 26 4 6 0.400 48 0 12 78.2 91 24 8 15 19 2.75 Alvin Caviness 22 3 4 0.429 21 8 0 67.1 94 49 5 44 17 6.55 Rehor Bacurik 28 2 6 0.250 27 5 0 58.2 75 37 8 21 12 5.68 *Brett Adkisson 22 3 3 0.500 11 6 0 53.1 84 38 10 18 15 6.41 Alarico Hein 40 4 2 0.667 23 0 5 39.1 43 10 2 9 15 2.29 *Joe DeBerry 34 1 1 0.500 9 3 0 28.2 40 17 0 17 5 5.34 *David Días 35 1 0 1.000 9 0 0 11.1 16 9 2 1 3 7.15 Julian Wolfgang 22 0 2 0.000 2 2 0 9.2 18 10 3 8 2 9.31 Matt Wayman 23 0 1 0.000 3 0 0 5 14 10 1 4 3 18.00 *Matt Corwin 34 0 0 0.000 3 0 0 4.2 3 0 0 1 0 0.00 Team Totals 28 69 85 0.448 340 154 17 1381 1600 642 111 431 442 4.18 The Dodgers have a bit of a logjam at catcher. Their two 25-year-old studs Rusty McEachern and Tom Hardy present a "problem" most major league managers would love to have. In the long run, one of those guys is going to need to either get traded or find another spot in the field. Hardy has the much better arm of the two and as such is most likely to remain at the position. McEachern also has a less, shall we say, catcher-like body. How a player looks in a baseball uniform isn't a really good predictor of how they'll actually play, of course, but Rusty doesn't look like a guy who will have problems with a corner outfield position. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Rusty McEachern 25 100 90 336 35 92 12 0 5 37 0 0 37 43 0.274 0.348 0.354 C Tom Hardy 25 83 53 223 26 65 15 0 1 37 0 0 25 19 0.291 0.363 0.372 C Ronnie Sather 28 32 11 53 6 9 3 0 1 7 0 0 5 5 0.170 0.241 0.283 C #Jorge Moreno 27 3 0 3 2 2 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 1 0.667 0.750 1.667 Allen Vice was just plain awful to start the year. He hit just .229 through April and as late as late as May 21 was hitting just .234 with a solitary homerun. However, Ed Sunderland never gave up hope in him and over the second half of the year his faith was rewarded. Vice hit .357 in July and .346 in September, adding 61 of his 105 RBIs (2nd in the NL) in the second half of the season. Duane Ferrari has to be looking over his shoulder. The Goodlettsville, Tennessee native was good enough when he was healthy but had never been a full-time starter before coming to Brooklyn and, while he suffered setback after setback from recovering from a broken shoulder originally suffered in mid-May, was forced to just watch while Gary Lewis tore things up in his absence. Lewis isn't a world-class defender but he's certainly better at it than Ferrari. In fact, if it wasn't for his relatively weak arm, Lewis would undoubtedly be in the talks for future shortstop. Adam Kirkham added 70 points to his batting average and in the process went from replacement-level prospect to the 3-hole hitter for Brooklyn. They need him to stay healthy, as his backup Masafumi Kojima is the kind of player better suited for the minor leagues... or selling real estate. Reed Leasure is listed as the starting shortstop but that's not really accurate. Leasure played 29 games at short, 19 at second, 18 at third, and another 13 in left field. Overall, the utility is nice, but was a lot nicer in the previous 2 seasons, when he hit .325, .313, and .308. Really, Steve Jordan was the starter, although even he only put in 54 games at the position. Jordan hit .305 starting at the position in 1932 for the Braves but couldn't replicate the performance after coming to the Dodgers in an early trade. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B #Allen Vice 26 152 152 597 82 177 32 5 11 105 0 0 62 50 0.296 0.364 0.422 2B Duane Ferrari 29 79 79 315 44 94 25 5 0 29 4 3 24 27 0.298 0.354 0.410 2B Gary Lewis 21 56 36 176 23 57 13 3 0 31 6 1 7 11 0.324 0.344 0.432 2B #Roldăo Fies 23 21 10 50 6 13 2 1 0 5 1 1 4 1 0.260 0.304 0.340 3B *Adam Kirkham 24 99 96 419 61 140 22 6 2 49 9 10 16 29 0.334 0.363 0.430 3B Masafumi Kojima 31 49 36 148 15 36 8 3 0 19 3 0 13 16 0.243 0.304 0.338 SS Reed Leasure 29 88 76 283 25 65 8 2 2 31 2 2 23 30 0.230 0.290 0.293 SS Steve Jordan 28 61 54 206 14 49 6 4 1 24 1 5 6 27 0.238 0.257 0.320 SS *Vincente Núńez 24 37 36 150 25 36 8 3 2 23 3 0 7 9 0.240 0.278 0.373 SS Bill Sorensen 27 43 29 103 9 22 5 0 1 10 0 0 9 8 0.214 0.278 0.291 SS Ed Fee 29 29 27 101 14 17 3 1 1 20 4 1 7 16 0.168 0.219 0.248 Losing Dave Macy was a real blow. He was really starting to look like a guy whom the Dodgers could count on in the heart of the order. What he lacked in power, he made up for in the ability to hit the ball in between fielders. At this point, it's tough to say who's going to replace him. Barry Davis played 4th outfielder last year but really didn't hit well enough to carry a corner outfield job. He did get 8 homeruns in half-time duty last year; perhaps if whatever caused the ball to deaden last year goes away, he'll have that value. The other positions are quite a bit better entrenched. Tod Johnson slumped badly in 1933 after having a near-MVP level campaign the year before. He still gets the job done in center, which is not something that can be said about many other people in the Dodgers organization; in fact, he won his first Gold Glove of his career. It also should be said that much of his poor season was based on his .250/.357/.306 performance in September, a month he played through with a sore knee. In right, Ken Lefebvre was Brooklyn's most valuable player. Although he finished 2nd on the team to Allen Vice in RBI, the Brooklyn cleanup hitter finished in the NL top 10 in plate appearances (9th), hits (8th), triples (6th), home runs (7th), steals (8th), runs (5th), walks (3rd), batting average (8th), on base percentage (7th), and slugging (7th). He's still only 25 and just entering the prime of his career. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Dave Macy 29 114 89 402 59 129 22 9 0 43 11 5 28 21 0.321 0.364 0.420
LF Eric Cole 24 13 8 36 3 7 1 0 1 2 1 0 1 6 0.194 0.211 0.306
LF *King Reid 26 11 7 36 5 8 0 1 1 5 0 0 1 6 0.222 0.243 0.361
CF Tod Johnson 26 123 116 502 73 135 26 4 4 33 7 4 61 62 0.269 0.348 0.361
CF Barry Davis 25 95 72 309 37 80 10 2 8 41 0 0 18 32 0.259 0.299 0.382
RF *Ken Lefebvre 25 145 143 544 99 170 20 11 16 97 11 7 96 43 0.313 0.415 0.478
RF Bret McGriff 24 49 12 90 12 21 2 1 2 11 3 1 8 9 0.233 0.296 0.344
- Greg Homer 28 7 0 7 2 3 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0.429 0.429 0.571
Team Totals 26.9 1830 1386 5538 704 1485 253 62 60 683 69 40 468 535 0.268 0.326 0.369
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03-14-2010, 04:46 AM
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#88 (permalink) | ||
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 Chicago White Sox Overview World Champion Chicago White Sox. That has quite a nice ring to it. We've certainly never heard those words in that order before. Not only did the White Sox sneak past the New York Yankees in one of the great pennant races in baseball history, they capped it off by dispatching the vaunted New York Giants in five games. All season long the White Sox had been underrated by the critics. Even going into the 4th game of the World Series, most critics still saw the Giants pulling this out. Those critics had not noticed or purposefully ignored the flight of these White Sox in recent years. Yes, this was their first ever pennant and also their first ever Series victory. That being said, they finished in 2nd place in the 3 years preceding this one and have *averaged* 95 victories a year since 1931. The primary difference between 1933 and previous years isn't the greatness of the team so much as it's the fact that this time around they were just able to bring home the brass ring. Salvador Lopez has been the manager since their push into contention. In 4 seasons he has a record of 366 victories and 250 losses. It's a little early to call him the best manager of all time, of course, but this percentage gives him the 2nd best winning percentage of all time behind Jared Morris, that Red Sox manager from the mid-20s whose leftist politics resulted in his exile from major league baseball the second his team faltered in 1927. Pitching With all the talk of Bob Hinman's incredible 32 victory season, one thing that's been lost in the talks of Sox pitching is the adversity they had to overcome. This team played half the season without Jose "Moo" Castillo, who won 23 games in 1931 and went 18-6 in his rookie campaign of 1930. Had he been out there, that second half might not have been close at all. They also had to deal with the loss of Ronald Tinter, not regarded as a great pitcher but certainly someone the team could have used to eat innings instead of guys like Ted Carson, and the decline of Bob Gordon, the 179-game winner and 8-time winner of at least 15 games in a year. Bullpen members don't always deserve mention here, but Mark Jacobs was exemplary. He was maybe the hero of the World Series but even before then he struck out 19 batters in 21 1/3 innings with the Sox and was otherwise absolutely unstoppable. In a world where starting pitchers are expected to finish their games, Jacobs provides Sal Lopez with the means to pull games out if they cannot. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Bob Hinman 26 32 8 0.800 41 41 0 359 261 68 14 48 187 1.70 Bob Gordon 34 10 14 0.417 27 27 0 191.1 225 87 10 52 28 4.09 Ronald Tinter 36 11 9 0.550 23 23 0 176 189 62 5 46 29 3.17 *José Castillo 24 11 8 0.579 20 20 0 168.1 158 52 6 54 79 2.78 Brian East 28 8 6 0.571 15 15 0 117.2 94 30 3 29 37 2.29 Ted Carson 25 8 6 0.571 18 16 1 102.2 113 59 4 56 11 5.17 Todd Rigsby 37 5 0 1.000 23 0 1 48.1 33 10 1 12 30 1.86 Ben Gravel 34 2 0 1.000 25 2 0 42.2 47 14 0 16 16 2.95 Mark Bulter 22 2 2 0.500 22 0 2 39.2 30 6 2 10 17 1.36 *Spencer Mayer 34 1 2 0.333 27 0 7 39 40 19 6 11 22 4.38 Aaron LeBron 23 3 2 0.600 6 4 0 35.2 27 6 1 19 13 1.51 Dan Osborne 23 2 1 0.667 4 4 0 25 24 9 2 16 5 3.24 Mark Jacobs 29 0 1 0.000 13 0 5 21.1 23 5 0 8 19 2.11 Kent DeLong 27 0 0 0.000 2 2 0 11.1 9 2 1 5 6 1.59 Max Maurice 25 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1.2 2 0 0 2 0 0.00 Team Totals 28.5 95 59 0.617 267 154 16 1379.2 1275 429 55 384 499 2.80 Al Thiele was picked up by the White Sox prior to the season in a blockbuster deal with the Phillies. While things didn't really work out on their end of things either, Thiele ended up being the goat of the trade. His offense completely left him last year and the best news of the year was when Chicago was able to trade him across town for closer Mark Jacobs. Enter Ashley Wetherell. The career 2nd stringer proved worthy of the task of starting, finishing 6th among all backstops in RBI with 56 and #1 in three-base hits. He also had the 3rd best fielding average among qualifying catchers and threw out 43.9% of runners who tried to steal on him. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Ashley Wetherell 27 120 111 412 41 108 23 7 3 56 0 0 33 38 0.262 0.322 0.374 C #Al Thiele 33 53 49 188 21 37 6 2 0 17 1 0 22 16 0.197 0.284 0.250 C Bob Weaver 31 23 6 35 4 7 1 1 2 8 1 0 2 2 0.200 0.243 0.457 As great as Bob Wolf is in normal circumstances, he really raises the stakes in the clutch. Last season he hit .342 with 6 homeruns and 33 RBIs from the 7th inning on, and .351 with runners in scoring position. With runners in scoring position *in* close and late situations, his on-base percentage ratchets up to .500, and in close/late situations with 2 outs, he hit .410 and had 15 RBIs in 39 at-bats. Leslie McGrude could never stay healthy last season and what was an otherwise pretty decent season was ruined. His chronic injuries led to the team acquiring defensive specialist Mark Melton from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Melton, who was hitting just .230 with an OBP of less than .300 at the tme of the trade, increased his average by 56 points with the Sox and played his way into the lineup. Now the team has 3 starting-quality players for 2 positions. At third, [b]Dale Van Tassel hit okay but a series of injuries suffered in 1932 seems to have robbed the man of his power stroke. In fairness, he was never a truly great home run hitter. However, before last year he was a guy who could hit in the .320s for you (provided "you" were the Phillies), draw 50 or so walks, hit 15 or so doubles or so... when you become a player who hits .274 with those peripherals, you become a liability. The Sox ended up trading away a solid OF prospect in Justin Boykins for Gustavo Pena, who has many of the same issues as van Tassel, just not as pronounced. Jeff "The Rebel" Davis started at short most of the time that he played for continuity reasons. The fact is, Mark Melton is a far better fielder at short even though the man is 8 years older. Wherever Davis, McGruder, and Melton play in 1934, you can bet that The Rebel won't be at the 6 position. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B Bob Wolf 32 141 141 548 109 179 36 7 14 95 0 1 93 26 0.327 0.423 0.495 2B *Leslie McGruder 27 85 82 347 54 110 21 8 3 41 3 1 29 17 0.317 0.370 0.450 2B Ron Brewer 28 62 33 137 15 38 4 2 1 21 1 1 14 6 0.277 0.340 0.358 3B #Dale van Tassel 31 85 76 296 33 81 5 3 1 41 3 5 34 20 0.274 0.349 0.321 3B #Gustavo Peńa 36 48 48 193 20 54 6 3 1 29 1 3 14 8 0.280 0.327 0.358 3B John Gray 35 57 47 164 15 45 7 1 1 22 0 2 12 14 0.274 0.320 0.348 3B Rick Gartman 32 11 11 41 5 6 0 0 0 1 1 0 4 3 0.146 0.222 0.146 SS Mark Melton 30 80 77 280 36 80 14 6 3 35 0 3 27 31 0.286 0.350 0.411 SS Jeff Davis 22 77 69 263 32 83 14 4 4 35 4 5 31 7 0.316 0.387 0.445 SS Hugh Thompson 23 26 22 76 6 18 2 1 0 10 0 3 9 4 0.237 0.314 0.289 George Echols started the year as half of a killer two-headed pinch-hitting partnership with Tommy Mills but when Roland Hardy went down, he moved into the lineup and never moved out. Despite the turmoil, Echols hit about as well last year as he had in '32, losing a little bit of gap power on the one hand but also cutting down on his strikeouts. Mills has built up a living with the Sox as a man to rely on in the clutch. Last year marked his second highest games played total in his career (he played in 94 games - and had 271 at bats - back in 1927). Monte LaPointe keeps getting better every season he's in the league. Last year, he was good enough to make the All-Star Game and probably deserved a Gold Glove award for his play in center. The Sox expect him at or near the top of the lineup for the next decade. Hunter Sunday is another man whose batting exploits sometimes overshadow his work in the field. Last year, splitting time between right and center, he recorded 10 baserunner kills, a fair way off the mark (Brooklyn's Ken Lefebvre had 21) but that was primarily because runners have learned not to try to advance on him. At the plate, he took home two-thirds of the Triple Crown categories, leading the AL in both runs batted in and home runs, and that despite playing half his games in cavernous Comiskey Park. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF #George Echols 24 126 96 431 75 130 28 5 7 47 8 7 51 45 0.302 0.376 0.439
