1985 Donruss #297 Willie Wilson - what a great photo, showing Wilson's eyes locked on the incoming pitch as he's about to lay down a drag bunt

We finish the 1969 round of expansion with the Kansas City Royals. Just as a reminder, we’re trying to figure out which four Royals we’d put up on a monument for the team. The selection criteria are entirely up to you–best player, best performer, best embodiment of the team…

The Royals started on fire, with 3 second-place finishes in the first 6 years, followed by 4 first-place finishes in the next 5 years. After losing the World Series in 1980, they finally won it all in 1985. Sadly, in the subsequent 27 years they haven’t made the playoffs at all and haven’t even sniffed the post-season since the late 1980s.

There are an awful lot of players for this franchise who deserve consideration. Let’s dig in. Continue reading →

Below are matched pairs of pitchers. What feat connects each of these pairs of pitchers?

Congratulations to Cubbies and Ed! They identified that, since 1922, these are the only pairs of pitchers who, in the same season, recorded fewer strikeouts than runs allowed, with a minimum of 125 strikeouts. Here are those seasons, and the pitchers’ stat lines.

Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have both joined the 500 double club this year, Jeter on May 3rd against Kansas City, and Rodriguez yesterday (May 21st), also against the Royals.

How unusual is that? After the jump, I’ll take a look.

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The ISP ate my homework last night. I’m posting this in whatever form it was saved — apologies for any errors and omissions.

Royals 6, @Yankees 0: Mike Moustakas gave KC an early lead, drawing iron with a 2-run shot — the 10th HR off Kuroda in 53 IP. Felipe Paulino took over from there and held NYY scoreless through 6.2 IP, slicing his ERA to 1.42 with his 3rd scoreless start in 4 outings this year. (Then again, two of those are against the AL East cellar-dwellers.)

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Ben Sheets / Presswire

We turn our attention to another of the 1969 expansion teams, although this one was known as the Seattle Pilots back then.

For a franchise that has only made 4 playoff appearances (and finished first in their division only 3 times in 43 seasons), they’ve had a lot of great players.

Let’s take a peek.

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Out of 63 players who’ve had the chance to do a certain thing this year, only these four have succeeded:

• Albert Pujols
• David Ortiz
• Mark Trumbo
• Jeff Keppinger

What mountain have those four climbed? Each has had exactly two chances to do it, and succeeded exactly once.

(By the way, it’s a little-known fact that I have a photograph of all four of them eating clam chowder in Cliff Clavin’s kitchen, so that answer is out.)

Okay … everybody to your stations!

I recently had lunch with an old-timer who played in the 1940s, and he said something I’ve heard from other old baseball people before. We were on our way to the restaurant when he remarked that players today couldn’t hold a candle to earlier baseball generations. I didn’t say much because the old-timer’s a nice man, and I didn’t want to argue or disrespect, and I happen to disagree.

Don’t get me wrong, I love baseball history, though I assume players are better than ever today. I assume modern players are stronger, faster, and able to throw harder. I write often on my website about projecting old players to the modern era, and I generally stress the importance of allowing players time to make adjustments. I assume if a long-ago great, even Babe Ruth, was merely dropped into today’s majors via time portal, he might look more out of place than the Bambino did in 1935 ignominiously closing his career with the Boston Braves.

I also assume earlier players had it easier not having to deal with backdoor sliders, tightly condensed schedules, or black competition. I assume coaching is more sophisticated, injury treatment better, and training aids, such as video, greatly more evolved. And, barring any unforeseen catastrophe for Major League Baseball, I assume players will only continue to evolve, that the next generation of ballplayers will be even better than this one.

I’m interested to hear other people’s thoughts, and I’ll keep this short. I think cases could be made for either side, and I’d love to hear them.

One late note from Saturday before we move on:

@Giants 4, Athletics 0: A combined one-hitter by Ryan Vogelsong (7), Javier Lopez and Clay Hensley.

• Since 2010, the Giants had lost two of their four one-hitters. Among the 40 other one-hitters in that span, there was just one loss.
• Vogelsong’s 2011 doesn’t look so flukey now, right?

Continue reading →

1978 O-Pee-Chee #78 Dave Winfield - I love this card. All the yellow, oranges, and browns look great, and the retro uniform and font are great.

Here’s a bit of history about the Padres. In their first season in 1969, they lost a whopping 110 games. They finished last in the NL West every year for their first 6 seasons until finally finishing 4th in 1975.  Over the next 8 seasons, they moved around from 4th to 6th. Then, all of a sudden, in 1984, they vaulted to 1st place and made it to the World Series. The following year, they put up their first 3rd-place finish, but didn’t finally put up a 2nd-place finish until 1989 in their 21st season.

Anyway…let’s take a look at the best players this team has ever had. Continue reading →

David Ortiz / Presswire

In the 2009 season, David Ortiz went homerless all the way up until 3 years ago today, of May 20th. Up until that game, for the season he was hitting .203/.317/.293. Yikes.

Lots of people, including me, said that he was D-U-N done. He certainly looked done.

Since May 20th 2009, though, Ortiz has been anything but done. In 446 games and 1847 plate appearances (3 full seasons over 3 full calendar years) he’s hit .285/.375/.543 with 98 HR and 311 RBI.

Over the 3 full seasons 2009, 2010, and 2011, two other players–Adrian Gonzalez and Paul Konerko–have exactly 98 homers themselves. Only 6 players (Albert, Prince, Tex, Ryan Howard, Miggy, and Gonzalez) have at least 98 homers and 311 over that same period.

Apparently, rumors of Ortiz’s demise were greatly exaggerated.