100th Anniversary of Forbes Field’s Opening and More Recent Events

Here’s a terrific AP article about the opening of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field 100 years ago today.

Forbes Field had some of the deepest outfield fences in major league history, which made it a tremendously difficult place to hit homeruns, but a great place to hit for line drive hitters with alley power, like Roberto Clemente, Paul Waner and Arky Vaughn, who between them won seven batting titles and led the NL in triples six times.

Because of the huge outfield expanse, no no-hitter was ever pitched there in the 61 seasons it was the Pirates’ home (1909-1969), and it’s also no surprise that Owen Wilson, who set the single season record with 36 triples in 1912, was a Pirate that year.

In more recent Pirates’ news, they trade Eric Hinske to the Yankees today for two 23-year old prospects, pitcher Casey Erickson and OF Eric Fryer.  Neither has played above A+ baseball and both with 10th round draft picks.

I like Erickson better of the two, because he has 169 K’s and only 43 BB’s in 182 minor league innings pitched.  Fryer had a fine year in the Class A Sally League last year, but at age 22 that’s not particularly impressive.

It’s still a good trade for the Pirates, however.  A 31 year old role player like Hinske (he turns 32 on August 5) is a luxury a going-nowhere team like the 2009 Pirates don’t need.  Better to move him along and improve their minor league talent base.

The Pirates have been busy.  mlbtraderumors.com reports that the Pirates and the Nationals have agreed in principal to a trade of Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett going to the Nats and Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan going to the Bucs.  These are two teams with not a lot to suggest they have any idea what they’re doing, but I like the Pirates’ end of this deal much more than the Nats.

Lastings Milledge is having a terrible, injury plagued season, but he’s only 24 this year, he had a fine year for the Nats last year, and he was the 12th player selected in the 2003 Draft.  When the Nats signed Adam Dunn this off-season, the best argument of the people who criticized the signing was that signing Dunn was a mistake if it meant that the Nats failed to continue developing Milledge and Elijah Dukes.

It turns out the critics were right.  In less than half a season’s time, the Nats have turned Milledge, who appeared to be a budding star, into Nyjer Morgan, a 28 year old back-up outfielder with a career major league OPS of .727.  Morgan runs well and will help the Nats right now with defense, but there’s no way in the world he’s worth a Lastings Milledge to a team that will almost certainly finish 2009 with the worst record in baseball.

I don’t see a lot of difference between Hanrahan and Burnett.  Burnett is pitching better this year, was once a first round draft pick (19th overall in 2000), and at age 26 is a year younger than Hanrahan.  However, Hanrahan has better stuff.  Burnett has 95 K’s and 77 BB’s in 160.2 major league innings, while Hanrahan has 171 K’s and 94 BB’s in 168 major league innings.  Even assuming that Burnett is a ground ball pitcher, and the fact that Hanrahan has been terrible this year, I’d rather have Hanrahan going forward.

It’s good to see the Pirates apparently doing something right for a change.  I read an article by Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday in which Pirates GM Neal Huntington said that signing Ian Snell to an $8.6M mult-year deal before the 2008 season was probably a mistake.  Yes, Snell has been sent down to the minors (where he struck 17 batters in seven innings in his first start at AAA), but given his age two years ago (25) and Snell’s strong seasons in 2006 and 2007, it was a good move to make at the time, and the kind of move the Pirates should make in similar circumstances in the future.

Also, the $8.6M Snell was guaranteed over several years is really peanuts for a starting pitcher nowadays.  He’s still got a year and a half and $5.8M left on his contract, and if he can get himself straightened out at AAA, he might yet earn his salary as a Pirate.  It just seems like bad policy to be blasting your players before you can be absolutely sure that the signing was a mistake.  I mean, it’s not like the Pirates are paying Barry Zito money to Snell for a similar level of performance.

Perhaps the Giants can swing a trade for Snell in exchange for Randy Winn.  Both players have big salaries, and the Pirates were a god-send back in 2007 when they took all of Matt Morris’ remaining contract and gave the Giants a major league player (albeit a mediocre one) in Rajai Davis.

