Post-Season Wrap-Up of North American Players in Japan, Part 1

It’s time for post-season wrap-ups on my series about the North American players who slugged it out in Japan this year.  For more information on the players discussed here, see my posts from June 17 and June 18 of this year.

Benny Agbyani, Chiba Lotte Marines. He finished out the year hitting .265 with seven HRs in 272 ABs.  His OPS of .767 wasn’t bad, but at age 38 next year and making over $800,000 this year, he won’t be back for another season in 2010.

Chris Aguila, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  Long gone after starting the season an awful 4 for 42.

Edgardo Alfonso, Yomiuri Giants. He finished his only Japanese season a brutal 6 for 41 (a .146 average) with two HRs.  His professional career appears to be over unless he can catch on with a team in Venezuala, where he’s originally from.

Scott Atchison, Hanshin Tigers.  He finished off a terrific season as one of Hanshin’s top set-up man, posting a 1.70 ERA with only 20 walks and 81 Ks in 90 IP over 75 appearances.  Reports have it that Atchison hopes to return to MLB in 2010.  Even though he will be 34 next season, his 2009 season in Japan was so good at least one major league team will likely give him a shot.

Aarom Balderis, Hanshin Tigers.  He was absolutely terrible in limited playing time for the Tigers (3 for 29), but absolutely terrific at their farm team, hitting .358 in 260 ABs with a .940 OPS.  He’ll be 27 next year, and NPB Tracker reports that Tigers do not intend to bring him back.  Given the year he had in the minors, I would think another team might give him one last shot in 2010.

Ricky Barrett, Tokyo Yakult Swallows.  Finished his season with a 7.15 ERA over 11.1 innings pitched.  He pitched pretty well for Yakult’s minor league team (2.81 ERA over 32 IP), but at age 29 next season,  the Swallows won’t give him another chance.

Jonah Bayliss, Saitama Seibu Lions.  He had a 3.21 ERA over 19 relief appearances (only 14 IP) after being acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays on July 23, 2009.  Despite the fact that he pitched fairly well, NPB Tracker reports that the Lions don’t intend to bring him back for 2010.

Tony Blanco, Chunichi Dragons.  He was the great success story in Japan in 2009.  As a 28 year old rookie, he led Japan’s Central League with 39 HRs and 110 RBIs.  His .880 OPS was good for 7th in the league.  It wasn’t a good season for hitters in the Central League: Yomiuri’s Shinnosuke Abe led all hitters with a .943 OPS.  Blanco has reportedly already signed a new two-year deal with the Dragons that will pay him a total of $3.6 million.

Hiram Bocachica, Saitama Seibu Lions.  He played very little in the second half, finishing the season with a .215 batting average and 13 HRs in 195 AB’s.  His Japanese career is over.

Jason Botts, Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.  Only appeared in 11 games for the Ham Fighters in 2009.  His Japanese career is over.

Craig Brazell, Hanshin Tigers.  Brazell hit .291 with 16 HRs in 285 ABs for the Tigers.  However, he drew only eight walks on the season, which kept his OPS down to .817, despite his strong power numbers.  He reportedly wants to return to Hanshin in 2010, but it’s not yet clear if the Tigers intend to bring him back.

Gary Burnham, Jr., Chiba Lotte Marines. He finished the season hitting .218 with little power.  He won’t be back in 2010.

Adrian Burnside, Yomiuri Giants.  A reader would like me to point out that Burnside is an AUSTRALIAN, who just happened to play baseball professionally in the United States for a dozen years.  Duly noted.  After an injury-plagued start to the season, Burnside didn’t pitch at all for the Giants in 2009.  He did pitch 32 innings over 13 appearances for their farm team, but his 4.13 ERA there didn’t impress, and his Japanese career is over, unless another team will give him a shot.

Braves Looking to Trade Derek Lowe

Reports have it that the Braves are hoping to trade Derek Lowe this off-season.  For some reason, I find the idea of the Braves thinking they can find someone to take Lowe and his outrageous contract off their hands in this economy very amusing.

I thought signing Derek Lowe last off-season for four years at $60 million was a very poor decision.  I could certainly understand why it happened: the Yankees signed the top two free agent starters C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to enormous contracts, and Lowe appeared to be the Best of the Rest.  Also, Lowe was represented by Scott Boras, who always seems to get top dollar for his free agents.

