Results tagged ‘ White Sox ’
On this special day….
February 14th, 2011 is a special day. It’s a day to fall in love with that special someone you haven’t seen in almost six months. It’s the day to remember the love of summers past fondly as you look forward to another summer that is full of love and expectations. Today is Valentine’s Baseball Day as pitchers and catchers begin to report to spring training to kick up the wonderful marathon that will take us from the hopes of spring until the championship celebrations of the fall. And what a better way to start spring training than by telling that special someone that baseball is life….and the rest are just details. Now, if the significant other doesn’t like it…well…consider a change!
Anyway, now that baseball is back that also means that fantasy baseball is also back and with it the expectations of thousands of arm chair general managers, who each year try to prove their baseball expertise by drafting players into a league that doesn’t really exist. Being one of those arm chair general managers I’ve already begun to prepare my strategies on which players to draft and how much to spend. Which is why now I have a major concern. Is Albert Pujols worth more than the projected $42 that fantasy websites have projected? Pujols right now is the most dominant and prolific hitters in the majors. With the emergence of the pitcher during the post steroid era, Pujols is the only player with a legitimate shot of hitting over 40 homeruns a season. Although Pujols finished 12 homeruns behind Jose Bautista for the league lead in homeruns, Pujols finished ahead of 10 power hitters, who on another era, would probably put up 40 homeruns before the all-star break. But Pujols is more than a power hitter as his (.414) OBP was the third highest in the league. Pujols was also 5th in slugging and 4th in OPS (1.011).
By any statistical standard there is, Albert Pujols is indeed a machine, an offensive machine that can help any fantasy owner in every vital offensive category. So is Pujols worth more than the projected $42 in an auction draft? Absolutely! The second he is nominated be ready to spend up to $50 dollars. Now that the league has seen a drop in offensive numbers, the only consistent power hitter in the league is Pujols. He would be a great addition to any owner that can build a solid team around him.
As for Pujols’s real life worth. He is indeed worth more than $120 million. If the Cardinals can’t sign him to such a contract, I know a team in the North Side of Chicago that would be willing to spend to attract such a talented player. And there is also a team on the South Side of Chicago that could possibly spend a lot more to acquire the services of Pujols.
MLB Network: 1919 Chicago White Sox documentary.
I’m thrilled that the MLB Network’s latest episode of Triump and Tragedy series will feature the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox and their throwing of the World Series that year to the Cincinnati Reds. The Black Sox, as they have come to be known, was the best team in the American League that season as Shoeless Joe Jackson returned from his military service in World War 1 and lead the Sox back to the top of the league again in 1919. That year Jackson lead the White Sox in hitting with a batting average of .351 and was in the top five of the AL’s leaders in slugging, RBI, total bases and total hits. Clearly, Jackson was the undisputed star of the club. But Jackson wasn’t alone, players like Eddie Collins, Claude Williams, Arnold Gandil, Oscar Felsch, Charles Risberg, Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte also made significant contributions to the team. Unfortunately for them, their onfield contributions didn’t generate into a meaningful wage, which created a tension between these players and the onwer of the White Sox, Charlie Comisky.
And it was this early, I would say–labor tension–that made Arnold Gandil orchestrate a conspiracy to throw the 1919 Series. At the time, before collective bargaining and the powerful players union, baseball players were literally the property of the team they played for, for the entirety of their career. The Reserve Clause made it possible for all baseball owners, including Charlie Comisky, to pay its players wages that in no way represented their value to the team; it also made it impossible for the players to negotiate with other teams after their one year contract was up at the end of each season. Through the clause, the owners were therefore able to keep the salary demand of players in check, while they literally reaped the rewards of the revenues these players generated. It’s no wonder then that an Arnold Gandil, or an Eddie Cicotte (who won 29 games that year) were willing to throw the series as a means to receive they deemed was their true dollar value. In total 8 players were involved with Gandil’s scheme, and all are now collectively known as the Eight Men Out (the name of a book by Eliot Asinof, which inspired the Hollywood movie) after being banned for life by the first sole commissioner of baseball Kennesaw Mountain Landis.
Thanks to the throwing of the World Series by these players, a new era in baseball was thus ushered in. After the scandal, the owners of teams in both leagues ended the National Commission, which was the neutral body that resolved disputes between the National and American leagues, and in its place created the new office of “Commissioner of Baseball”. This office, headed by one man instead of a council, was granted the unilateral power to make decisions that were in the best interest of the game. With a new commissioner now in power to make unilateral decisions, MLB entered an era that was truly modern. Even though the modern era of baseball began in 1901 with the establishment of more stable rules and the rise of the American League to “major league” status , it was the aftermath of the 1919 Series scandal that truly revolutionize the organization of professional baseball as a sport and business in the United States.