Pat Misch Sighting and Other Comments

When I wasn’t looking, the Mets called up former Giant Pat Misch, and he appeared in his fourth game for them tonight.  He gave up a run in one inning pitched, but it was his first earned run in 4.1 IP, good for a Mets’ ERA of 2.08.  After his pitching for the Giants, however, his season ERA still stands at a robust 5.87.

I have no ill will toward Misch.  He’s always been an over-achiever, who relies on pitching rather than stuff.  He’s definitely a guy who needs strong D behind him to succeed at this level.  Perhaps, he’s been getting that in NYC.

Meanwhile, Bobby Parnell also pitched for the Mets tonight, gave up a couple of runs, and his 2009 ERA now stands at 5.22.  Remember when the Nats offered the Mets Nick Johnson for Parnell even up back when Parnell’s ERA was below 2.00?  Granted, Johnson’s performance has dropped off since then also, but he’s still hitting .299 with a .408 OBP and an .829 OPS.  In short, it looks right now like the Mets made a mistake.

The Brewers have a young meathead in their system named Jeremy Jeffress, who just got hit with a 100 game suspension for testing positive for a drug of abuse for the third time in four year minor league career.  My guess would be pot or cocaine or some combination of the two.

A pitcher, he was the 16th player selected in the 2006 draft, and his minor league numbers suggest he’s got great stuff.  He’s only 21, and he cost the Brewers $1.55M, so they won’t give up on him yet, but he’s gotten his brains beaten out in twelve starts at AA Huntsville, so he’s still a long way from the majors, even if he can get over his addiction problems.

You Got to Watch Out for Those Small Right-Handers

Tim Lincecum completely shut down the Cardinals today, throwing a 2-hit shutout in only 95 pitches, walking none and striking out eight.  One of the Cardinals’  two hits was a double by Pujols, the best hitter in the NL, if not baseball.

The thing that made Lincecum so tough tonight, I suspect, is that the Cardinals have seen very little of him.  This was only his third start of his career against the Redbirds and the first since April of last year.  With his unusual motion, his stuff and his ability to mix pitches, he’s got to be extremely tough on any team that hasn’t faced him in well over a year.

If you’re the Cardinals in these circumstances, your best hope is that Lincecum’s control isn’t sharp that night.  If he can locate his fastball and keep his change up down, there’s pretty much no hope.

Speaking of small right-handers, Roy Oswalt also pitched a two-hit complete game victory against the Padres in San Diego, which had to help Oswalt at least a little bit.  Nonetheless, Oswalt never fails to amaze me.  Every year for the last couple of years, I have expected that Oswalt’s arm is going to give out, given his small size and all the innings he’s pitched for the Astros, kind of like Tim Hudson last year.

After a rough first four months of the season last year, Oswalt was dominating in August and September; and after a slow start this year, his pitching in June has been better than either May or April.  Still, after being worked like a dog in 2004 and 2005 (a combined 478.2 IP), his innings pitched totals have fallen each of the last three full seasons, and his ERAs have risen.  He’s too good a pitcher to write off just yet, but the trend is certainly not good.

Sunday Night Musings

I’m back from a weekend trip to Feather Falls (Falls lovely, weather too hot).  Now that I’m back I see that the Indians traded Mark DeRosa to the Cardinals for Chris Perez and a player to be named later.

Looks like a good move for both clubs.  The Cards get a player who can play four or five different positions and can hit.  The Indians, who were going nowhere, trade a 34-year old player for a young pitcher with talent who turns 24 next Wednesday.

Chris Perez looks like the real deal.  He was the 42nd player selected in the 2006 Draft, and after 64.1 big league innings, he has a 3.78 ERA with 71 K’s.  He has a minor league career ERA of 2.71 with 151 K’s in 113.1 IP.  The only real concern with Perez is his command.  Given his age and performance so far, it’s likely that in two or three years, he’ll be the Indians closer or top set-up man.