Nevertheless, giving Lowe that much money over that many years going into the season in which he would be 36 years old just wasn’t a wise decision.  Lowe really didn’t have a bad year in 2009.  Aside from the 15-10 record, he pitched 194.2 innings with 63 walks and 111 K’s.  His 4.67 ERA wasn’t pretty, but given that he was moving from Dodger Stadium to Turner Field, it pretty much matches the rest of his 2009 numbers and what you would reasonably expect from a good pitcher going from age 35 in 2008 to 36 in 2009.

The problem, of course, is that Lowe will be 37, 38 and 39 the next three seasons, and somebody (mostly the Braves, I suspect, even if they do find a trading partner) will have to pay him $15 million for each of those seasons.  I’d guestimate the odds of Lowe having a better season in any of the next three years than he had in 2009 at about one in three or two out of five.  He wasn’t worth $15 million in 2009, what with the Braves finishing a disappointing 3rd in the NL East, so the odds aren’t good he’ll be worth $15 million a year at any time in the future.

One of the problems the Braves have in looking for someone to bite on Lowe is that most of the teams dumb enough to make a trade this unsound (the Pirates, the Royals) don’t have the money to take on a contract like Lowe’s (or even two-thirds of it).  The Nats are the only team I can think of who have some money to spend and not enough sense to avoid a player like Lowe like the plague.  They’re also desparate for pitching, so if I were the Braves GM, I’d be on the phone with the Nats GM trying to convince him that Lowe is the “veteran presence” the young Nationals’ pitching staff needs.

Lincecum Wins Second Consecutive Cy Young

Tim Lincecum won his second consecutive Cy Young award in what was the third closest vote since the current scoring system went into effect in 1970.

Using a 5-3-1 system for NL pitchers ranked 1st through 3rd, Lincecum received 100 points, Chris Carpenter 94 and Adam Wainwright 90.  Wainwright actually received the most 1st place votes (12), compared to eleven 1st place votes for Lincecum and nine for Carpenter.

The voters clearly thought that Carpenter was the 2nd best pitcher in the NL.  He received 14 2nd place votes, compared to 12 for Lincecum, five for Wainwright and one 2nd place vote for Javier Vasquez (either a Braves’ fan or one of two sportswriters who apparently felt that Carpenter wasn’t one of the league’s best three pitchers since he didn’t pitch 200 innings).

The final vote strongly suggests that Carpenter would likely have won the Cy Young if he’d pitched at least 200 innings and almost certainly would have won if he’d pitched at least 210 innings.  That was certainly my biggest knock on Carpenter: a team’s staff ace, not to mention the league’s Cy Young winner, is expected to eat up the innings.

Carpenter was certainly great in 2009, but with only 28 starts, there were at least four games where the Cardinals had to make starts with their fifth starter, compared to Wainwright (34 starts) or Lincecum (32 starts).

Wainwright’s 12 first place votes suggests that there are still a substantial minority of voters who consider wins the most important stat for the Cy Young vote.  There aren’t a whole lot of differences in their other numbers, but Lincecum was clearly a little better in terms of ERA, Ks and WHIP, while Wainwright was only slightly better only in terms of innings pitched (233 to 225.1).

However, the fact that Wainwright received only five 2nd place votes and 15 3rd place votes suggests that a solid majority of the voting sportswriters have become much more sophisticated than they were thirty years ago, when wins and won-loss record were the most highly regarded Cy Young stats.

The Giants’ management group is probably seeing the sunny side of Lincecum’s recent marijuana possession plea right about now.  At least they now have something to come back with (“You’re the face of the franchise, but you’ve really damaged your image, especially with families!”) when Tim’s agent asks for a contract commenserate with consecutive Cy Young awards by age 25.  Even so, there’s pretty much no way Lincecum doesn’t get a record-setting extension to take him up to his free agency.

Greinke Wins AL Cy Young

To no one’s surprise, Zack Greinke just won the AL Cy Young Award.  I wrote a post a while back regarding the top AL Cy Young contenders.  While I said that I still liked Greinke best, I thought that the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez deserved a share of the first place votes.

Very few of the actual voters thought so.  Greinke received 25 of the 28 first place votes, with King Felix getting two and Justin Verlander the last one.