LF #Tommy Mills 30 74 16 115 11 34 7 2 1 7 1 2 7 15 0.296 0.336 0.417
LF Justin Boykins 24 5 1 5 3 2 2 0 0 2 0 0 3 0 0.400 0.625 0.800
CF *Monte LaPointe 26 118 118 485 71 157 20 8 10 64 3 2 31 58 0.324 0.371 0.460
CF Trevor Haas 20 20 12 57 6 17 2 0 1 6 2 2 1 2 0.298 0.310 0.386
RF *Hunter Sunday 33 149 148 579 93 155 14 5 24 110 4 5 67 46 0.268 0.339 0.434
RF Roland Hardy 25 71 69 284 41 83 13 8 1 30 6 9 18 22 0.292 0.338 0.405
Team Totals 28.6 1720 1386 5421 741 1513 245 77 78 719 39 51 513 446 0.279 0.342 0.396
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03-14-2010, 02:24 PM
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#89 (permalink) | ||
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 Chicago Cubs Overview It seems weird that a city as large as Chicago would not have seen their first pennant until 1931 and still have just 2 of them total. The Cubs don't quite seem to believe it themselves. Although their victory seems miles behind them now, they're still acting like they're just a move or two away from contention. Witness the recent acquisition of Charles Payne. He cost the Cubbies a pretty penny but they think he'll be just what the doctor ordered to bolster a weak offense. It is rather surprising to think that a team that plays in Wrigley Field could have its woes so centered around a bad offense. The pitching staff and defense are actually probably even better than the stats recognize (3.74 ERA, 5th in the NL), but that also makes the offense even worse (.259 average was 7th, and the 612 runs scored were 6th). Overall, though, this is a team with issues from top to bottom, and not even a young team that might be able to develop its way out of its problems. We forsee a long season on the North Side. Steve Foreman returns for his 5th season at the helm of the Cubs. He's revered in this town for the '31 World Championship but the fact is that that was a very weak year for the National League as a whole. Most seasons, 88 victories gets you a 3rd or 4th place trophy, not a shot at the World Series. Prior to the Cubs, he had non-noteworthy tenures with the South Siders and the Indians. We guess that the lack of success with the Sox is part of the reason Cubs fans love him; he's like a gem that was taken away from the other guys because they didn't value it enough. Pitching The biggest problem with the Cubs' pitching staff is that it lacks an ace, the kind of guy the team can turn to when it really needs a victory. Paul Moore was the top pitcher last year, but that's not really the same thing. He won 21 games for the team in '32 but missed 2 months last year with back spasms. When he did play, he walked more batters than he struck out, which is fine if you're a 2nd or 3rd starter but not if you're a first. Other than him, Barry Fawcett played well but he is not a young man and should not be counted on to equal last season's play. Phil Cutshall might be a better answer; he had some issues with the longball last season but mixes in five different pitches for strikes and is also young enough to learn to consistently keep the ball down. Todd Lowman is another young guy who doesn't look like a future ace but who could be a good middle of the rotation man. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Todd Lowman 21 9 13 0.409 29 29 0 213.1 233 98 9 82 67 4.13 Paul Moore 25 13 8 0.619 23 23 0 176 167 56 11 63 56 2.86 Barry Fawcett 33 11 6 0.647 19 19 0 158.2 147 50 4 39 53 2.84 Brian Law 32 6 12 0.333 20 20 0 145 168 61 9 40 48 3.79 Phil Cutshall 24 7 15 0.318 31 18 1 154.2 202 87 13 51 53 5.06 Phil Hendrix 34 3 9 0.250 16 15 0 115.2 123 46 6 52 26 3.58 *Kurtis Houk 26 3 7 0.300 16 13 0 103 117 58 2 66 28 5.07 Charlie Goforth 29 5 8 0.385 36 6 3 87.1 100 32 1 37 29 3.30 *Don Smith 25 1 2 0.333 34 2 2 68.1 79 29 1 26 14 3.82 Larry Marron 22 3 2 0.600 24 0 0 48.1 44 17 1 17 21 3.17 Mark Jacobs 29 2 3 0.400 28 0 8 42 32 9 2 10 26 1.93 Jim Hogan 29 3 1 0.750 6 6 0 41.2 40 14 1 12 17 3.02 Ernie Hawks 22 1 1 0.500 9 3 0 23.2 28 16 1 18 10 6.08 Team Totals 27 67 87 0.435 291 154 14 1377.2 1480 573 61 513 448 3.74 We don't know if there was Kryptonite behind the plate last year but the Cubs had a beast of a time finding a backstop who could do anything at the plate. John Joseph, a serviceable backup with the Phillies, Tigers, and Red Sox, was the first guy they tried but when he hit almost 100 points below his career average of .303 they moved on. Internal prospects Harry DeRosier and Mark Sudduth also failed to hit so in desperation the Cubs reached out to the South Siders and picked up Al Thiele in exchange for their closer Mark Jacobs. As recently as 1932 he had hit .319 with 9 homeruns and 57 RBI but with the Cubs he hit just .174. The last man they ran, Earl Schell, was the Cubs' starter in 1032 but had missed the entire year with a torn back muscle suffered in spring training. He was the best of the players they tried but even then his performance was a mite disappointing: the year before, he hit .331/.398/.500 and would have been an All-Star if such a term existed in 1932. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C John Joseph 32 54 40 128 8 27 1 1 3 14 0 0 8 15 0.211 0.252 0.305 C Harry DeRosier 25 54 35 114 12 23 4 1 1 14 0 0 16 2 0.202 0.298 0.281 C #Al Thiele 33 26 25 92 12 16 1 0 1 9 0 0 10 13 0.174 0.255 0.217 C *Earl Schell 23 17 17 58 9 15 4 1 1 9 0 0 11 4 0.259 0.377 0.414 C Charlie Maynor 33 19 19 57 2 17 5 1 0 8 0 0 4 9 0.298 0.344 0.421 C Mark Sudduth 22 22 18 55 2 10 3 0 0 2 0 0 3 11 0.182 0.237 0.236 Carson Groth basically matched his output from his age-20 season in '33. We'd call that a disappointment except that the entire league dropped significantly. The lack of power is still a concern but that's something he can still develop. Groth's backup Ethan Hardin is making quite a name for himself as the Cubbies' pinch hitting specialist - so much so, in fact, that the Phillies took him on in the Charles Payne deal to do the same for them. Ed Lantz opened the season in the middle of a 24-game hitting streak, which ended up the 2nd longest in the major leagues last year. He never could get his bat going after that point, though, and eventually lost his job to Ken Rooney, who almost won Rookie of the Year honors despite only playing in the bigs for half the season. Now that Lantz is gone (also to Philly in the Payne deal) the job is Rooney's to keep. Bob Bodie took over for the departed John Chastain at the hot corner and did a good job of it. He was also the team's cleanup hitter for much of the season but that was really by default. He'll be much better suited in a spot a bit further down in the order. Fred Harris committed a lot of errors last year but the Cubs are still happy with his defense. He just gets to a lot of balls that other, lesser shortstops wouldn't even be able to make a play on. Some softer hands could lead to a long string of Gold Gloves in the future for this man. On the batting end, he had a surprisingly decent season despite hitting most of the time in the 8 hole. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Carson Groth 21 151 151 638 72 206 48 3 6 63 0 0 42 62 0.323 0.364 0.436 1B Ethan Hardin 26 85 3 87 11 26 8 0 1 12 0 0 10 7 0.299 0.364 0.425 2B *Ed Lantz 26 101 81 315 42 69 14 2 7 34 1 0 36 31 0.219 0.301 0.343 2B Ken Rooney 26 67 58 256 29 79 17 7 0 28 1 1 7 28 0.309 0.327 0.430 2B Henry Files 29 30 22 80 8 16 1 0 0 6 1 0 18 8 0.200 0.347 0.212 2B Jim Donovan 20 13 13 51 4 12 0 0 2 6 0 0 0 6 0.235 0.235 0.353 3B Bob Bodie 28 133 132 519 62 142 20 4 12 89 0 3 35 57 0.274 0.321 0.397 3B Zhu-lan Zhang 28 58 33 149 23 36 6 1 4 22 0 1 19 9 0.242 0.327 0.376 SS Fred Harris 26 123 122 465 49 126 41 8 12 55 0 0 29 68 0.271 0.313 0.471 SS Tom Peay 32 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.000 0.000 0.000 The outfield as a whole has to be listed as the single most disappointing aspect of the North Side baseball club. Ernie Parker looked like a budding superstar in 1931 but concerns about his health and a simple lack of ability to reach his potential have caused a lot of fans to focus on his faults rather than his strengths. He's still 26, a great fielder in left, and a guy who finds ways to get on base. The lack of speed makes him a poor leadoff candidate but he does have the bat control for #2. Ray Thompson really did about what he should have done in 1932. So why are Chicago fans so disappointed in him? He hit just .222 but did get on base a good deal - his 54 runs scored weren't bad for what ended up being a half-season of play. A continued inability to hit righties meant that he stopped facing them somewhere around mid-June, and his power was mostly wasted at the top of the order. The Milkman is never going to repeat his 1930 performance with the Cardinals - 33 homeruns was the record at the time - but he wasn't terrible last year like he was in '32. He was overmatched in center and Charles Payne will be manning the spot for the future. Tom Battle was the best right fielder on the team but he went out to the Boston Red Sox in midseason. In his stead, the Cubbies first turned to Ronald Normand, who'd hit .333 and .320 the previous two seasons. Out of the Baker Bowl, though, he found that his blasts off the right field wall turned into harmless pop-outs. Don Williams did an okay job out there but the team kept finding themselves returning to Normand in the hopes that he could break out of his season-long slump. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Ernie Parker 26 108 105 414 47 118 21 3 4 39 0 0 57 15 0.285 0.371 0.379
LF Brian Ladd 22 25 25 96 9 18 4 0 2 8 0 0 8 10 0.188 0.248 0.292
LF #Ben Purcell 25 13 1 15 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 3 0.133 0.316 0.133
CF *Ray Thompson 33 81 79 306 54 68 11 1 15 35 11 9 49 31 0.222 0.335 0.412
CF Chris Harris 30 79 54 266 29 71 8 5 2 23 12 7 13 16 0.267 0.300 0.357
CF Dwayne McNeil 30 24 14 71 6 17 1 0 1 6 2 1 5 4 0.239 0.299 0.296
CF Eric Propst 31 6 4 18 1 4 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 3 0.222 0.263 0.278
CF Jim Cathcart 30 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.000 0.000 0.000
RF Ronald Normand 34 101 78 314 33 78 5 1 3 23 6 3 27 24 0.248 0.313 0.299
RF Don Williams 25 58 53 228 21 63 10 1 1 20 6 5 6 29 0.276 0.301 0.342
RF *Tom Battle 27 38 38 155 20 47 9 2 6 21 1 4 9 19 0.303 0.347 0.503
RF Patrick Cleary 23 10 10 42 10 17 1 0 1 6 3 1 4 0 0.405 0.457 0.500
- Ken Harrison 23 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
Team Totals 27.1 1790 1386 5429 612 1407 265 43 88 592 44 35 444 533 0.259 0.316 0.372
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03-14-2010, 06:44 PM