Seven year minor leaguer Ryan Sadowski got called up by the Giants and pitched six shutout innings against the Brewers in Milwaukie to get the win in his first major league appearance.  In all honesty, however, I’m not convinced that he’s got much of a major league future.  He’s 26 already (turns 27 in October), and his minor league numbers haven’t been particularly impressive.

Sadowski only got the call-up because Kevin Pucetas, who is two years younger and has been pitching better than Sadowski at Fresno, pitched in the last couple of days.  The Giants put Rich Aurillia on bereavement leave in connection with the death of Aurillia’s father, so I doubt that Sadowski will be around long enough to get more than one more appearance, if that.

I suspect that Sadowski’s success in today’s game was in large part due to the fact that no one at the major league level knows anything about him.  He allowed three walks and had only to two K’s, which does not suggest that he’s got great stuff.

The Yokohama Bay Stars of Japan’s Central League recently inquired about obtaining the right to negotiate with Sadowski, but were rebuffed by the Giants.  It would not surprise me at all if Sadowski ultimately has more success pitching in Japan than in the majors.  Japanese teams love 4-A players with at least some major league experience, and now Sadowski has that.

In the Blind Squirrel Finds Nut category I noticed that Matt Palmer improved to 7-1 today, and former Giant David Aardsma picked up his 16th save.  Palmer got the win despite allowing six earned runs in five innings pitched, and his ERA jumped to 5.16.  He’s a guy with a lot of heart, but not so much talent, and one has to think his luck could turn on him at any time.  However, the Angels are good team, and Palmer may yet squeeze 10-13 wins out of this season.

Aardsma has a lot more talent that Palmer, but I’m not really convinced that Aardsma has finally turned a corner in this career.  The problem is that, as well as he’s pitched this year, his control, which has always been his Achilles’ heal, still sucks.

Aardsma has a 1.49 ERA after tonight’s game, but he has allowed 22 BB’s in 36.1 IP.  His ERA is so low because he’s only allowed 20 hits and has struck out 46.  His walks per nine innings pitched rate is 5.5, almost equal to his career rate of 5.6 coming into this season.

Pitchers with Aardsma’s strikout stuff usually turn a corner when they develop control.  Aardsma hasn’t done that this season.  Instead, he’s given up far fewer hits and struck out even more hitters than he has in the past.  If his control hasn’t really improved, I’m doubtful he’ll be able to keep pitching the way he has so far this year, at least not with the consistency you want from a closer.

Hiroshima Carp Sign Andy Phillips

The Hiroshima Toyo Carp signed 32 year old minor leaguer Andy Phillips to a $400,000 contract today.  In the minors, Phillips’ time has been pretty evenly split between 1B, 2B and 3B.  In 557 major league at-bats, Phillips has hit .250 with a .678 OPS and 14 HR’s.

Phillips is the kind of veteran 4-A player Japanese teams like, but I don’t know that he has enough left to succeed in Japan.  In 217 AAA at-bats that this year, he’s hitting an even .300, but his OPS is only .782.  Given his age, his career is likely winding down.

When, Oh When Are the Giants Going to Call Up John Bowker?

After yesterday’s game, 25 year old John Bowker is hitting .354 with a 1.065 OPS in 240 AB’s at AAA Fresno.  His OPS is good for third in the Pacific Coast League behind 26 year old Jake Fox, who is now hitting .353 with a .918 OPS in 34 AB’s for the Cubs (in fairness, Fox had a ridiculous 1.336 OPS at Iowa) and 29 year old Hector Luna, who plays in Albuquerque, one of the best places to hit in the already hitter-friendly PCL.

Hello!  The Giants are desperate for hitting, and Bowker is killing the ball at AAA.  Bowker is a commodity the Giants don’t have a lot of: a minor position player still young enough to have a real major league career.

Meanwhile, after getting two hits last night, 37 year old Rich Aurilia is hitting .213 with a .535 OPS.  Aurilia plays 1B and 3B, and in a real pinch SS.  Bowker plays 1B and the corner outfield positions.