According to ESPN, the only other two pitchers receiving points were C. C. Sabathia and Roy Halladay.  Can’t argue with that: under the evaluation system I used, I had these five as the best the in the AL this year.  All in all, it looks like the AL Cy Young voters did an excellent job in evaluating the field.

Rookie of the Year Awards

I haven’t really spent a lot of time thinking about baseball’s best rookies this year, and I don’t really have any strong feelings about the choices the voters made.  Chris Coghlin hit .321, had a .390 OBP and an .850 OPS, all while playing a full season for the Marlins, which are sufficiently good reasons to make him the NL Rookie of the Year.

Pretty much the same for Andrew Bailey.  He had 26 saves and an ERA under 2.00, which is terrific for a rookie thrust into the closing role.  I also like the seasons second and third place finishers Elvis Andris and Rick Porcello had.

Going forward, I was thinking that Andrew McCutchen was the NL rookie I’d most like to have on my team.  However, after checking fansgraphs’ estimate of defensive performance and minor league hitting performance, I think that Colby Rasmus is probably the better bet.

According to fangraphs, Rasmus was the second best defender in centerfield in the NL in 2009, behind only Mike Cameron.  McCutchen ranked a hair below average, and Dexter Fowler (a lot of good rookie centerfielders in the NL this year) was ranked the worst defender in centerfielder in the league.

Rasmus and McCutchen are also both a year younger than Fowler (actually, more like six months).  Rasmus had a much better career minor league career OPS than McCutchen, so I think Rasmus is the better bet going forward.

Among the remaining rookies who received ROTY votes, I like Tommy Hansen the best.  He’s the same age (23 in 2010) as Rasmus and McCutchen and had fantastic minor league numbers.  I don’t like him as much going forward as Rasmus or McCutchen only because pitchers are more prone to injury than position players.

Padres SS Everth Cabrera is also 23 next year, but he’s harder to predict going forward than Rasmus or McCutchen because Cabrera’s only significant minor league playing time came at the A level.  In other words, his 2009 major league numbers could be a fluke.

I’d rank Coghlin about even with Cabrera going forward, given that Coghlin is two years older.  The best of the rest is probably the Diamondbacks  Gerardo Perra.  He’ll also be 23 next year, but didn’t hit enough for a leftfielder in 2009 (.729 OPS).

J. A. Happ, Casey McGehee and Randy Wells were all 26 in 2009.  26 year old rookies generally don’t go on to have great major league careers, no matter how well they played during their rookie seasons.  The major exceptions seem to be at catcher and among power pitchers who finally achieve major league control.

Garrett Jones will be 29 next season, and he had a 2009 campaign that is completely aberrant in comparison to his long minor league career.  In other words, the odds are mighty slim that he’ll ever have another major league season as good as 2009.  It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s trying his luck in Japan’s major leagues by 2012.

In the American League, the obvious choice going forward is Rangers SS Elvis Andrus.  He’s only 20 next year, and fangraphs ranked his defense at SS behind only light-hitting Cesar Izturis.

Andrus minor league batting numbers are not impressive, but that has more to due with the fact that he was consistently the youngest player in the leagues he played (I’m not sure about that, but I doubt there were a lot of other 18 year olds playing in the A+ California League in 2007 or 19 year olds in the AA Texas League in 2008).

Absent injury, Andrus looks sure to be a great player for many years.  In fact, he’s probably a fair bet to challenge his 2009 mentor’s record for games played at SS (Omar Vizquel is now the all-time leader).

There aren’t a lot of players who have established themselves as major league-caliber shortstops on both offense and defense by the time they reach their 20th birthdays.  By way of example, Andrus is further along than Alex Rodriguez was at the same age.  In fairness to ARod, he hit .358 with 54 doubles and 36 HRs in 1996, the year in which he turned 21.

I doubt that Andrus is going to come anywhere close to those numbers in 2010, but he doesn’t have to to become a great player.

After Andrus, I like Gordon Beckham.  He’ll be 23 next year, and he’s a former No. 8 pick in the 2008 draft.  He shot through the minors and should become a big star.