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#90 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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 Cincinnati Reds Overview This is starting to get dire. The Reds have finished in 2nd place each of the last 3 seasons. Two of those times, they ended just a game out (in '32 they finished 21 games behind the greatest-of-all-time Giants). They jumped out to a huge start but struggled in July and August (they were just 3 games over .500 in those two months), which allowed the Gothamites to get back into the thick of it, and from there even a 20-6 finish wasn't enough to win it. It's hard to see how this team can possibly do any better than they did last year, particularly in a market as small as theirs. They led the league in offense thanks to a .296 team batting average. Given the baseball-wide offensive slowdown, this was not a league where records would be set, and yet the Reds managed to do so: they struck out just 310 times, 26 less than the 1925 Phillies. The pitching was just as high-flying. The Reds finished in the top 2 in every major category except for home runs allowed (they were 3rd with 59). Their starters had a 2.95 ERA, tops in the senior circuit. The bullpen wasn't quite as great; was that the chink in the armor that set them down? Bob Reed joined the Reds after their old manager took a bigger-name, higher-paying job with the Yankees. He last managed with the A's in 1928 but proved more than worthy to the task. Pitching While all the press went to Bob Hinman, Earl Crockett was every bit as great last year. He's now won 56 games over the last two seasons and 125 total, all with the Reds. One big difference with this team between '32 and previous seasons is that he had other men in to help him out. Roman Loomis was previously best known as the guy who threw 64 2/3rds innings in 1930 and gave up more earned runs than innings pitched. He'd always been long on talent and short on results. Last year, something clicked. His 26-4 record was the 4th best of all time, trailing just Rick Chesley's 1903 (31-3), Jack Rosenberry's 1929 (21-3), and Barry Lewis' 1912 (27-4). Roman Loomis also had a positive season. For many clubs he'd be the staff ace. He was content with being the Reds' #3 man last year. His talent lies in changing speeds and keeping the ball low in the strike zone. Ted O'Toole did a pretty decent job eating innings but was moved to the Pirates in the offseason, opening up the 4th spot in the rotation. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Earl Crockett 29 29 11 0.725 42 42 0 345.2 335 95 17 57 189 2.47 Ted O'Toole 31 20 17 0.541 41 41 0 319.1 317 124 19 118 96 3.49 Lyndon Key 25 16 10 0.615 35 35 0 278 308 106 10 88 83 3.43 Roman Loomis 27 26 4 0.867 34 31 0 276 217 70 5 64 94 2.28 *Alan Marable 23 3 3 0.500 7 5 0 40.1 41 18 3 26 20 4.02 Dave Fortenberry 30 0 1 0.000 24 0 11 36.1 25 6 1 20 20 1.49 *Morgan Cargile 21 3 4 0.429 26 0 8 32 29 12 1 15 21 3.38 Bill James 27 1 1 0.500 22 0 4 32 29 13 3 4 12 3.66 Ed Shoulders 30 1 1 0.500 12 0 1 14.2 24 12 0 9 8 7.36 Lee Bellamy 19 1 0 1.000 4 0 0 7.2 9 2 0 3 1 2.35 *Mike Harris 22 2 0 1.000 6 0 0 7.1 7 4 0 3 3 4.91 Team Totals 25.8 102 52 0.662 253 154 24 1389.1 1341 462 59 407 547 2.99 It wasn't quite a platoon since both men bat from the right side but Ed Townsley and John Lamar combined to give the Reds the best production in baseball from the catcher position. Lamar used to be the starter but he faltered a little in '32 and gave way to Townsley most of the time. He spent a good deal of time in the batter's cage before every game and hit so well that Cincinnati ended using him 23 times as a pinch-hitter. Townsley, needless to say, made the All-Star team. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Ed Townsley 25 108 101 404 58 131 29 1 8 72 0 0 31 27 0.324 0.372 0.460 C John Lamar 35 73 47 196 25 67 9 2 3 32 0 0 17 18 0.342 0.402 0.454 C Jim Bartlett 33 10 6 21 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0.095 0.208 0.095 Bob Leonhardt turned in another fine season with Cincy. He did miss a month and a half in May and early June, which allowed them to give Cliff Shoemake a long enough showcasing that they were able to move the backup first sacker to the St. Louis Browns for relief pitching and CF Carl Austin. Second base was pretty messy when Bill Heath went down. It's tough to point at any one thing that kept this team a game behind the Giants but perhaps lack of production from this position was the reason. Elmer Copple wasn't a great hitter and had an OBP under .280. Keith Jones was supposed to be an improvement based on his previous two seasons with the team but he didn't do much either. The Reds have brought in Steve Mangum to try and bolster this position in case Heath gets hurt again. Mangum isn't really starter quality but wasn't a complete black hole and can also play shortstop (where he started 52 games in 1932) and center field. Jay Calvin had yet another great season, even by his standards. He turns 32 next year and is a little more than a year away from 3,000 hits. 4,000 looks within reach for this man. He's also won 5 Gold Gloves, including one each in the last 3 years. It's hard to believe that just a year and a half ago - June of 1932 - some critics thought his best years were behind him based on a "slow" start in which he hit "only" .294. At shortstop, Augusto Gonzalez is something of the forgotten man on this roster. He finished 2nd on the team in walks and 3rd in runs scored and yet the man gets even less press than Ed Townsley. He's still a good enough fielder for short but may become a liability out there in another 2 or 3 years. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Bob Leonhardt 31 116 116 459 73 155 26 2 4 92 0 0 63 42 0.338 0.417 0.429 1B *Cliff Shoemake 26 38 38 164 24 46 15 2 2 28 1 1 7 16 0.280 0.306 0.433 2B #Bill Heath 30 65 56 240 40 64 13 3 5 37 10 1 32 14 0.267 0.350 0.408 2B #Elmer Copple 23 71 61 234 24 56 13 1 1 18 0 1 12 25 0.239 0.278 0.316 2B #Keith Jones 29 38 19 78 5 18 0 0 2 10 1 0 12 6 0.231 0.341 0.308 3B *Jay Calvin 31 146 144 616 129 224 41 8 5 88 19 8 63 31 0.364 0.423 0.481 SS #Augusto González 33 124 124 506 88 154 27 1 7 63 3 4 67 13 0.304 0.386 0.403 SS Dean Backman 27 64 47 189 22 53 4 0 1 30 0 0 20 12 0.280 0.355 0.317 SS John Bayne 25 31 11 51 6 11 3 0 0 9 0 0 2 3 0.216 0.259 0.275 Was Jay Calvin the team MVP or was it Brad Box? The former got on base for the latter to drive him in all season long. In the end, we have to give that spot to Calvin due to his fine defense at the hot corner, but Box is no slouch in right himself. Victor Ward was less than stellar in his first full year with the Reds (he came over from the Browns in the summer of '32) and by season's end the Reds were using more-or-less rookie Gustavo Castro out there. Castro was used as a pinch-hitter for a couple months in 1931 and this action disqualified him for the ROY award. Had he been able to, he would have won the prize hands-down. Bill Briggs spent a good deal of time filling in for Castro and Ward and pinch-hitting when needed. Carl Austin came over from the Browns - the second time Cincy found an outfield solution from St. Louis in two years. He hit for a good average but little else and it's still up in the air who will be the Reds' left fielder in 1934. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Gustavo Castro 23 119 119 495 82 150 20 4 11 54 9 7 63 54 0.303 0.377 0.426
LF Carl Austin 26 71 65 271 32 85 13 1 1 32 0 1 12 29 0.314 0.349 0.380
LF Brian James 22 19 15 56 7 14 3 2 1 13 0 0 6 1 0.250 0.328 0.429
CF Victor Ward 31 101 89 375 60 105 19 6 3 51 1 5 32 22 0.280 0.335 0.387
CF *Bill Briggs 28 77 27 164 20 42 7 0 1 24 1 1 11 24 0.256 0.309 0.317
RF *Brad Box 28 148 147 566 113 180 33 3 19 115 19 10 89 18 0.318 0.413 0.488
- *John Buehler 27 7 0 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.000 0.143 0.000
Team Totals 27.2 1679 1386 5590 851 1652 295 39 74 823 66 41 554 417 0.296 0.360 0.402
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03-15-2010, 09:27 PM
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#91 (permalink) | ||
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 Cleveland Indians Overview The Indians came into the year as the critics' choice as the breakout team but the only breaking out they ever did was when they nearly broke down to dead last in the American League. In the end, the money woes of the St. Louis Browns out-awfulled them by a single game. This really ought to have been expected: Excepting 1932, this team finished dead last or 7th every single year going back to 1923. It's hard to find any one category to take solace in if you're a fan of this team. The team started poorly, approached mediocrity in midseason, and were downright awful to end the year. Their hitting sucked. Their pitching blew. They did go 21-16 in one run games but it's tough to say whether that was due to some actual ability to emerge victorious in close games or just plain dumb luck. Kuniyuki Kono has a long-standing reputation for concentrating on pitching at the detriment to everything else. His previous managerial experience with Boston ended up being mostly positive, although it's telling that they didn't ask him back for 1928. He'll get his first chance to helm a team from the beginning this year after leading Cleveland to a 43-69 record to close out '32. Pitching Conventional wisdom is that you have to be a pretty good pitcher to lose 20 games. Willard Doe is a pretty good pitcher. He's not great, and he's certainly not the kind of man you attach a phrase like "flashes of brilliance" to, but for now he eats up innings so that guys who aren't ready yet don't have to. While the Indians hope that Tim Maisonet will turn into that guy who can give as well as get against the other first starters in the league, we're not as optimistic. He doesn't throw nearly hard enough - on a good day, his fastball tops out at about 85 miles per hour - and his control has to be absolutely pinpoint to make up for that. That's a lot to ask from any pitcher, let alone one as young as this man. There are some younger prospects on this team. Most of them seem to be of the variety who have a great shot at being in their 30s in 10 years, but they still make the prospect lists so what the hey. Brian Cowell did a much better job, we think, than his won-lost record of 5-8 indicates. He also needs to find more movement on his pitches but he at least gets into the high 80s on a regular basis. Chad Smalls is tougher to figure out and in the end the Indians decided to cut him loose - actually, they found a buyer in the Chicago White Sox for his massive potential. So far, despite some tantalizing stuff, he has put together a 9.05 ERA in 109 1/3 career innings. Larry Bramble is another mid-80s guy whose control won't quite allow him to remain in the bigs as a starter. At the time of this writing, the Indians brought in Boston Red Sox veteran Roger Sayers to anchor this young rotation. Perhaps he can teach the rest of the staff some new tricks. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Willard Doe 28 11 20 0.355 35 35 0 259 303 131 13 92 83 4.55 Tim Maisonet 24 11 14 0.440 32 30 0 227.1 249 85 7 68 38 3.37 Larry Bramble 23 6 11 0.353 39 22 0 188.1 181 80 6 97 63 3.82 Paul Rogers 35 9 10 0.474 20 20 0 142.1 174 61 7 67 51 3.86 *Brian Cowell 22 5 8 0.385 26 16 1 129 121 51 5 75 26 3.56 *Chad Smalls 21 2 9 0.182 23 11 1 83.2 116 77 4 64 22 8.28 Ron Anglin 28 1 2 0.333 45 0 2 78.2 74 25 4 24 39 2.86 Alan Ford 26 3 3 0.500 9 9 0 66.2 65 31 3 32 13 4.19 *Jesús Espín 36 2 5 0.286 11 9 0 61.1 73 34 4 31 21 4.99 *Bob Poche 25 8 8 0.500 41 0 5 61 58 20 4 23 20 2.95 Steve Petrie 37 0 1 0.000 11 0 1 20.2 23 13 3 9 4 5.66 Dale Thomas 21 1 1 0.500 11 0 0 17.1 18 9 2 13 10 4.67 *David Días 35 0 2 0.000 2 2 0 10 14 9 3 5 2 8.10 Darrel Segars 21 0 1 0.000 6 0 0 8 20 16 2 3 2 18.00 Erik-Johan Nybacka 27 0 0 0.000 5 0 0 7.2 15 5 1 5 2 5.87 *Matt Corwin 34 0 0 0.000 4 0 0 5 3 0 0 2 0 0.00 Wu You 23 0 0 0.000 8 0 0 9 20 12 0 13 3 12.00 Team Totals 27.4 59 95 0.383 328 154 10 1375 1527 659 68 623 399 4.31 [b]Dave Echols[/]' rescue from the scrap heap of the minor leagues is the stuff of legend. Last year was the first time he was given a job day in and day out and while he didn't quite hit at the level he'd shown in '32, he was more than man enough for the 3-hole in the Indians' lineup. His lack of RBIs are due more to the fact that people in front of him just weren't getting on base enough. Andres Merced hit .297 in limited time the year before and for a brief time actually pushed Echols out into left field, but in the end he proved that his proper place was as a backup. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Dave Echols 24 137 133 545 67 155 28 4 5 57 0 0 43 60 0.284 0.337 0.378 C Andrés Merced 26 82 49 223 22 57 11 1 0 21 0 0 9 21 0.256 0.286 0.314 C Ray Alexander 25 59 29 109 10 30 3 0 0 8 0 0 9 9 0.275 0.328 0.303 Bill Eldridge proved that 1932's off-year was just that. He rebounded to lead the team in homeruns and RBIs and finish a close second in batting average to Dave Echols' .284. The Indians go into 1934 knowing that, however many holes in this lineup there are, there is not one at first base. The Indians are very high on Mario Vasquez but in 94 September at-bats he showed very little except that he's not ready for prime-time yet. That leaves the position to Art Tribble, who broke his elbow last year and may or may not be all the way back by spring training, or Vernon Friedrich, 1932's starter who lost almost 100 points off his batting average last year. Chris Clark has a lot of potential with the bat. He hit .335 in Montreal in 1932 as a 22 year old. He sure did not show it last year, and no team, not even the Indians, can stick with a guy for long when he posts a .268 on-base percentage. Jeff Gunn, who just did get his cup of coffee last year, is one guy who will be pushing Clark in spring training. Shortstop figures to be a position in flux, particularly now that Carl Kagan has been sent out of town. Friedrich might be the front-runner here, but also look out for Desmond Chandler, who failed in a 78 at-bat trial with the White Sox in 1932 but who blistered the minors last season. He's probably not second base material; however, it wouldn't be too hard find a spot for him if he actually comes through on his considerable potential. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Bill Eldridge 26 153 153 568 67 159 29 2 16 70 0 0 85 62 0.280 0.376 0.423 2B Art Tribble 23 53 53 227 27 65 10 10 1 17 8 1 9 12 0.286 0.316 0.432 2B Rusty Dardar 28 66 37 165 10 36 5 0 1 19 2 1 7 1 0.218 0.251 0.267 2B #Mario Vázquez 22 22 22 94 12 14 5 2 1 9 2 0 3 9 0.149 0.173 0.277 3B Chris Clark 23 106 95 371 43 89 20 5 4 44 6 7 13 24 0.240 0.268 0.353 3B Jeff Gunn 21 1 1 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0.250 0.250 0.250 SS Carl Kagan 24 127 118 469 52 125 17 5 3 55 3 3 33 33 0.267 0.315 0.343 SS Vernon Friedrich 26 123 118 438 44 99 16 2 6 52 1 2 48 43 0.226 0.308 0.313 SS #Bill Swinney 26 45 24 96 8 19 5 1 0 11 0 1 2 8 0.198 0.212 0.271 The Juan Carlos Munoz-Jay Carbaugh seems to have come out about even for both sides: both guys stunk last year. Munoz was pretty much horrible all season long. He had a niggling finger injury that kept him out of the lineup for all of May and most of June but even at that he played like he came back too soon. Cleveland never could find anyone to replace him so they just kept trotting him out there, hoping that he'd finally turn his season around. That never happened. He was still a better find than Bruce Struck, whose .353 average in 139 Montreal at-bats translated into a single major league extra-base hit, or Columbus Glaze, a man who has somehow crafted a 10-year major league career despite having no marketable baseball skills. Alphonse Conway looked like a budding young star when he hit .316 with 38 doubles in 1931. In '32, he underwent what Indians fans hoped was a slump, although his numbers looked suspiciously similar to those he had in 1930. Last year he dropped down another peg. Now he's 30 and no longer deserves the words "young" or "star" near his name. Pedro Serrea has been Cleveland's starting CF, more or less, since 1927. The fact that he had injury issues made Conway play a bit more center than right but it should be easy enough to make room for him in '34 if he's healthy. It'll be easy because, well, Keenan Thomas did absolutely nothing following a torrid April (.323, 7 runs, .400 OBP). He'd be the team's biggest disappointment if it weren't for Vernon Friedrich, but he was plenty big enough in his own right. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Juan Carlos Muńóz 30 94 91 345 35 81 13 7 6 47 4 1 38 18 0.235 0.310 0.365
LF *Bruce Struck 22 50 22 109 10 22 0 1 0 5 1 0 3 18 0.202 0.237 0.220
LF Columbus Glaze 32 37 12 68 10 16 6 0 0 9 0 2 7 8 0.235 0.312 0.324
CF Alphonse Conway 29 119 111 463 54 118 21 5 7 49 1 0 32 21 0.255 0.308 0.367
CF *Pedro Serrea 27 59 57 239 26 69 12 1 2 21 4 2 15 9 0.289 0.339 0.372
CF Dan Douglas 25 33 23 93 11 24 7 2 0 13 0 1 7 10 0.258 0.317 0.376
RF *Keenan Thomas 25 107 75 297 39 73 17 3 2 21 0 2 42 13 0.246 0.343 0.343
RF Suk-hoon T'ae 26 12 5 27 1 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.222 0.222 0.259
RF *Kevin Dubose 22 4 4 15 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.133 0.133 0.133
Team Totals 26.3 1817 1386 5378 573 1325 243 52 54 555 32 23 413 444 0.246 0.302 0.341
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03-16-2010, 10:56 PM
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#92 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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 Detroit Tigers Overview Although they didn't quite get over the .500 hump, 1933 was a definite step forward for the Detroit Tigers. Their 75 victories was the most since 1926, when they were still one year removed from 102 victories and their last World Series title. They're still a fair amount off from those heights but the core of this squad is young and full of folks with nice-looking potential. The Tigers actually rode through most of the season over .500 but dropped below with a 21-30 record from August 1 to the end of the season. A 3-1 loss to the White Sox and Brian Hinman on the 11th of August seemed to be the turning point: from then through the 9th of September they went 7-21. They scored 3 or fewer runs in 14 of those 28 games as the youthful hitting just could not recover, psychologically speaking, from their demoralizing performance at the hands of the Sox ace. Victor Madrid is going to need to avoid such slumps if he's going to drive this team into contention. He took over the Tigers last year as a rookie, albeit one with a pretty decent minor league record. The skinny around the league is that he really excels at coaxing an extra good season or two out of the vets - something he was often asked to do with barnstorming former major leaguers - but so far he's been doing a pretty good job with the kids as well. Pitching The front of the rotation, at least as the year started, was pretty old for a sub-70 victory team. Madrid's strategy was clearly to give the younger arms something to aspire to. Ed Overcash has come a long way since being dumped by the Phillies organization in 1931. Just 103-112 going into his time with the Tigers, he's gone 33-30 during his 2 1/2 years with Detroit. Sadly, he hurt his elbow in August of last year and his career is in doubt. Luis Lopez demonstrated the extreme pitch-to-contact skills that made him a minor league sensation, at least for a while: through June, he held an 8-5 record and even made the All-Star Game, although a 6.18 ERA in that last month proved to be a portent of things to come. Following a shoulder injury, he came back too early and just wasn't the same: in August he lost 5 of 6 decisions and couldn't manage a single strikeout. As the year progressed, the team found itself with a potential new ace. Steven Mudge was that man. His peripherals don't look that astounding but he specialized in the "atom ball" after coming up, and the Tigers are very high on his potential to throw five different pitches for strikes. Alan Marable is another guy the team is enamored with. Like Mudge, he struggled with the longball; unlike him, he struck out more men than he walked. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Ed Overcash 34 15 10 0.600 29 29 0 238 202 69 11 80 78 2.61 *Luis López 35 11 11 0.500 27 26 0 186 213 84 7 76 17 4.06 Steven Mudge 23 14 5 0.737 20 20 0 158 153 59 10 59 47 3.36 *Alan Marable 23 5 10 0.333 17 17 0 131 147 60 10 44 52 4.12 Curtis Ballentine 29 2 5 0.286 31 7 0 93 120 54 7 55 29 5.23 Ben Armstrong 27 5 5 0.500 21 8 0 92.1 98 44 7 44 41 4.29 Eric Jackson 27 6 5 0.545 12 12 0 90.1 97 33 2 29 31 3.29 *Chadwick Duffy 24 7 7 0.500 46 0 18 77 75 25 2 31 44 2.92 Bi-jun Seow 31 0 5 0.000 8 8 0 53.1 69 42 9 29 6 7.09 Wayne McMurtry 20 2 2 0.500 6 6 0 37 45 20 2 17 16 4.86 Bryan Debose 22 0 2 0.000 20 0 1 25.2 25 10 1 17 10 3.51 *Danny Collier 24 0 1 0.000 11 0 0 12 15 8 0 6 4 6.00 Curt Blue 21 0 0 0.000 3 0 0 4 5 1 0 4 3 2.25 Bill Gainey 29 0 0 0.000 2 0 0 3 9 4 0 1 2 12.00 *Bob Gragg 24 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0.00 *Marvin Robinson 21 0 1 0.000 1 1 0 0.2 3 3 1 1 2 40.54 *Martin Sheets 37 0 0 0.000 9 0 0 14.2 16 7 0 5 5 4.30 Dan Simmons 31 8 10 0.444 28 20 0 161 172 65 11 53 60 3.63 Team Totals 26.8 75 79 0.487 292 154 19 1378 1464 588 80 551 448 3.84 Jim Lomond could be the most underrated player in the league. Year after year he gives his team a good number of singles and walks, a great feel for the bat when it comes to the sacrifice bunt, and solid if unspectacular play behind the plate. And what does he get for that? A bunch of competition for his job, year after year. Last year he brought on much of that competition himself, being laid up for the better part of 3 months with one ailment or another. Scott Bridges was the best man to go in there. Bridges was the Indians' main man before they took on Dave Echols, and he played like a man accustomed to starting. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C #Jim Lomond 31 79 76 267 29 77 22 2 5 41 0 1 43 16 0.288 0.396 0.442 C John Owen 28 62 47 170 18 41 7 1 2 14 0 0 21 8 0.241 0.330 0.329 C Scott Bridges 29 36 29 102 13 30 5 1 6 20 0 0 16 5 0.294 0.390 0.539 C Mark Morrison 24 26 14 64 9 15 2 0 1 9 0 0 2 5 0.234 0.258 0.313 David Garrett had that breakout season the Tigers had been expecting from him since they first called him up in 1930. Hard to believe he's still only 25 years of age. He still has a pretty good way to go before he's in the real elites at first base but he also has another 5 seasons to go before he even hits the 30 mark. Phil Beadle missed the second half of the year with a broken elbow and, given that this is the second straight year he's missed significant time (he missed all of 1932 save 5 games with a torn labrum), you have to wonder if he's still going to be starting material in 1934. If not, Noah Bashford is there to provide a plus glove and... what it is that Noah Bashford provides you on offense, which isn't much. Charlie Parson suffered an extreme gap power outage (28 doubles in '32, 12 last year) and lost almost 50 points off his batting average, but the Tigers aren't super concerned. Why? He more than doubled his career walk rate. That was enough to make his total 2nd on the team to Gene Smyth and 9th in the American League. Although the loss of all those doubles is distressing, Parson is still young enough to find that stroke again. Matt Collins was pushed into a starting job due to a simple lack of talent at the shortstop position and he did what he does. He has soft hands, a good arm, and a lot of range but his .270 average is pretty much the sum of his skills at the plate. Yoshifumi "Admiral" Yamamoto has similar defensive skills but the Tigers were reluctant to give him a lot of at-bats after a really horrible 1932. The Tigers can do better than this. They need to do better than this to take the next step forward. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B David Garrett 24 141 141 556 85 153 28 16 13 95 10 7 53 39 0.275 0.338 0.453 2B *Phil Beadle 27 91 90 373 46 110 18 8 2 57 5 2 18 40 0.295 0.327 0.402 2B Noah Bashford 28 111 57 259 26 69 9 2 1 40 3 3 25 29 0.266 0.323 0.328 2B Jason Irwin 24 21 21 64 5 9 2 0 0 1 2 0 10 7 0.141 0.257 0.172 3B Charlie Parson 24 140 135 551 78 151 12 6 11 51 6 4 76 57 0.274 0.361 0.377 SS Matt Collins 29 89 83 363 36 98 12 2 2 33 7 9 16 16 0.270 0.301 0.331 SS Yoshifumi Yamamoto 32 59 54 186 21 53 7 8 1 24 0 1 19 15 0.285 0.348 0.425 SS Ron Paquette 28 39 23 98 11 25 2 1 0 11 1 1 10 6 0.255 0.324 0.296 After Carl Penley terrorized the American League in 1932 (.342 BA, 57 doubles, 11 triples), word got out around the league that he will swing at essentially anything that comes within three feet of the strike zone. Penley learned the hard way in '33 that free swinging has its consequences. 13 of his 18 walks came in the second half. That's still not nearly enough for a man who was, this time a year ago, being counted on to hit 3rd for this ballclub. There's no one thing that really stands out to you when you watch Gene Smyth play. There are lots of center fielders who are faster and have a better arm. He's a talented hitter for a person his age, but his biggest skill - plate discipline - is the kind of thing you notice on a week-to-week basis rather than a game-to-game one. He's not speedy on the basepaths and has middling power. And yet... he was the best player on the team last year, bar none. Right field was a revolving door in the Motor City last season. Gene Smyth actually played the most innings out there, edging Bill Taylor by 1/3rd (330.2 to 330.1). Taylor's a purer CF than Smyth so if he does take a starting job in '34, the two will probably switch places. That's not a given, though. Sam Swinney had a great year in the minors in 1932 and showed occasional flashes of very goodness as the Tigers' 5th OFer last year. Rusty McCarty had a tough year last year and has the same hackitis that plagues Carl Penley. He projects to hit for a lot more power than Penley, though. Frank Jackson is probably still a couple years away but you never know. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF Carl Penley 20 116 113 481 55 121 24 13 5 62 13 6 18 56 0.252 0.280 0.387
LF *Sam Swinney 24 50 18 101 15 28 3 2 2 12 0 2 10 12 0.277 0.342 0.406
LF Frank Jackson 20 24 14 68 7 18 4 0 0 4 3 1 3 1 0.265 0.296 0.324
CF *Gene Smyth 22 119 117 449 83 134 22 4 16 63 0 0 94 38 0.298 0.421 0.472
CF #Bill Taylor 26 80 77 310 44 84 20 2 6 22 8 6 24 37 0.271 0.326 0.406
CF *Tod Bly 25 52 39 158 17 45 10 4 0 16 5 1 15 7 0.285 0.347 0.399
CF *Cory Atkins 31 61 18 104 14 25 3 1 2 15 1 1 12 8 0.240 0.311 0.346
CF Naoya Imai 31 22 15 61 6 15 3 0 0 7 0 0 6 6 0.246 0.319 0.295
RF *Je-myung Kim 23 37 36 128 16 25 6 2 2 14 2 2 15 16 0.195 0.290 0.320
RF #Rusty McCarty 24 28 15 65 4 16 4 1 1 7 0 0 1 9 0.246 0.258 0.385
- Don Gordon 30 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
Team Totals 26.5 1776 1386 5419 670 1413 236 76 80 652 66 47 518 492 0.261 0.326 0.377
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03-17-2010, 10:56 AM
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#93 (permalink) |
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Minors (Single A)
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Still reading it, still digging it. Will you be converting the league to 11 when the time comes?