All Stars snubs..
Now that the 2010 All Stars for both the National and American leagues have been announced, too much was made about the players that were snubbed. Personally, I don’t pay attention to the All Star game, but when baseball writers and commentators talk about players that were snubbed then the All Star game gets my full attention.
Frankly speaking, nothing perks up my interests than a little controversy; and since the All Star game is hardly a place where controversy is found, the list of snubs by both the AL and NL has me wondering if this year, of all the years since the last meaningful All Star game in 1994.
So, lets see if players were indeed snubbed.
AL Snubbs…
Kevin Youkilis: Yes he was snubbed. Joe Girardi as AL Manager decided to take one of his own players to the game, therefore he chose Alex Rodriguez. As a Yankee fan I agree with the move, why take a Red Sox player over a Yankee player? It would be blasphemous for a Yankee manager, who is managing the All Star game, not to pick one of his own guys for a Red Sox player. However, as an objective baseball fan, A-Rod doesn’t deserve a parking pass at Anaheim this year, since Youkilis was more deserving of a roster spot. Lets just look at the numbers. Youkilis this season is batting .299, with 17 homeruns and 54 RBI’s. He has an OBP of .416 and a slugging percentage of .584, which gives him an impressive 1.000 OPS. Youkilis has accumulated 160 total bases, has walked 50 times, and has scored 65 runs. To put all those stats into perspective, Youkilis is a player that helps the Red Sox create runs, which is no wonder why the Red Sox are one of the teams that leads the majors in runs scored.
Alex Rodriguez on the other hand is batting .276, with 12 homeruns and 62 RBI’s. A-Rod’s has posted a slugging percentage of .486 and an OBP of .349. That gives A-Rod an OPS of .835, which is .165 points lower than Youkilis’s OPS. A-Rod has been struggling for the most part this year, even though the Yankees haven’t missed a beat. Even though he has more RBI’s than Youkilis, that is probably because there are more runners on base when A-Rod bats than when Youkilis bats.
However, Youkilis carried the Red Sox offensively until Big Sloppy woke up and started to hit homeruns again. Without Youkilis in the lineup early this season, the Red Sox could be 5 games back of the Yankees instead of being 1.5 games behind. Yeah, I think Youkilis was clearly snubbed.
Andy Pettitte: He wasn’t snubbed, he was robbed of a deserving spot. The fact is, Andy Pettitte has been the only consistent starter in the Yankees rotation this season than All Star pick CC Sabathia. It took until the middle of June for CC Sabathia to settledown as a consistent started. Moreover, AJ Burnett has been consistently inconcistent, while Javier Vazquez has looked lost on the mound for the most part this season. That brings me to the other Yankee pitcher that made the All Star game, Phil Hughes. Hughes had a very strong start to the year, posting an ERA under 2.00 in his first seven starts, but since May 17, Hughes has an ERA over 3.00. In his last two starts in particular, Hughes surrendered 6 homeruns and frankly, has looked anything but sharp.
Pettitte on the other hand has been a consistent pitcher all year. There are times when he gets in trouble, but finds a way to fight and get out of it. It has been the ability to get out of trouble that has earned him 10 wins this season and his best start to a season during his career.
Paul Konerko: Possibly snubbed. Konerko has carried the White Sox offensively, and is second in the league to Jose Bautista in homeruns with 20. Again, Girardi had to make a choice, but we know that he will always pick one of his players than one from another team.
NL Snub
Joey Votto: In my humble opinion, Votto was the clearly snubbed. When a player like Omar Infante makes the All Star team, instead of a player that is putting MVP numbers you know something is wrong. Votto is batting .320, with 19 homeruns and 53 RBI’s. He has been the most important offensive player for the Reds this season, and their success so far this year is because of Votto’s offensive production. Votto is definately more deserving of an All Star selection than Omar Infante.
Will 2010 be remembered as the other year of the pitcher?
For those that love reading baseball history, and for those that love watching Baseball Seasons on the MLB Network, now that 1968 will always be remembered as the Year of the Pitcher. That season was the culmination of advantages that the pitchers began to receive after the offensive explosion at the beginning of the decade that saw, among many other things, the fall of Babe Ruth’s single season homerun record to Roger Maris.
That season, Bob Gibson set a modern season ERA record of 1.12 and a World Series record of 17 strike outs. The last 30 game winner in baseball pitched in 1968 as Denny McLain won 31 games for the Detriot Tigers, and was the first 30 game winner in baseball since Dizzy Dean last did it for the St. Louis Cardinals. The rised mound, the wider strike zone helped the pitchers and curbed hitter’s offensive production. After that season the trend began to reverse itself and the hitters were once again given the advantage as the mound was lowered, and strikes zone began to shrink.