One player I’m not particularly enamoured with is Rick Porcello.  He posted only 89 Ks in 170.2 IP this year, after posting only 72 Ks in 125 IP in the A+ Florida State League last year.  He’s young enough to improve his strikeout numbers considerably over the next few seasons, but pitchers with Ks-to-IP ratios that low do not tend to be consistent.

Another thing is that he threw a lot of innings in 2009 for a 20 year old, and he will likely pitch a lot of innings the next couple of seasons as one of the Tigers’ rotation anchors.  He’s got a contract which paid him more than $2 milli0n in 2009 (according to ESPN), so the Tigers have an incentive to try to get the most out of him now, whether or not his arm is developed enough for the strain of high annual IP totals.

I would much rather have the A’s Brett Anderson going forward than Porcello, even if Anderson is a year older, and Porcello had a better 2009 campaign taking into account their home pitching parks.  Anderson struck out 150 men in 175.1 major league innings pitched this year, and struck out 243 in 225.1 career minor league innings pitched.  Anderson’s walks-to-IP ratios are also better than Porcello’s in spite of the fact that Porcello wasn’t striking anyone out.

I’d also rather have Andrew Bailey going forward than Porcello, although it’s close, given that Porcello is a starter.  Although Bailey will be 26 in 2010, his Ks-to-IP and Ks-to-BBs ratios were terrific this year.  Bailey also has strong numbers in the minors, where he was used primarily as a starting pitcher.  In fact, his major league numbers were far better than his minor league career record, almost certainly because he benefited enormously from the switch to pitching in relief.

The last player to receive votes for AL ROTY is the Rays’ Jeff Niemann.  His numbers look almost exactly like J.A. Happ’s right down the line.  The only major difference I see is that Happ is a lefty and Niemann throws right.  Like Happ, Niemann will be 27 next year, which makes him a poor candidate to become a future superstar.

Stray Thoughts

SI.com is reporting that Pablo “Kung-Fu Panda” Sandoval is taking his off-season workout regimen seriously and has already lost ten pounds (he was a reported 5′11″ and 246 lbs during the 2009 season, although he probably weighed less than that at the end of the long season).  If Sandoval really is working hard to get himself in top shape, it’s something for Giants’ fans to be excited about.

As it is, Sandoval can only better if he can stay healthy, and the more he’s willing to work in the off-season to get himself in better shape, the less likely he is to suffer one or more career-threatening injuries.  Obviously, guys who are willing to work hard during the off-season tend to have longer, more successful careers than guys who aren’t.

I also read an article about the ease with which Cuban left-hander Aroldis Chapman defected by simply walking out of his Rotterdam hotel and into a waiting car.  The part of the article that struck me is that Aroldis left behind his pregnant girlfriend back in Cuba.  She’s since had the baby, a girl whom Chapman has never seen.

I can certainly understand why top Cuban players would want to defect to play in the U.S. (the money, the bigger stage, the freedom), but the decision to leave behind your children can’t be an easy one or free from moral questions.  Given the current state of Cuba’s government, it isn’t likely that Chapman will be able to see his daughter any time soon.

I, for one, look forward to the day when Fidel and Raul Castro die of old age and the U.S./Cuba relationship can finally normalize.  The current administration has ratcheted down the tension from the Bush years, and Obama is so popular internationally that even old Fidel has been making kissy-face.  Now, most of the anti-U.S/ imperialism diatribes come out of Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez needs to get his public’s attention away from the high crime rate, the corruption, the economic stagnation in spite of Venezuela’s enormous oil wealth and his own dictatorial impulses.

My hope is that once the Castros kick the bucket, Cuba will become more democratic and more pragmatic in their socialism.  Stick with the socialist policies that have worked for the Cuban people (free education and free health care) but allow opposition political parties and media outlets and open the country up to more for-profit activity that will alleviate the dire poverty experienced by most Cubans.  It seems to work well in most of Europe.

As a baseball fan, I would like to see the Cuban government work out some kind of deal, where if Cuban players want to go to the U.S., they can leave at, say, age 25 and the Cuban government gets a cut of the signing bonus the player receives from a major league team.  Frankly, I can see a system not much different from the posting system in effect for Japanese players like Dice-K, only that the pay out would be to the Cuban government, rather than to the corporations that own each of the Japanese teams.