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| Thank you for this post: | Syd Thrift (03-17-2010) |
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03-17-2010, 10:58 AM
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#94 (permalink) | ||
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Definitely. I'm timing the offseason so that I can jump right into version 11 just in time for the preseason. The new fielding will probably wreak havoc with this league but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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03-17-2010, 09:36 PM
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#95 (permalink) | ||
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 New York Yankees Overview The Yankees showed just how far it is possible to go with pitching alone. Their 2.24 team ERA was just 7 points off of the 3rd-best mark produced by the St. Louis Browns during the dead-ball era (1908 to be exact) and they ended up allowing more than 100 fewer runs than the 2nd best team in the league at doing so, the Chicago White Sox. Of course, those Sox ended up edging them by a single game, in large part because the Yanks just could not generate enough offense. Each of their important offense numbers - runs scored, batting average, homeruns, slugging average - were decidedly average. That's not going to win you a pennant except in extraordinary circumstances. It's a testament to the pitching and defense that they got as close as they did. To make matters worse, their free spending ways the last couple of years have made the rest of the league reticent to deal with them. It shouldn't matter too much, as this team isn't particularly old and is pretty well stocked where they need to be, but they might be hurt by a lack of ability to plug holes. We guess time will tell on that. One area where the team dipped deep into its pocketbook last year was in its acquisition of Dan Elder from the Cincinnati Reds, where he'd just finished coaching that club to a 2nd place finish. It's hard to think of a squad as diametrically opposed to the communist doctrines of the Reds than the Yankees but perhaps that was what led Elder to arrive in this locale in the first place. In any case, whatever other issues the Yanks had, their manager wasn't really part of that. Pitching An argument could be made that Bob Meyers was really the pitcher of the year for the AL last year. Hey, we're not actually going to make that argument - when a guy wins 32 games, you give him the award no matter whatever else might be the case - but look at the numbers. "Eeyore" finished just ahead of Bob Hinman in the ERA race (both were beaten out by Eeyore's teammate Steve Krug), had fewer walks, struck out almost 50 more batters, and threw 16 more innings. In the end, it really was the victories that made the difference - Eeyore's constant moaning caused his teammates to underperform, giving Hinman the edge. Behind Meyers, the Yankees sported 2 other 20-game winners. In addition to the dean of Yankee pitchers Steve Krug (245 victories in pinstripes), the club also featured Alan Hack, who wasn't quite as awesome as last year (10-1, 2.46) but who nonetheless would be a #1 man on any other team in the AL save the White Sox. No team stays completely injury free, and it's not really newsworthy that a 42 year old man can't play the whole year, but Elvin Gram did what he could in the first half and when he did go down the Yanks were rather pleased with what former St. Louis Cardinal Carl Parham brought them. Parham's game is suited to the team's park as well as any pitcher on the squad. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Bob Meyers 27 28 14 0.667 43 43 0 375 283 69 15 30 233 1.66 Alan Hack 33 20 16 0.556 39 39 0 309 286 88 13 75 127 2.56 Steve Krug 33 21 7 0.750 33 33 0 264.2 216 47 1 59 78 1.60 Elvin Gram 42 9 6 0.600 18 18 0 127 146 50 4 37 33 3.54 *Carl Parham 25 6 6 0.500 16 14 0 103.2 92 35 3 34 42 3.04 *Philip Williams 34 3 4 0.429 40 0 17 61.2 54 17 4 27 18 2.48 Johnny Watson 26 4 1 0.800 28 0 2 57 37 12 2 22 27 1.89 Barry Ruth 29 2 2 0.500 16 4 0 49.2 37 17 1 20 6 3.08 *Juan Hernández 29 1 1 0.500 16 0 0 25.2 16 3 0 9 8 1.05 Jeff Olson 25 0 3 0.000 3 3 0 20 27 10 0 15 12 4.50 Tim Bunker 24 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0.00 *Lowell May 24 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 2 0 0.00 Team Totals 29.3 94 60 0.610 254 154 19 1395.1 1197 348 43 331 585 2.24 Things got so hectic last year that at the end of the season Phil Foster was hitting 3rd for this ballclub. Nothing against Foster, but when your best pure hitter is a 37 year old catcher clearly on the decline, you're probably not going to score a lot of runs. What Foster did do was stay healthy, which meant that longtime backup Jesus Vasquez didn't play much. It was just as well; although he hit .297 with 12 homeruns when he did get a chance to start in 1931, he was offensively anemic last year. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Phil Foster 37 134 134 542 57 152 29 0 2 68 0 1 35 38 0.280 0.324 0.345 C *Jesús Vásquez 30 44 20 100 7 21 0 1 2 16 0 0 5 3 0.210 0.243 0.290 Michael Taylor won the AL Rookie of the Year Award and still managed to be a disappointment for the Yankees. After he hit .375 in 96 at-bats at the end of 1932 and followed it up with a 6-15 performance in that year's World Series, the Yankees expected him to go into the middle of the lineup and mash. He slumped badly in the first two months and didn't really get his swing fixed until Dan Elder decided to platoon him with Ken Flake. Flake was a bit of a disappointment himself, as he did not provide them with anything approaching the power he had the year before in Boston, when he hit 25 homeruns for the Red Sox. Flake's powerful arm is better suited for the outfield anyway, so it's likely Taylor's job to lose again. Time is running out on him, though. The Yankees traded away 1932's ROY winner Earl Race to make room for Mike Kennedy, who had a fantastic season with the stick that year (.324, 116 RBIs) but who was no longer able to effectively field shortstop. Kennedy never quite got used to the position (24 errors in 122 games started out there) and to make matters worse didn't really hit much after April. He missed the last month of the season with a sprained thumb, but his replacements (Arlen Bopp and Paul McVey) didn't exactly impress. Quincy Hudson lost 80 points off his batting average in making the transition from part-time to full-time play. He didn't really field at the hot corner well enough to merit his lack of hitting either. He should expect competition in spring training from Bopp, McVey, and 21-year-old Harry Lund, who hit .347 with 51 doubles with the Minneapolis Millers in 1932. With all the turmoil elsewhere, the Yankees really appreciated Gilbert Nelson, who contributed a solid veteran presence, good defense at short, and a great eye. He's really an unsung hero, although he's also at an age where the team can't count on him to provide these skills day in and day out. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B Michael Taylor 25 120 105 431 53 119 27 2 7 53 0 0 37 30 0.276 0.333 0.397 1B *Ken Flake 29 96 75 287 38 71 12 7 6 47 4 2 47 35 0.247 0.357 0.401 1B Willis Collins 30 41 8 56 4 11 0 0 0 3 0 0 12 5 0.196 0.333 0.196 2B #Mike Kennedy 29 122 122 493 64 128 20 3 7 55 0 1 53 15 0.260 0.325 0.355 3B *Quincy Hudson 28 144 144 552 59 133 17 3 10 66 0 1 48 48 0.241 0.299 0.337 3B Paul McVey 32 43 15 73 5 19 1 1 0 4 0 0 3 15 0.260 0.299 0.301 SS Gilbert Nelson 35 122 118 393 59 105 30 2 0 41 0 1 77 47 0.267 0.386 0.354 SS Arlen Bopp 27 101 63 258 25 69 14 0 1 28 0 1 12 22 0.267 0.299 0.333 As Carter Keeton went, so did the Yankees. He missed the first 24 games of the season with the same broken elbow that laid him up at the end of 1932. The team went just 13-11 in those games. When he did play, he was so awesome that even with his not suiting up until May 9, he still took home the league MVP award. The one knock on him that we've heard is that he's unwilling to change his game to meet the situations he's put in: last year, for example, he hit .350 when it was close and late, which is fantastic until you see that he also drew 26 walks in those instances. Yes, that means he reached base almost half the time (.480 OBP) but the Yankees, more often than not, needed him to drive in runs himself, not cede that responsiblity to the next man up. One strategy this team had going into last year was that Eric Luther was going to protect Keeton and force pitchers to throw their main man more strikes. Luther, who'd hit .312, .370, and .336 in his previous three seasons with the Boston Braves, hit .252 in his first year as a Yankee. He's a great defender but that may not be enough to keep him in the lineup given the presence of Ken Flake. Unfortunately, both men hit from the left side so a platoon situation is not possible. Nathan Behnke just produces every year, no doubt about it. He's now won 2 straight Gold Gloves in center field, and in his 6 year career already holds a .310 average and almost 1,000 hits (982). Although last year was a bit of a down season for him, thanks in large part to a strained back that worked against him for the better part of the first half before he finally went on the disabled list with it on the 25th of June, he still managed to get on base at a .359 clip that matched his career totals and led all AL CFs with 10 triples. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Carter Keeton 27 126 125 455 87 148 22 17 17 75 2 4 102 50 0.325 0.449 0.560
LF *Roberto Silva 25 42 21 96 10 20 4 0 1 5 3 1 8 5 0.208 0.274 0.281
LF Oscar Nickel 25 33 19 86 7 20 2 1 0 8 2 0 4 4 0.233 0.264 0.279
CF Nathan Behnke 26 115 115 507 68 153 29 10 3 55 13 7 42 20 0.302 0.359 0.416
RF *Eric Luther 30 138 128 492 71 124 21 11 9 70 9 5 62 52 0.252 0.340 0.394
RF Bill Gwaltney 25 23 10 50 11 16 4 1 0 5 3 0 4 5 0.320 0.370 0.440
RF *John Faber 23 19 10 42 7 13 1 2 4 8 0 2 6 1 0.310 0.396 0.714
Team Totals 28.8 1717 1386 5367 667 1395 247 62 69 642 36 26 573 459 0.260 0.331 0.368
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03-18-2010, 12:27 AM
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#96 (permalink) | ||
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 New York Giants Overview There are those who say that last year's team was even better than the 1932 model. In some cases, we can see that - Fred Fleming was there for the whole season, the bullpen in particular was just plain amazing, everyone who filled in for players who were injured seemed to really excel - but we just can't agree with the obvious evidence. Where the 1932 club won 110 games and the Series, this one won 103 and lost. Also, they were engaged in a tight race with the Cincinnati Reds up until the final day. So they weren't the greatest of all time, and so they did completely muck up the postseason. We have to laud these boys for doing something the 1932 edition didn't have to do - hold off a worthy opponent. Entering September, the Giants actually trailed those Reds. We won't recount the pennant race because we know the true fans can read the archives but remember this: this ballclub had to be just about perfect the last month and they just about were. Few teams in the history of the game can say they wrapped up their season with a 19-8 record and an even smaller number can say they did it with everything on the line. No manager has ever had two seasons like Brian Gerlach had between 1932 and 1933, but he was actually a fairly accomplished skipper prior to joining the Giants. He guided an undermanned Senators team to 4 straight 80 win seasons between 1925 and 1928, then made an ill-fated decision to join the Phillies club, where he lasted just one year. He proved to be just too defensively-minded to stick with the Phightins. A return to Washington also lasted only a season before he took on this job. Pitching With Fred Fleming declared out for the season on the first of September, it fell to young John Burns to anchor the rotation. It was a lot to ask of the lefty out of Parker, South Carolina, but perhaps not too much: after all, he'd just gone 29-8 the year before in the shadow of Mr. Fleming. His won-lost record didn't really show it but in the end he was much improved over the season before. His strikeouts improved by half, he only walked 4 more batters in 14 more innings, and despite playing half his games at the Polo Grounds he still only managed to allow 22 home runs. Ryan Rush pitched to contact as well as he could but it was clear that this former superstar had little left in the tank. Still, his loss hits the Giants hard. Outside of their big four, only three other pitchers started a total of 6 games. One of them (Jim Nardi) is long gone. Another (Lester Willday) turns 40 this season. The third (Dave Mathew) stunk in 2 outings. Whomever they do choose, that person really only needs to last six innings because the awesome Giants bullpen can go the rest of the way. Tom Kelley lost his mojo in the World Series but don't let that turn you off of him; we think his record of allowing less than one earned run per nine innings during the regular season speaks a lot more loudly than a couple of bad games against the White Sox. Takehide Saito was 10-0 with a 1.23 ERA. 'Nuff said. This team even gets Kelvin Inman back; Inman was following up a grand rookie year (10-6, 3.22) with the Senators with just plain great performance with Washington and then New York before going down in July. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA *John Burns 26 24 13 0.649 42 42 0 339.2 348 113 22 93 164 2.99 Ryan Rush 39 22 11 0.667 40 40 0 308.1 315 106 16 102 20 3.09 Fred Fleming 29 17 14 0.548 33 33 0 276.2 221 75 17 93 201 2.44 Li Alport 30 18 9 0.667 33 33 0 251 263 86 17 45 57 3.08 Takehide Saito 34 10 0 1.000 30 0 3 51.1 39 7 1 11 12 1.23 *Tom Kelley 29 4 1 0.800 33 0 12 45.2 31 5 3 14 18 0.99 Bob Billington 36 1 1 0.500 18 0 3 27.2 18 9 0 10 11 2.93 *Ernie Southwick 22 1 0 1.000 16 0 2 23.2 23 4 1 5 14 1.52 Lester Willday 39 1 2 0.333 3 3 0 20 19 8 4 4 7 3.60 Jim Nardi 29 1 0 1.000 6 1 0 18.1 24 7 3 7 5 3.44 Kelvin Inman 24 3 0 1.000 7 0 1 11.2 8 0 0 6 5 0.00 Willis Morin 36 0 0 0.000 9 0 2 9.2 11 4 0 1 1 3.72 *Dave Mathew 23 1 0 1.000 2 2 0 8.1 12 6 1 2 2 6.48 Team Totals 30.5 103 51 0.669 272 154 23 1392 1332 430 85 393 517 2.78 Although John Sundberg was not able to add any more trophies to his cabinet last year, the 1932 Rookie of the Year celebrated a fine campaign. He collected 83 ribbies despite batting down in the order the entire year. The one thing that eludes him is post-season success; in 9 World Series games, he's hitting just .217. Fabian Weiland is the backup and that's all we're going to say about him. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C John Sundberg 25 131 131 501 73 142 27 4 5 82 1 1 45 42 0.283 0.341 0.383 C #Fabian Wieland 29 36 23 85 10 17 2 0 1 11 2 1 7 6 0.200 0.266 0.259 The Tom Hardy/Gary Shaw platoon continues to provide some of the best performance in the major leagues at first, although at some time one or the other is going to want to play full-time. Last year the two combined for 198 hits, 10 homeruns (all hit by Hardy), 106 RBIs, and 96 walks. Shaw, the right-handed half of the platoon and therefore the forgotten man, saw his raw totals lowered by a .179 pinch-hitting performance 39 at-bats. He isn't the sort to complain about it, but the time has come for the man to prove he can play every day. Brian Gerlach, however, is a man who likes his platoons. He also used one at second base after bringing over Al Woodhouse from the Washington Nationals, who apparently provided the Giants with "Most Favored Nation" trading status in 1933. Woodhouse partnered with Britt Grim, who hit .325 against left-handed pitching but was only given 40 at-bats against them. Emory Jefferson manned the only position in the infield that avoided splitting time for some reason or other, and that was due in large part to the fact that Jefferson is, simply put, a stud. The 1931 Gold Glove winner at third, Jefferson is not likely to win another one as long as Cincinnati's Jay Calvin stays at the position, but he's still plenty good enough. Offensively he was down from his 1932 but nobody in the history of the game could match what he did (.348, 37, 133). The Giants find themselves in a real pickle at shortstop. Benton Wheeler is the incumbent and is plenty talented both with the glove and the stick. He won his 3rd straight Gold Glove and could win 10 more before he's done. But Dave Jackson is no slouch either. Something's got to give here. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B #Tom Hardy 27 123 112 446 65 139 20 1 10 78 0 0 74 39 0.312 0.408 0.428 1B Gary Shaw 27 83 42 204 25 59 5 3 0 28 0 2 22 18 0.289 0.354 0.343 2B *Britt Grim 25 119 115 386 74 124 15 13 2 58 7 5 78 15 0.321 0.432 0.443 2B Al Woodhouse 27 54 35 150 18 41 4 0 1 24 0 1 20 13 0.273 0.358 0.320 2B Stewart Lewis 28 6 4 15 1 4 0 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 0.267 0.313 0.400 2B *Mark Piper 33 7 0 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0.333 0.600 0.667 3B Emory Jefferson 28 135 134 507 80 157 27 7 13 97 0 1 101 29 0.310 0.422 0.467 SS Benton Wheeler 27 101 101 456 76 138 28 5 5 50 2 5 37 39 0.303 0.352 0.419 SS Dale Sloat 30 51 39 163 21 47 15 1 2 26 0 1 4 8 0.288 0.302 0.429 SS Dave Jackson 24 40 34 150 18 44 11 2 1 20 5 3 10 12 0.293 0.342 0.413 There is no doubt that Mason Taylor deserved his MVP award last year. The biggest knock on him was that he was too slow to play center field, especially in the weird dimensions of the Polo Grounds, where a 280 foot pop-up down one of the lines can go for a home run but a 500-foot blast to center can be caught for an out. That argument has some merit but he forced opposing fielders to run after long balls as much as he had to do the running himself. If his numbers look low for an MVP, remember what the rest of the league was doing. Answer: not much. The move into center was necessitated by Erik Conn's broken kneecap. Conn has won three Gold Gloves of his own in center but no longer has the foot speed to patrol it effectively and, what's more, is at a point where such running is going to make him lose even more time with injury. As much as it pains us to say so, his days out there could be and probably should be over. The most obvious place to put Conn is in right field, where Eddy McCrary slumped terribly the season after hitting .376. The Giants are not a nostalgic team, and it's likely that John Montague will replace him in the field. Montague would probably also be the best center fielder of the bunch. However, even in that he'd be mediocre at best and, given Gerlach's love of defense, that might not be enough. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Mason Taylor 30 146 146 603 117 214 17 5 24 93 0 0 93 37 0.355 0.440 0.519
LF *John Montague 23 105 73 308 63 87 8 0 10 35 0 1 69 38 0.282 0.416 0.406
LF *Mark Wagner 31 34 6 45 5 7 4 0 0 7 0 0 5 2 0.156 0.235 0.244
CF Erik Conn 38 84 84 344 53 97 16 7 10 53 5 2 44 31 0.282 0.362 0.456
CF Ken Seibel 28 44 18 87 19 26 9 3 0 14 1 0 16 6 0.299 0.408 0.471
RF *Eddy McCrary 34 138 135 516 64 133 18 2 10 77 1 2 65 20 0.258 0.338 0.359
- Dale Becker 25 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000
Team Totals 29.2 1710 1386 5433 814 1540 237 54 96 793 24 26 707 420 0.283 0.365 0.400
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| Thank you for this post: | Dr. Wu (03-18-2010) |
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03-19-2010, 01:38 AM
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#97 (permalink) | ||
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 Philadelphia Athletics Overview Now two years removed from 101 wins, the Athletics' distant 3rd place finish is a little misleading. They held the league leadership in the early going and were still into it until around Labor Day. A doubleheader sweep of the Yankees on Labor Day was the high point. From then on they went 10-14. Granted, they would have had to have been unearthly over the same time to have actually won it, but you'd hope for a better finish than that. This is not a team that looks to have a good chance going forward. They were 6th in the AL in runs scored last year, dead last in extra base hits, and second to the bottom in slugging percentage. The downfall of Walter Carlson was swift and cut a huge hole in the lineup. Jay Carbaugh was supposed to be the #2 punch and he was almost as bad. The pitching, which is beginning to age and might be seeing its window of greatness close, needed better output than that. John Glenn is the A's manager, at least for now. No stranger to the hot seat, Glenn's pre-Athletics resume includes four seasons with the Yankees, including 2 pennants and a World Series title, but also a sacking following their disappointing 1930 season. The A's did take a step forward compared to 1932 but will that be enough for Glenn to keep his job? With a career mark of 500 wins and 424 losses, Glenn is probably the best major league manager who stands a better than even chance of losing his job before the year is out. Pitching Somebody help these guys! Peter Brewer took his lumps all season long, tying for the league lead in losses despite posting the 3rd best strikeout to walk ratio in the AL. It's a long way to fall for a guy who just 2 years earlier went 23-9 and took home the AL Pitcher of the Year award. Al Montieth enjoyed a nice rebound season from '32 (12-19, 5.61) to lead the team in victories, but he's not the staff ace that some fans think he is. Things were a bit shaky after the top two. The club brought in Matt Snyder to aid in the pennant run; he won just 5 of 13 decisions before announcing his retirement. Raul Carillo was the #2 starter for the first half of the year but then went down with an shoulder injury in the second. He looks on pace to return for spring training. Brian Barnes, Nathan Christy, and Dallas Demers also enjoyed long runs in the rotation with varying degrees of effectiveness. And Bob "Blue" McKamey had yet another dominating season as the A's closer, a position you wouldn't expect an 83 win team to use as much as they did. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA *Peter Brewer 29 15 20 0.429 40 40 0 335.1 310 95 12 69 178 2.55 *Al Monteith 36 20 13 0.606 38 38 0 302 248 89 14 78 127 2.65 Matt Snyder 38 5 8 0.385 17 17 0 130.1 133 51 6 36 30 3.52 Raúl Carrillo 27 6 7 0.462 17 17 0 126 122 39 2 48 35 2.79 Brian Barnes 26 7 7 0.500 23 12 0 115.1 133 61 6 40 44 4.76 Nathan Christy 26 8 4 0.667 18 13 0 113 98 40 6 37 42 3.19 Dallas Demers 32 3 7 0.300 12 12 0 70.2 104 50 6 31 12 6.37 Bob McKamey 26 9 3 0.750 40 0 15 67.2 66 15 2 11 64 2.00 *Walt Eberly 27 5 0 1.000 8 5 0 49.2 38 12 0 15 15 2.17 Randy Danford 37 1 1 0.500 23 0 1 40 37 10 0 12 9 2.25 Charlie Nickles 32 4 1 0.800 21 0 0 39.2 51 17 0 8 11 3.86 Juan Mendoza 30 0 0 0.000 4 0 0 4.2 5 3 1 0 1 5.79 Todd Kirk 21 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0.00 Kyung-chor Kim 34 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 0.2 0 0 0 1 1 0.00 Team Totals 30.1 83 71 0.539 263 154 16 1396 1345 482 55 387 570 3.11 Herman Cain was an island of consistency in the sea of chaos that was the Athletics' roster last year. His raw numbers were just a tick down from 1932, which probably made him slightly more effective given the rest of the league. He's not a great fielder by any means but with the league moving in the direction of fewer and fewer steals every year, that seems to not matter as much as it did 20 years ago. The fans voted him into the All-Star Game last year so clearly we aren't the only people who see his value. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C *Herman Cain 28 133 131 471 68 132 20 4 12 68 0 1 86 15 0.280 0.390 0.416 C Randall Sheets 30 23 17 65 5 13 4 0 0 6 0 1 7 6 0.200 0.278 0.262 The fact that Corey Jones was limited to just 362 at-bats last year probably cost the Athletics five victories in the standings. The best news about the 1932 RBI champion's season was that the two and a half months he missed was due to three completely unrelated injuries (to his thumb, ankle, and rib); expect a full recovery in 1934. In his stead, John Shin showed that he might have a future in the majors, and Paul Schaal did not. Shin's development may be accelerated a bit with the A's trade of Gustavo Pena to the Chicago White Sox at the deadline last year. It's likely going to come down to him and fellow 21-year-old Joe Firth, who got a chance to prove himself last year but didn't really take advantage of it. However, moving Shin to second might be a bit of a stretch. Should either man falter, the team also has Mike Grow, who hit .348 last year in the minors but who isn't rated nearly as highly as the other guys for some reason. Dustin David played most of the year at third and was pretty average. The best that can be said about him is that he was not part of the problem. It's iffy if he'll be part of the answer for an A's team that can seriously challenge the White Sox and Yankees. Jaime Gonzales is beginning to look increasingly overmatched at shortstop but given the way this team's roster is set up it's unlikely he's going to move off the position except in case of dire need. Last year he did play 33 games at second, which did little else but highlight Tim Braley's lack of development. Braley is only 22, though, so all is not lost, and his 19-5 walk to strikeout ratio is encouraging. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Corey Jones 27 95 95 362 48 130 17 2 5 52 2 1 50 37 0.359 0.435 0.459 1B Paul Schaal 35 32 23 89 8 19 2 1 1 8 0 0 7 8 0.213 0.278 0.292 1B *John Shin 21 36 16 85 9 25 3 0 0 10 0 0 3 3 0.294 0.315 0.329 2B #Gustavo Peńa 36 93 93 375 51 104 11 6 1 43 9 6 49 19 0.277 0.361 0.347 2B Joe Firth 21 50 35 149 17 38 9 0 0 18 0 0 15 8 0.255 0.317 0.315 2B Jim Martin 23 39 29 99 10 8 2 0 0 9 2 2 23 4 0.081 0.248 0.101 2B Jack Ambrose 26 24 19 83 9 20 1 0 0 2 0 1 8 2 0.241 0.308 0.253 2B Mike Grow 25 4 2 9 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 1 1 2 0.111 0.200 0.111 3B Dustin David 27 96 94 374 51 98 13 5 5 40 7 2 36 30 0.262 0.325 0.364 3B Harry Fry 19 11 9 44 3 13 4 0 0 4 1 1 0 6 0.295 0.289 0.386 SS *Jaime Gonzáles 25 111 111 425 72 131 21 8 3 43 10 5 81 22 0.308 0.420 0.416 SS Tim Braley 21 78 60 237 21 59 10 0 1 24 4 2 19 5 0.249 0.304 0.304 SS Bill Anderson 28 32 19 86 9 26 2 1 0 17 1 1 4 10 0.302 0.340 0.349 Left field was the A's position of death last yer. Between Walter Carlson and Jay Carbaugh, the team didn't just get poor performance out of the spot, they got the kind of negative performance that, if replaced by a league average player and Corey Jones playing the whole year, might have put them back into contention. Carlson was so bad that the team cut him 2 hits shy of 3,000. Carbaugh at least stayed above the .200 mark but was almost as bad otherwise and what's worse alienated the team with his dour clubhouse attitude. Converted catcher Mark Bergeron hit a lot like a backstop and fielded like a spectator. A disastrous experiment in center field was aborted after 33 games and 10 errors. He did a bit better in right, although the arm he displayed behind the plate in the minors was conspicuously absent. Warren Carpenter had a great second half of the season and could vy for the job. After the Bergeron experiment concluded, Steve Dunton captured the job for much of the year. The utility man didn't hit particularly well but there is some value in being able to play both the outfield and the infield. We expect a long career from this young man. The same may not be true of Zach Levin but he did do very well against left-handed pitching last year, and that's got some value of its own. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF Jay Carbaugh 36 82 82 327 37 76 12 6 4 45 5 3 22 43 0.232 0.281 0.343
LF Walter Carlson 38 63 53 212 25 42 10 1 1 20 5 2 30 26 0.198 0.294 0.269
LF Ji-man P'aeng 30 30 17 81 12 29 3 1 1 15 0 0 8 6 0.358 0.411 0.457
CF *Steve Dunton 23 96 96 342 38 95 12 5 0 36 11 9 14 25 0.278 0.306 0.342
CF Zack Levin 27 45 22 98 12 30 1 0 0 14 5 3 5 9 0.306 0.346 0.316
CF *Bill Looper 30 31 7 51 8 10 2 0 0 2 1 1 5 2 0.196 0.263 0.235
RF Mark Bergeron 25 108 97 415 37 113 20 3 0 50 0 1 24 30 0.272 0.309 0.335
RF *Warren Carpenter 23 75 57 259 28 79 10 2 2 29 1 0 11 23 0.305 0.339 0.382
RF Jerry Joseph 26 34 33 123 8 20 5 3 0 11 2 1 4 19 0.163 0.185 0.252
RF Justin Boykins 24 15 15 60 9 13 4 1 1 4 2 0 4 4 0.217 0.266 0.367
Team Totals 28.1 1699 1386 5385 630 1405 208 52 37 607 69 44 522 424 0.261 0.325 0.339
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| Thank you for this post: | Dr. Wu (03-19-2010) |
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03-20-2010, 11:37 PM
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#98 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