During the 70′s all the way through the Steroid Era, there has been a renewed offensive explosion. People have blamed everything from baseball expansion, new friendly hitter ball-parks, a smaller strike zone, juiced baseballs to juiced players. All these factors could explain why there was an offensive explosion since the late 60′s, but in no way could they explain why all of the sudden the tide is once again turning to in the pitcher favor.
In 2010 there has been…
five or six near no hitters or perfect games that were broken up in the late innings. It all started with CC Sabathia in Tampa Bay when he threw 7.2 innings of no hit baseball against the Rays. Later that week, Ricky Romero, of the Blue Jays, took a no hitter into the 7th inning against the White Sox before giving up a two run homer. Phil Hughes of the Yankees had a no hitter in the 7th inning before losing it in Oakland. Last week, both Jared Weaver and Scott Olsen almost achieved baseball immortality before giving up late hits. And I know there has to be more near-no-hitters that I have certainly missed.
In 2010 there has also been a no-hitter and a perfect game thrown. Ubaldo Jimenez of the Rockies pitched a no-hitter against against the Braves and Dallas “Get of his mound” Braden threw a perfect game.
In 2010, the best top 5 pitchers (includes both starters and relievers) in the league have ERA’s below 2. The top 13 pitchers in baseball have an ERA between 1.45 and 1.98. At the same time period last year, 2009 the top 13 had ERA’s of 2.15 and above.
Clearly pitchers have done well in the early part of the season. Even if it is too early in the year to say that 2010 could turn out to be the ”other year of the pitcher,” the pitching around the league has certainly improved from the past.
Another near no-no…
There was another near no hitter in as many days as the young baseball season is now picking up steam. Ricky Romero of the Toronto Blue Jays took a no-hitter into the 8th inning before giving up a two run homerun to the White Sox, and former Jay, Alex Rios. This is the second near no-hit bid by American League pitcher in the last 4 days. On Saturday, Sabathia was just 4 defensive outs away from achieving baseball history before Kelly Shoppack of the Tampa Bay Rays broke up the no-hitter.
For the first time in my lifetime, I have seen two pitchers take a no-hitter into the 8th inning during the first two weeks of the season. Pitchers usually struggle with their command during the month of April, usually because some are still in spring training mode (at least mentally), while others are adjusting their arms to pressure situations they did not face during spring training.
Another Dave Stieb reference.
Ricky Romero could’ve been the first Blue Jays pitcher to throw a no-hitter since Dave Stieb finally got his no-hitter–after three failed attempts–in 1990. What is amazing about this is that the Jays didn’t have a pitcher, during their championship run that was able to match the feat by Dave Stieb. Roy Halladay came close to pitching a no-hitter against the Yankees last September until Ramiro Pena broke up the bid with a single. Halladay’s bid for history was ended by a light hitting Yankee, just as Dave Stieb first perfect-game bid was ended by Yankees light hitter Roberto Kelly.
This begs the question. What is it about light hitting players and their ability to break up perfect games/no-hitters?
Update: Ricky Romero, not JC Romero…Why do I have JC Romero in my mind, the guy is still in the DL..
Breaking the losing streak.
Well, the Yankees did it, they beat Mark Buehrle and the White Sox to salvage the last game of the 4 game set. As I wrote yesterday, if the Yankees had a shot at beating Buehrle what they needed to do was take advantage of their at bats and break Buehrle’s rhythm since he is one of those pitchers that likes to work fast. It seems the Yankee hitters listened to me (or at least I like to think so) because that is exactly what the did. The best example of that was Nick Swisher’s at bats against Buehrle. He kept stepping out of the box, or called time, took extra practice swings and walked around the box. Because of that, Swisher got 2 singles off Buehrle. Melky Cabrera did even better by hitting a 3 run blast and ultimately a cycle. Cabrera’s cycle was the first for the Yankees since Tony Fernandez did it in 1995. Just think about that, since 1995. That means that no Yankee player has hit for the cycle since I was 15 years old. That means that no Yankee has hit for the cycle since my family moved into a big red house in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. It also means that no Yankee has hit for the cycle since I was forced to listen to that 1995 game against the Athletics on the radio because we had no cable in the new house we moved to in Ridgefield Park. Not that I had a problem listening to Kay and Sterling, but I would have rather watched the game on MSG. Anyways, the offensive display by Melky was needed and this win was needed. It would have been tough had the Yankees lost yesterday. Facing a date with Roy Halladay Tuesday night, the Yankees were facing the possibility of losing 5 games in a row.