In a country the size of and as poor as Cuba, the kind of money that the Red Sox forked over to the Seibu Lions just to procure the right to negotiate a contract with Diasuke Matsuzake ($51.1 million) would go a long way.  Major league teams (and plenty of right-wing Americans) wouldn’t like it, but the teams, at least, would pay it in a heart beat to get their grubby little hands on the top Cuban talent.

Annual Rant on the Gold Glove Awards

Every year I complain about the Gold Glove awards, because the voters clearly don’t understand:  (1) the Gold Glove should go to the best fielder at each position, not the best overall player; and (2) how to evaluate who, in fact, is the best fielder at each position.

The case in point this year (and in years past) — Derek Jeter won his fourth Gold Glove award this year, although he has probably been the American League’s worst defensive shortstop the last decade.  Derek Jeter won the award for two reasons:  he hits great for a shortstop, and he led the AL with a .986 fielding percentage.  However, his other defensive, and more important, fielding numbers were just awful.  His 3.9 range factor was dead last of the ten AL shortstops who played enough to qualify, and his 75 double plays was tied for 7th, even though he was third in innings played at the position.

It’s worth noting, however, that Fangraphs has Jeter with a UZR of 6.6 and a UZR/150 of 8.4 in 2009.  This is the first time in the eight seasons for which Fangraphs has provided UZR ratings that Jeter has had a zero or greater rating in either category.  As a result, I tend to think this year’s positive numbers more likely reflect defects in the UZR ratings system than that Jeter, at age 35, has suddenly become a great defensive shortstop.

Traditionally, people inside baseball have overvalued fielding percentage.  However, since at least Bill James’ work in the early 1980’s, people should by now realize that range is more important than fielding percentage.  O.K., Jeter is great at fielding balls hit right at him, but there are numerous other shortstops in the AL who are better at turning ground balls into outs, either by their superior range, better positioning or stronger throwing arms.

I’m not saying you wouldn’t want Jeter as your everyday shortstop, because he’s going to go to the Hall of Fame on the strength of his bat.  However, he was not the best defensive shortstop in the AL in 2009, and he has probably never been the best defensive shortstop in the AL at any time in his career.  In fact, he probably isn’t the best defensive shortstop on the field any time Alex Rodriguez is playing third for the Yankees.

Give the Gold Glove award to the players who truly provide the most defensive value at their respective positions.

The Rich to Get Richer?

SI’s Jon Heyman reports that the Phillies are going to go hard after 3Bman Chone Figgins.  That makes a lot of sense.  They have the money to give him a big free agent contract, and he would be a significant upgrade over Pedro Feliz, at least with the bat.

Fangraphs rated Figgins’ defense at the hot corner even higher than Feliz in 2009, but the real difference, as far as I’m concerned, is Figgins’ lifetime .363 OBP, compared to .293 for Feliz.  That’s huge.

Also, Figgins would be a perfect fit for the Phillies’ explosive line-up.  One weakness the Phillies have had the last two years on offense is their lack of a true lead-off hitter.  They’ve been using Jimmy Rollins, who really is not a great lead-off hitter because he doesn’t get on base enough (.329 lifetime OBP).

Rollins routinely scores more than 100 runs a year, because he runs well, hits for power and has a bunch of great hitters behind him.  However, because he doesn’t walk much, he also routinely makes around 500 outs a year.  Ouch!

If the Phillies do acquire Figgins, they would be far better served batting Figgins lead-off and dropping Rollins to the sixth slot behind Utley, Howard and Werth.  Now, that would be a murderers’ row, and given his normal power numbers, Rollins should easily drive in more than 100 runs a season in the 6th slot.

I also saw a report that the Tigers are willing to trade CF Curtis Granderson and that the Yankees are interested.  Trading Granderson would be a big mistake for the Tigers.

Although Granderson’s OPS has dropped in both 2008 and 2009, there just aren’t a lot of centerfielders in baseball with 30-HR power.  Granderson will be paid $25.7 million total over the next three seasons (an average of less than $9 million per year), according to mlbtraderumors.com, in the years in which he will be 29, 30 and 31 years of age.  Since the Tigers are expected to be a contending team in the AL Central in 2010, I’d hold on to him.