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 Philadelphia Phillies Overview Well, someone had to finish 3rd. The Phillies were that team for the National League, not nearly strong enough to contend but still quite a bit better than average. They are at a point right now where they are competing against the Athletics for mastery and we just don't see anything to differentiate them. The Phillies, of course, play in that bandbox known as the Baker Bowl, which serves to make average hitters look excellent and excellent pitchers look average. Given that, it's hard to come to any conclusions about the team's 3rd place finish in runs scored and 6th place mark in ERA. Which aspect are they really above/below average at? At this point the really big news around Philly is the Phightin's trade of Charles Payne to the Chicago Cubs. Payne is getting on in years but was still one of the best players in baseball last season. All of his 216 career homeruns - most ever - were hit with Philadelphia, and the question of who is going to man center field will be one Phillies fans will need to ask their team for the first time since 1920. We have no idea either. If the team flounders without their mentor, it will probably be blamed on manager George Simpson. That's just part of the game. Simpson is now in his 3rd year with the club, having improved their performance by 11 games in '33 compared to the year before. The Phillies' front office expects more, although again we wonder how much more they can really expect when they liquidate the team's stars. Pitching The Phillies' rescue of Roy Cossey from the St. Louis Browns was really the best story of the entire pitching staff. Cossey seemed more happy to get closer to his hometown of Merrimack, New Hampshire than to get out of the doldrums of the second division but on the field he was highly effective for this team. It could be said that he has wrested the mantle of staff ace from John Herman, who still didn't look completely recovered from the shoulder injury that caused him to miss August and September of 1932. Nonetheless, his 285 innings pitched are a career high. Other than Herman, the Phillies' staff looks delightfully young. Bob Hazard forced his way onto the team with a 1.77 ERA in 35.2 innings in the minors to start this year. He showed flashes of effectiveness and should just get better with age. Harry Anderson was looking like a 2nd stuf behind Cossey before he hurt his arm at the end of August. He's not expected to be back in time for spring training. Also laid up are vets Barney Pierce and Ken Wilcher. Wilcher is a particularly intriguing case. He has pitched a grand total of 9 games in 2 seasons after winning 18 games with the Red in 1931. With the league having written him off, anything he gives to this team will be a bonus. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA John Herman 32 15 16 0.484 38 38 0 285 343 132 15 90 83 4.17 Roy Cossey 27 16 5 0.762 22 22 0 180 157 54 10 66 80 2.70 Bob Hazard 21 9 13 0.409 24 23 0 173.2 186 94 15 100 62 4.87 Harry Anderson 25 9 7 0.563 20 20 0 169.1 148 47 9 68 78 2.50 *Steven Pease 28 9 6 0.600 19 19 0 138.2 155 74 10 80 53 4.80 Barney Pierce 33 10 3 0.769 17 17 0 131.2 123 35 7 26 41 2.39 Lorenzo Garza 28 6 0 1.000 41 0 3 71 68 29 6 21 33 3.68 Don Herrington 29 3 2 0.600 23 0 2 46 63 34 2 31 22 6.65 Francisco Gómez 40 3 2 0.600 27 0 6 45.2 56 27 5 35 11 5.32 *Kevin Mask 45 2 4 0.333 12 6 0 44.2 65 35 4 20 5 7.05 Alarico Hein 40 2 4 0.333 24 0 10 31.1 38 17 2 12 9 4.88 *Kurtis Hecht 26 1 0 1.000 16 0 2 24 26 12 0 6 8 4.50 Mark Dunbar 31 0 2 0.000 6 3 0 19.1 36 16 1 7 5 7.45 *Ken Wilcher 37 1 3 0.250 5 4 0 18.1 25 11 1 13 6 5.40 Kent May 23 0 1 0.000 2 2 0 15.2 17 7 3 8 2 4.02 Andy Brunet 26 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 3 1 0 1 0 9.00 Team Totals 30.7 86 68 0.558 297 154 23 1395.1 1509 625 90 584 498 4.03 The Phillies go into 1934 with Steve Akins as the clear incumbent. The former White Sox star missed a bunch of time last year, which gave George Forest a chance to show his worth, but in the end the Phightins decided that Akins would be their guy going forward. All was not lost, however, as Forest turned into a nice chip to trade with the St. Louis Cardinals. Darren Larson is the backup, at least as long as he demonstrates that he can hit better than .207 in the Baker Bowl. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C *Steve Akins 31 76 70 263 26 77 24 0 3 43 0 0 24 23 0.293 0.356 0.418 C #George Forest 22 48 37 157 19 51 8 1 1 24 0 0 5 12 0.325 0.337 0.408 C #Darren Larson 25 43 32 116 14 24 2 0 3 20 0 0 9 7 0.207 0.264 0.302 C Lloyd Hooper 22 15 15 57 8 13 5 0 1 8 0 0 7 5 0.228 0.303 0.368 Remi Parent missing time to injury wasn't supposed to be that big of a deal. The Phillies had signed Mike Sheridan out of Chicago to back up the corner positions. Sheridan, who carries a .323 career average and who hit .312 in 1932, was getting too old to play third base regularly and was counted on to pinch-hit and spell Parent. Something happened to his hitting stroke last year that he was never able to rectify. His future with the Phillies is highly in doubt; one of the players coming back from the Charles Payne trade was pinch-hitting specialist Ethan Hardin. Will Mitchell is likely to be the odd man out of an infield that is suddenly packed thick with the addition of Lester Archie from the Cardinals. Archie played 3rd last year for St. Louis but has the versatility to play anywhere in the field. Of course, his real value comes with the stick. It's scary to think of what he might accomplish here. Benedict Henderson has a swing that doesn't really jibe with the Baker Bowl but he still gets the job done. Although he has a plus arm, he lacks the hands to be a really great third baseman and is not getting any younger. Nonetheless, when you have a man who can actually play third base (sorry, Mike Sheridan) and has a .313 career batting average, you keep playing the man until he demonstrates he's done. When healthy, Otis Moyer is one of the best hitting shortstops in the game. His issue is that he hasn't been healthy recently, having missed 79 games over the last 2 years. One outgrowth of the Archie trade is that when Moyer does, inevitably, show up on the disabled list, they have a guy who can slide into the spot without embarrassing himself. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B *Rémi Parent 31 103 103 424 63 128 15 5 18 77 5 7 26 39 0.302 0.338 0.488 1B Mike Sheridan 36 60 34 152 13 31 4 1 0 18 0 1 12 20 0.204 0.268 0.243 1B Shane Levitt 20 24 22 94 11 30 8 0 0 16 0 0 2 9 0.319 0.343 0.404 1B *John Shin 21 41 2 48 10 13 1 1 0 5 0 0 5 5 0.271 0.340 0.333 2B Will Mitchell 25 147 147 564 63 144 37 13 5 84 8 7 43 61 0.255 0.306 0.394 3B Benedict Henderson 34 107 107 452 48 132 24 5 1 49 0 0 24 17 0.292 0.325 0.374 3B Cisco González 29 71 62 207 16 46 8 4 1 18 1 2 21 19 0.222 0.293 0.314 3B Rick Gartman 32 44 23 99 9 28 6 1 0 11 1 1 10 9 0.283 0.349 0.364 3B Bob Brady 32 12 4 17 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0.176 0.300 0.176 SS #Otis Moyer 26 107 107 404 75 116 19 3 11 76 2 4 74 24 0.287 0.394 0.431 SS #Will Sanders 23 17 8 39 1 4 0 1 0 2 1 1 0 5 0.103 0.098 0.154 SS Marvin Boose 24 7 2 13 1 4 1 0 1 3 0 0 0 1 0.308 0.357 0.615 What is the club going to do in center field? Charles Payne hasn't just been this team's starter at the position for the past 13 years, he's the Phillies' lifetime leader in games, at-bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, homeruns, RBIs, and walks. Steve Davis was last year's official backup but those are some large shoes to fill. Another possibility is minor-leaguer and South Korean native Ki-seop Paek. He only hit .272 at Toledo in 1933 but did have decent power (8 homeruns) and walked almost twice as often as he struck out. The presence of Payne in the middle allowed this team to put guys at the corners who maybe weren't as offensively strong as they should be. How Jim Howard continues to keep a more or less full time job in left field despite hitting a grand total of 12 homeruns over the last 2 seasons is beyond us. He's a very good fielder, which helps the team on the road, but let's face it: there is not a lot of ground to cover when the team plays home games. In right, Doug Levin gives the team a lot of speed but not really a huge amount of anything else. He could see some of his playing time taken away by Dewitt Collins, the former prospect in the St. Louis Browns' system who had a bit of a breakout season last year after it began to look like his professional career was over. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Jim Howard 31 100 80 375 63 102 18 7 7 36 6 2 33 43 0.272 0.330 0.413
LF Steve Davis 23 68 59 242 33 57 14 8 5 25 4 6 16 17 0.236 0.282 0.421
LF *John Walker 26 17 16 62 3 15 3 0 0 10 1 2 4 5 0.242 0.288 0.290
CF *Charles Payne 36 150 149 537 119 151 25 14 27 86 16 13 136 32 0.281 0.425 0.531
CF Su-shun Won 27 17 5 27 2 4 1 0 0 3 0 0 3 2 0.148 0.226 0.185
RF *Doug Levin 25 120 120 502 77 146 31 11 1 50 14 5 35 37 0.291 0.336 0.402
RF Dewitt Collins 26 67 28 160 29 46 11 2 3 19 0 4 18 16 0.287 0.356 0.438
Team Totals 28.7 1758 1386 5482 737 1456 281 80 89 716 59 55 520 464 0.266 0.328 0.395
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03-21-2010, 04:11 AM
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#99 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
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 Pittsburgh Pirates Overview We're pretty sure we opened last year's page on the Pirates with this, but still: oh, how the mighty have fallen. From 1919 through 1928 the National League was the League of the Pirates: they won 7 pennants in 10 years and if they only took home 3 World Series during that time, they were at least getting there. Then in 1929 the team got a little old and dropped to 82 wins. One last pennant race existed for this club in 1930, as they finished just a game in back of the Cubs, and then it all came undone. Last year's team was a tick worse than the clubs in '31 and '32, and at this point it's pretty clear to everybody except for perhaps the Pirates themselves that their dominance is over. What doomed them more than anything else was an absolutely anemic offense that looked stuck in the dead ball era. The Pirates had 37 homeruns by the entire team all season long, 4 fewer than Remi Parent had for the Pirates' rivals across the state. Their .264 average was close to decent but no pitcher in the league respected their lack of power: their 380 walks, barely 2 per game, was worst in all of baseball. The pitching was actually pretty okay, but not nearly good enough to overcome those bats. Bill Red has had the unfortunate luck to reside over the collapse of this team. Lured by the promise of a nice salary after leading the Yankees to a 3rd place finish in 1931, Red has been able to do very little with this team. A firing at this point might be viewed as an act of mercy for this man. Pitching It now seems a given that Dave Brace will finish out his career as the dominant member of a second-rate team. He is just 1 victory away from tying for the second most in league history (he has 374) and at this rate is maybe a year and a half away from surpassing Bob Turner's 398. Last year he finished 7-2 and just missed out on a 13th 20-win season. After Brace, the pickings are somewhat slim. Paul Slocum led the Pirates in losses and finished tied for 3rd in the league. He really didn't look like he was ready for the big leagues last year. Cesar Fernando somehow managed a winning record last year; given his career marks of 129 wins and 181 losses, he provided the Pirates with a lot more than they should have reasonably expected. For some reason they've asked him back next year. Kent DeLong was just plain not good. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA *Dave Brace 36 19 14 0.576 35 35 0 290.2 281 81 14 56 107 2.51 Paul Slocum 20 8 16 0.333 30 29 0 208 216 90 6 92 69 3.89 César Fernando 40 10 8 0.556 25 21 0 167.2 173 62 6 47 19 3.33 Kent DeLong 27 2 13 0.133 19 17 0 115.1 148 80 7 68 38 6.24 Jimmy Engel 29 7 10 0.412 31 16 1 144 170 67 4 52 60 4.19 Bruce Flinn 35 3 7 0.300 17 12 0 96 103 50 7 46 18 4.69 *Don Dyson 23 5 4 0.556 15 15 0 90.1 102 33 2 44 34 3.29 Gene Hayden 33 4 6 0.400 42 0 17 72 73 19 3 21 57 2.38 Brian Turner 34 2 1 0.667 34 0 2 59.2 53 14 1 12 21 2.11 *Harry Clements 24 2 4 0.333 32 0 0 54.2 54 19 1 20 27 3.13 *Russ Hughes 20 3 1 0.750 4 4 0 36 31 9 1 5 8 2.25 Marty Rackham 24 1 2 0.333 3 3 0 23.1 26 12 1 10 7 4.63 *Russ Carter 29 0 2 0.000 2 2 0 15 19 7 0 8 3 4.20 Roger Dixson 31 0 0 0.000 4 0 0 4 4 3 1 2 2 6.75 *Joe Allen 24 0 0 0.000 2 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 0.00 Henry Jones 28 0 0 0.000 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0.00 Team Totals 28.6 66 88 0.429 296 154 20 1380.2 1453 546 54 487 471 3.56 For being about what you'd expect from a catcher, Jake Moore was one of the Pirates' best position players last season. He's not the same guy who hit .346 back in 1923 or for that matter the player who produced a .388 on base percentage in 1928 but he's stil a useful player. Clay Cannon was given a brief opportunity at the beginning of the year but despite an arm that lives up to his name, he just didn't look ready. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C Jake Moore 34 125 121 436 48 115 17 5 1 39 1 2 55 34 0.264 0.351 0.333 C Clay Cannon 21 42 25 114 10 27 5 1 1 13 0 0 3 12 0.237 0.254 0.325 C *Bill Watson 23 33 11 55 6 15 3 0 0 10 0 0 5 5 0.273 0.323 0.327 Jim Ponder hits just well enough year to year that he reminds the Pirates of the incredible potential he showed in his rookie campaign of 1930 (.363 BA). That lack of power would be unacceptable on just about any other team - Ponder's 25 paltry extra base hits was the worst total among league qualifiers - but the Pirates just continue to ignore him. They got a pretty nice books in the month that Ponder missed with veteran minor league star Dave Danna but in classic Pirates fashion they didn't really recognize his talent and gave the job right back to Ponder when he came off the DL. Joe Jarboe's 1933 was a nice story but there are too many questions about his game to really make it something the Pirates can build on. The 29-year-old got his first chance to play regularly in the majors since a stint with the Browns in 1930 and at the plate, at least, he really made the most of it. In the field, however, the natural corner IFer was never comfortable at second and the Pirates stopped using him there after he committed 35 errors in 68 games. Richard Martin is still penciled in as the starter but he hasn't had a fully healthy season in 4 years now. His clutch numbers didn't show it but by and large John Chastain had the same year in '33 as he did in '32. Moving from the Chicago Cubs to the Pittsburgh Pirates meant that he had a much bigger impact on the team during the time that he did play, of course. He also didn't play quite as much in '33 because the Pirates were committed to Mark Vick at the beginning of the season. His 1932 (.295, 85 RBI) was way out of line with his career numbers and the Pirates did, for their part, show the ability to cut the cord when he played more like the Mark Vick of old. Mark Melton started the year out as the team's shortstop and fielded as well as ever, but he hit poorly and when the Chicago White Sox came knocking, the Pirates answered. Now without a player for the position, the Pirates alighted on minor leaguer Steve Mangum to fill the role. He did well enough that Pittsburgh was able to shuffle him off for Ted O'Toole. Who plays short for the Pirates this year is anybody's guess. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B Jim Ponder 25 123 110 453 42 136 20 3 2 61 0 1 34 25 0.300 0.343 0.371 1B #Dave Danna 32 40 30 132 15 38 10 2 4 22 0 0 9 6 0.288 0.336 0.485 1B *Bill Laird 32 21 1 19 0 4 2 0 0 1 0 0 1 2 0.211 0.286 0.316 2B *Joe Jarboe 29 101 76 320 39 108 15 6 0 31 0 1 15 28 0.338 0.368 0.422 2B Steve Lewis 24 44 38 145 14 27 2 4 4 16 1 2 10 3 0.186 0.244 0.338 2B #Richard Martin 36 38 37 145 18 45 15 2 0 24 0 0 9 12 0.310 0.348 0.441 2B Christian Humphrey 29 35 24 81 6 17 1 2 0 6 0 1 3 4 0.210 0.238 0.272 3B John Chastain 32 100 89 349 42 97 32 6 4 37 0 1 16 42 0.278 0.313 0.438 3B Mark Vick 33 60 56 218 17 46 2 1 1 26 1 0 16 19 0.211 0.269 0.243 SS Steve Mangum 31 107 97 384 46 101 9 8 1 30 8 7 20 35 0.263 0.297 0.336 SS Mark Melton 30 49 48 196 21 45 3 3 2 17 1 2 17 22 0.230 0.293 0.306 SS Steve Martin 24 39 38 159 16 36 9 1 1 14 0 3 6 17 0.226 0.251 0.314 SS Colin Richards 26 12 1 13 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 2 0.077 0.200 0.077 Daniel Gravel had a very rough season last year and we can't point to any reason for it except complacency. He's getting to a point in his career where he's going to need to stop relying on his natural abilities and work harder before and after games to hone his skills. He's still a top-flight right fielder, having earned his second straight Gold Glove, but if he has another year like the last one he won't be playing enough to earn those honors. On the other side of the outfield, Herbert Fisher was used judiciously all season - he only had 19 at-bats vs. lefties the entire year - and that paid dividends for Pittsburgh. He may have been their most valuable position player, which means he'll probably be tried in a larger role in 1934. Whether that will work out or not, it's hard to say, but it's not like the Pirates have a lot of other options. Joe Gehrke was the 1933 center fielder by default but he didn't play a single game after August 19 thanks to a ruptured Achilles tendon. That's not an easy injury for a guy whose game is primarily based on speed to come back from. After he went out, the Pirates tinkered with Gravel in center and Hilton Heard in right. Prior to 1933 the career minor leaguer had all of 9 at-bats in the major leagues, but he did well enough to make that look like something approximating a viable option for 1934. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Herbert Fisher 28 98 91 382 57 118 18 4 6 35 1 1 32 33 0.309 0.364 0.424
LF Jim Cathcart 30 18 10 48 3 6 0 0 0 3 0 1 2 5 0.125 0.160 0.125
CF Joe Gehrke 28 89 89 357 41 96 16 6 2 44 1 4 24 31 0.269 0.313 0.364
CF Lyle Salters 33 58 29 145 24 48 11 5 1 17 2 2 16 11 0.331 0.398 0.497
CF *Clark Becker 29 17 14 65 10 18 1 1 0 5 3 0 7 4 0.277 0.342 0.323
CF Edgar Reyes 27 17 13 52 12 18 2 2 0 0 3 1 6 4 0.346 0.414 0.462
CF Dan Buford 28 8 3 17 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0.176 0.176 0.235
RF *Daniel Gravel 28 149 146 597 74 154 38 16 5 75 10 10 56 65 0.258 0.318 0.400
RF *Hilton Heard 29 35 35 142 14 41 5 1 1 20 0 0 8 16 0.289 0.322 0.359
Team Totals 28.7 1754 1386 5452 602 1439 248 80 37 588 33 39 380 491 0.264 0.312 0.359
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03-21-2010, 08:33 PM
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#100 (permalink) | ||
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: May 2004
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 St. Louis Browns Overview It may surprise some - those with no sense of baseball history, for example - to learn that the St. Louis have more victories than losses in the course of their existence, 2,528 to 2,512. That distinction is likely to go away next year as this team figures to have its 4th straight losing campaign. Given that this squad's issues are more money-related than anything else, it's probable that the next time they sport a winning record, the Depression will be over and there will really be a chicken in every put like that liar Hoover said. The Browns were worst in the league in hitting and second-worst in pitching. What can you say? This isn't just a team without talent, it's a team that is more or less forced to jettison any talent that they get before said talent asks for more money. Said talent should be thankful for the job that it has! If it wasn't for baseball, said talent would probably be standing in front of the docks of St. Louis looking for work. Yes, that's right: said talent is very, very stupid because St. Louis does not even have real docks. Manager Juan Avila has a long history of managing in the minor leagues. Prior to his job last season with the Browns, the entirety of his major league experience was a year and a half stint with the Boston Red Sox. In 1922 he won Manager of the Year honors in leading them to an unlikely pennant. In 1923 he got off to a 35-48 start and was fired. So far in St. Louis he has proven to be no miracle-worker, but hey, what do you expect. Pitching Ryan Jeter is the "ace" of the Browns' staff. On just about any other staff he'd be a #4 starter and/or long reliever, but this is the state of St. Louis Browns' affairs. The pitcher known as "Mudcat" has a lifetime record of 16-25 and doesn't really distinguish himself in anything but the ability to keep the ball down. Actually, Pat Alton opened the season as staff ace. He was, you guessed it, traded. Behind Jeter, things get a bit dire. John Anderson struggled with his control and with the gopher ball. If the ball is rejuiced again like we think it's going to be, that could spell real trouble. Glen Addicott posted a fine ERA but a poor won-lost record and we'd be very surprised if that ERA stays where it was in '33 given that he walked twice as many batters as he struck out. Woody Harlow was a former Cardinal who was cut by the other team that plays at Sportsman's Park after he started the year 0-7 and 6.64. He pitched well enough for the Browns to keep him but not nearly well enough that anybody else would want him. Code:
Player Age W L Pct G GS SV IP H ER HR BB SO ERA Ryan Jeter 27 10 16 0.385 33 33 0 230 267 108 9 90 63 4.23 John Anderson 22 7 14 0.333 31 24 1 179.2 193 84 15 82 55 4.21 Glen Addicott 26 6 14 0.300 25 25 0 171.1 187 60 8 43 21 3.15 Woody Harlow 27 6 12 0.333 18 18 0 142.1 145 58 10 74 52 3.67 Roy Cossey 27 7 6 0.538 14 14 0 120 112 36 7 42 55 2.70 Pat Alton 31 5 6 0.455 13 13 0 110.2 108 44 3 21 16 3.58 Miguel Márquez 29 6 5 0.545 41 0 4 80 78 32 6 29 30 3.60 George McCall 26 1 6 0.143 15 8 0 64.2 70 33 6 20 19 4.59 Lowell Laymon 35 0 1 0.000 29 0 1 41.2 56 21 3 17 12 4.54 Eddie Gallaher 20 2 3 0.400 27 0 7 39 43 25 4 32 16 5.77 *John Hall 22 2 3 0.400 6 6 0 35.2 48 21 4 18 12 5.30 *Homer Beeman 18 2 2 0.500 6 6 0 35.1 46 15 0 18 11 3.82 Dave Fortenberry 30 1 2 0.333 16 0 5 23 20 4 0 3 10 1.57 *Marc Côté 21 1 0 1.000 13 0 2 17.2 21 5 0 9 7 2.55 Russell Charles 29 0 0 0.000 8 0 1 13.1 22 9 2 2 2 6.08 *Dean Gates 32 0 1 0.000 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 9.00 Nick Nugent 20 0 1 0.000 5 0 1 6.1 7 4 1 1 2 5.68 Jimmy Russel 24 0 3 0.000 4 4 0 24.2 36 20 1 13 5 7.30 Tim Stamper 22 2 1 0.667 3 3 0 24 25 10 0 8 4 3.75 Team Totals 25.7 58 96 0.377 308 154 22 1360.1 1485 590 80 522 392 3.90 The Browns stuck with Bill McDonald throughout the second half of the season despite his not clearing .200. He has a great arm, a reputation for calling games well (though you wouldn't know it in St. Louis), and has a pretty decent eye. He has never gotten a chance to play in the majors due to a complete inability to make good, consistent contact with the ball. Still, he wasn't appreciably worse than last year's starter Eduardo Gonzales, who seemed to completely forget how to hit last year. Still, the Browns may have pulled the trigger too early on moving him to the bench. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG C *Bill McDonald 26 63 60 189 14 37 6 5 3 20 2 1 25 11 0.196 0.290 0.328 C Eduardo González 29 53 43 134 14 32 4 0 1 9 0 0 15 10 0.239 0.318 0.291 C Mike Thompson 33 59 40 142 17 36 6 2 0 11 2 1 21 17 0.254 0.348 0.324 C Chris Johnson 25 14 11 43 3 11 4 0 1 8 0 0 1 1 0.256 0.273 0.419 It was bad enough when Bob O'Daniel hit .300 in 1932, a .300 which was about as empty a .300 as you're ever going to find, but when he batted .208 in April and .265 in May (with OBP and SLGs under .300) even the Browns needed to make a move, They brought in Cliff Shoemake from Cincinnati in exchange for their closer Dave Fortenberry, who, let's face it, they had no use for. Shoemake hit well enough to make fans forget about O'Daniel, which to be honest is not a high bar to hurdle. Dillon Newkirk is one of the few Browns to start for them more or less the whole season and is on an even smaller list of players who actually deserved the honor. Newkirk doesn't wow you with his hitting, but he's a scrappy guy with softer hands than you'd expect and a very discerning batting eye. Best of all, he even seems to want to play for this team, as crazy as that sounds. The team did give Bill Pell a bit of a look in September but even if he makes the team, Newkirk need not be worried; Newkirk has a good enough arm to play at third and frankly the incumbent is not that great. The incumbent of whom we speak is Brian Coleman. He had passable power last year, and could probably break into double digits if allowed to play 150 games, but he doesn't do anything else all that well. The incompetence of his replacements means he keeps his job... for now. Tom Huse had an unimpressive rookie season but does a lot of things the Browns like. For one thing, no man in the league is a better bunter than he. Some may be as good, but nobody can really outstrip Huse's ability to knock one down the line for either a base hit or runner advancement. In the field, he tantalizes with great reactions a tremendous first step, but he also committed 48 errors in the field, worst in the AL by a considerable margin (Cleveland's Vernon Friedrich was 2nd with 38). Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG 1B Bob O'Daniel 23 96 83 349 21 94 7 1 1 39 0 1 9 28 0.269 0.285 0.304 1B *Cliff Shoemake 26 71 68 257 25 67 14 3 3 24 6 1 32 19 0.261 0.339 0.374 1B *Gary Mellen 20 10 10 41 2 13 4 0 1 6 0 0 2 3 0.317 0.349 0.488 2B Dillon Newkirk 27 119 114 409 43 104 16 6 3 32 1 0 62 45 0.254 0.358 0.345 2B Bill Pell 23 14 14 43 6 12 1 2 0 4 0 1 4 4 0.279 0.347 0.395 2B *Matt Brown 31 11 9 34 1 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0.206 0.229 0.206 3B Brian Coleman 27 98 96 391 47 97 24 4 7 34 1 3 27 37 0.248 0.307 0.384 3B David Sherrill 28 46 33 143 13 37 2 0 0 12 0 1 10 14 0.259 0.314 0.273 3B Bob Stewart 24 31 31 125 17 37 10 1 0 9 0 0 11 7 0.296 0.353 0.392 SS Tom Huse 22 135 132 528 55 135 24 11 2 56 1 1 25 56 0.256 0.286 0.354 Dan Manning is more of a utility man than a natural outfielder, a guy whose real value is in the way he makes a somewhat adequate backup middle infielder who can occasionally play in left if someone's hurt. Naturally, for the Browns Manning started 29 games out there and hit in the middle of the lineup more often than not, particularly after Carl Austin left town. Eventually, the team will give the job to Dave Durst, who seemed to turn a corner in the minors last year, hitting .362 on the year for Toronto. He wasn't able to repeat that performance on the major league level, though, and he could be 2-3 seasons away. Bill McDermott had an okay rookie season, at least by Browns standards. He didn't embarrass himself with the bat, although the team will need more than 23 extra-base hits and 24 walks from him in the long run, and in the field he was recognized with a Gold Glove award. He covers as much ground as anyone in the league, which is good news for those Browns pitchers who specialize in allowing line drives to the outfield. Which is all of them. In 1932 the Browns conducted a "challenge" trade for Martin Hagans, sending the New York Giants Jon Montague in return (in fairness, the Giants had to add Ryan Jeter in that deal to properly sweeten things up). At that time, Hagans looked like the more polished of the two players, and impressed a lot of people in the Browns' front office with his speed and natural skills. Last year he looked completely lost, hitting .173 before the team finally pulled the plug and sent him down to the minors to try to re-find his stroke. Sal Rodriguez ended up getting most of the post-Hagan at-bats; the former Tigers and Reds prospect showed why he is no longer with those teams, but then again nobody else proved to be any better. Code:
Pos Player Age G GS AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG
LF *Dan Manning 27 76 64 234 27 65 4 0 3 22 8 3 33 28 0.278 0.366 0.333
LF Carl Austin 26 56 56 231 23 65 11 2 2 24 0 0 15 23 0.281 0.320 0.372
LF Dave Durst 19 30 30 120 9 29 6 1 0 17 0 0 5 18 0.242 0.278 0.308
LF *Earl Luster 32 6 0 7 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.143 0.143 0.143
CF Bill McDermott 22 118 116 497 56 137 16 7 0 25 12 10 24 46 0.276 0.310 0.336
RF *Salvador Rodríguez 28 94 75 321 29 75 20 6 0 25 12 7 12 30 0.234 0.263 0.333
RF Martin Hagans 25 67 50 208 26 36 8 1 2 21 6 1 11 13 0.173 0.212 0.250
RF *Don Long 35 75 39 188 16 46 6 1 1 18 1 0 7 20 0.245 0.272 0.303
RF *Dennis Morse 24 36 25 104 9 26 4 4 0 11 0 0 7 10 0.250 0.297 0.365
RF Ross Sutton 30 53 33 148 13 39 7 4 1 25 1 2 7 6 0.264 0.295 0.385
- Lindsay Cintron 22 3 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.333 0.333 0.333
Team Totals 26 1742 1386 5302 511 1303 220 62 32 489 53 33 375 511 0.246 0.296 0.329
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