Sabathia…..
Sabathia had a rocky start, but settled down and gave the Yankees a quality start. After giving up the lead thanks to Jermaine Dye’s 2 run homer, Sabathia went on to retire something like 8 batters in a row before giving up a double. Still, I was somewhat disappointed with his performance. He gave up way too many doubles. If he does that in his next start, I don’t think the Yankees will win.
Pitching Matchup that never was…
If you were looking for a great pitching match up between Sabathia and Buehrle, well you found it. Unless of course you meant to see a batting practice becase that is what it almost literally what happened in the first 5 innings of yesterday’s game. If you were looking for dominant pitching performance by two oustanding pitchers, you were disappointed. I know I was. I was looking forward to another well pitched game like Thursday’s game was. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. But hey, at least the Yankees won.
Blown out in the Second City.
Another bad loss by the Yankees yesterday afternoon, as they lose to the White Sox 14-4. Thursday night’s loss was tough, but these last two games were easier to take. Entering Saturday’s game, the Yanks have only lost one series in the month of July so it is only natural that they would lose another series in the beginning of August. The baseball season is a marathon and although I don’t like the fact that the Yankees have lost the first 3 games of this four game set, I have to remind myself that there is more baseball to come. Starting today, hopefully the Yankees will begin a new streak and keep their divisional lead against Boston.
AJ Burnett…
What happened? Entering yesterday’s game Burnett was 6-1 with an ERA of 1.87. In those 7 games, Burnnet pitch well enough for the Yankees to win. However, yesterday the White Sox made quick work of Burnett who only lasted 4 1/3 innings. Burnett’s undoing however came in the second inning as he surrendered 6 runs. Overall, Burnett was roughed up for 7 earned runs. The thing that bothers me about Burnett is that in every start he has made this year, there has been an inning in where he completely breaks down and loses command of his stuff. The second inning yesterday was no different and it is just so frustrating to see. If the Yankees make the post season, those one bad innings will hurt this team.
Sabathia to the rescue?
It is now up to Sabathia to give the Yankees a good start and the bullpen some rest. But like Burnett, Sabathia himself has been inconsistent lately. His last start against Tampa, Sabathia’s inconsistency consisted on his consistency in falling behind in the count. When Sabathia does that, he gets roughed up and Tampa roughed him up (the Yankee defense didn’t exactly help him either). So the key for Sabathia today is to get ahead of the White Sox hitters and keep them off balance and off base. For the Yankees offense the key to the game is simple, Buehrle is a good pitcher, but his perfect game is in the past. The way to beat Buehrle is to make him throw more pitches and to slow down his game. Buehrle likes to work fast so it would be smart of Yankee hitters to call time here and there and control the at-bats. Control the at-bats..don’t let Buehrle control the at bats. Otherwise, if the Yankees lose and get swept, it will be a long flight to Toronto where Roy Halladay awaits. If the Yankees don’t win today, we could be looking at a 5 game losing streak by the end of Tuesday.
David Ortiz is on the PED list…and other thoughts.
I guess I have to write about it, but I’m not surprised that Ortiz is on the list of players that tested positive of PED’s. It is clear to any baseball fan now adays that of the 104 players that tested positive for PED’s, some will be among the game’s biggest stars. It is unfortunate that these players, with all the talent in the world, had to use PED. Now that we know for sure that Ortiz, Manny, A-Rod and Sammy Sosa were on this list, why not release the rest of the names so the league can move forward? Why keep releasing names every few months? Every name that is released to the media is like a drip of water and frankly it is time to stop these small leaks and either patch the whole thing up or let the torrent of water flow freely. Either release all 104 names or don’t. But for the sake of the game, who ever is releasing the names, please stop releasing one name at a time, it is making it harder for the players and the fans and the whole league to move forward.
Yankees drop a tough game to the White Sox
Yankees dropped a tough game tonight to the White Sox. As a Yankee fan I will have trouble sleeping tonight knowing the my team gave the Sox the go ahead run two bad errors, but as a baseball fan, I appreciate the way both Andy Pettitte and Gavin Floyd pitched tonight. Andy Pettitte 6.1 innings, giving up two runs, one earned. Pettitte should have gotten out of the 7th inning, but as baseball is a weird game at times, Pettitte slipped on a routine comebacker. Floyd on the other hand should have been allowed to finish his game. Taken out in favor of Matt Thornton, Floyd was screwed out of a deserved victory by the White Sox ever brilliant and well spoken Ozzy Guillen. Anyway, one thing I have noticed is that A-Rod is again struggling, how long until he gets another two days off??
David Veloz
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