Mariners Re-Sign Griffey

The Mariners resigned Ken Griffey, Jr. to a one-year deal for 2010 at an amount reported to be slightly more than the $2 million base salary they game him in 2009.  With incentives, Griffey is believed to have earned a little over $3 million for the season just ended.

I can’t say that I think re-signing Griffey is a good move for the Mariners.  With a .214 batting average and a .735 OPS, Griffey was pretty terrible for the guy who got the most playing time at the M’s DH slot.  An AL team really needs to get more production out of the DH slot in today’s game to be competitive.

There’s still a chance that Griffey’s OPS in 2010 will be better than ‘09.  Excluding his rookie year way back in 1989, Griffey’s lowest OPS before this past season was .777 in 2008.  However, the trend over the last two seasons is obvious, and at age 40 in 2010, the odds aren’t great that Griffey will have a bounce-back season.

The contract isn’t big, but for a player you hope to bat as little as possible, $2 million is still a little too much to pay.

I also tend to think that the feel-good bump in attendance to see The Kid play for the M’s one more time probably won’t carry past the 2009 season.  Now, I suspect that most Mariners’ fans would prefer the team focus on making the post-season and will vote with their feet if the M’s aren’t competitive in 2010.

I had hoped the Mariners would make a run for Hideki Matsui, who as a DH can still hit.  Also, I loved the idea of a U.S. team having the two best Japanese players of their generation together for a couple of seasons.  I find it hard to believe that the Mariners would not be able to sell lucrative cable TV packages of their regular season games in Japan if they had both Ichiro and Godzilla playing for them at the same time.  There were some rumors that Ichiro would feel threatened to have Matsui play on the same team, but economic benefits to the Mariners seems obvious, to me at least.

Now that the Mariners have signed Griffey, who really can’t do anything but DH and pinch hit at this point in his career (he played only 11 games in the field in ‘09), I don’t see much chance of the Mariners going after Matsui, who is also basically a full-time DH at this point in his career.  Too bad.

Andrew Baggarly on the Giants

Here’s an article from Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News on what he thinks the Giants are thinking about this off-season.  He repeats the conventional wisdom that the Giants would like to bring Bengie Molina back on a one-year deal for not much more than the $6 million they paid him in 2009, but that Bengie is unlikely to sign with the Giants since he wants at least a two-year deal.

Frankly, I can’t see any chance of the Giants resigning Molina to a one-year deal.  The free agent pickings at catcher this off-season look awfully slim to me.  Most of these guys just can’t hit.  In fact, the available catchers look so bad with the bat, that the top three in 2010 look likely to be Miguel Olivo, who the Royals cut loose rather than picking up his $3.3 million option, Bengie, who will be 35 next year, and Gregg Zaun, who will be 39.   Molina is the only Type-A free agent catcher on the market.

Given the other options, I can’t imagine Bengie not getting at least one team to offer him at least $16 million over two years even if he costs the team that signs him a draft pick.  The upshot is that the Giants absolutely have to offer him arbitration, so they can get the two drafts picks.

Baggarly suggests the Giants will look to sign Pudge Rodriguez to a one year contract to back up and mentor Buster Posey.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  Aside from the fact that Baggarly says that the Giants have had some interest in Pudge for the last couple of years, the odds are good that the Giants could sign him to a one-year, low-base-high-incentive contract, given his age in 2010 (38) and his drop-off with the bat in 2009 (.664 OPS).  Given the other catchers on the market, the odds are good that Pudge will be one of the better hitters of the group, particularly if used in the right role.

Baggarly also writes that the Giants like Jason Bay better than Matt Holliday as a possible big-ticket free agent sign.  I do too, although I’m not sure my reasons for preferring Bay are entirely rational.  Holliday is represented by Scott Boras, which generally means that teams have to way overpay to get one of his free agents to sign.  Also, I’m not convinced that Holliday isn’t already well past his peak and can hit well over a full season away from the mile-high air of Colorado.  Not entirely rational, but my gut feeling is that I’d rather see the Giants over-pay Bay for five years than Holliday.

Baggarly also thinks the Giants won’t offer arbitration to any of Randy Winn, Bob Howry or Randy Johnson.  Well, duh!  They are all way overpaid for the performances they provided in 2009, and you can’t reasonably expect that any of them at their advanced ages are going to be any better in 2010.  Better to free up these salary slots and chase some other, younger players.