Pablo Sandoval has been much better defensively at 3B than anyone reasonably expected (I, for one, had visions of catcher Bob Brenly, who on September 14, 1986, made an astounding four errors in one inning in a failed attempt to play him at 3B, the only player to make four errors in one inning in the 20th Century; here’s the boxscore).  As a back-up, the Giants have Juan Uribe, a former SS (former SS’s usually have no problem performing at least adequately at the hot corner).

Yes, Aurilia’s a great guy, good to have in the club house, and he’s meant a lot to the Giants’ organization over the years. Yes, the Giants have too many outfielders already.  And GM Brian Sabean loves those over-the-hill veterans.  However, it’s getting to the point where even Sabean has to make a move.

Baseball is a meritocracy of sorts.  There are always guys at the margins who deserve to be in the majors who aren’t or who aren’t getting as much playing time as they deserve, but by and large the best players play, because winning consistently is the only guaranteed way to get cans in the seats, which is what pays everyone in the industry their bloated salaries.

The Giants have to make a move soon, like the next week or ten days.  At this point in their respective careers, Bowker has everything going for him, and Aurilia is just taking up roster space.  If the Giants really want to keep Aurilia around for his professionalism and sage advice, offer him a coaching position for the rest of 2009.  The Gints are almost certainly on the hook for the rest of Aurilia’s 2009 salary anyway.

P.S.   Opening a roster space at AAA Fresno by promoting Bowker and taking Aurilia off the 40-man roster would open up a spot for Buster Posey in Fresno without anyone else being demoted.

Cody Ransom Sighting and Other News

Cody “Babe” Ransom has come off the 60-day DL, and after a 14-game rehab assignment in which he hit .250 with two HR’s and eight RBI’s at AAA Scranton-Wilkes Barre, he will be rejoining the Yankees.  The Yankees have designated veteran infielder Angel Berroa for assignment to make space for Ransom on the roster.

Meanwhile, Rob Neyer thinks the Twins made a wise move sending Luis Ayala packing.  His thinking is that middle relievers of Ayala’s current performance level are generally fungible and not worth keeping around if they annoy the manager.  The title of Neyer’s post is Twins Jettison Knucklehead.  Neyer gets an entire article out of this premise, but I think I’ve pretty well summed it up in a paragraph.

Also, Cubs starting catcher Geovany Soto tested positive for marijuana at this year’s World Baseball Classic.  It will be interesting to see what punishment he gets for it.  Can he be suspended for fifty games under the MLB drug policy?

Here’s an article from Bill Lubinger of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Lubinger says that 58 drugs are listed in the categories of performance enhancing drugs, 30 drugs in the category of stimulants, and 7 drugs (including marijuana, cocaine and LSD) are considered “drugs of abuse”.  The fifty game first suspension only applies to performance enhancing drugs.

Here is the MLB drug policy itself from the Players’ Association website.  According to Section 8.F, it appears that Soto cannot be suspended for testing positive for pot so long as he participates in some assigned treatment program, and he cannot be fined more than $25,000.  Also, under the MLB drug policy, a player cannot be tested for a drug of abuse without reasonable suspicion (unlike PED’s or stimulants).

The Players’ Association may have an argument that Soto cannot be subject to any discipline unless he fails a test performed by MLB.  Presumably, however, a positive test in the WBC would give MLB “reasonable cause” to test Soto now for pot.  My guess is that MLB and Soto’s representatives will negotiate an agreement that fines Soto nothing or $5,000 or $10,000, at most, and requires him to participate in some sort of anti-drug education program, with possible future testing for marijuana for some limited time like one year.   Anything more than that, and the Players’ Association will file a grievance they will probably win.

Here’s yet another interesting story: after last night’s Angels-Rockies game in Anaheim, an off-duty police officer shot two young men, whom the officer alleges assaulted him as he and his family were returning to their car.  The officer was treated for a head wound at a hospital, which he claimed was incurred when one or both of the men he shot hit him with beer bottles.

It was the third incident of violence at a greater L.A. ballpark this year.  A man died after a fight on opening day at Angel Stadium, and another man was stabbed multiple times but lived at the Dodgers’ home opener.  I would make some snide remarks about the people who go to ballgames in L.A., but we’ve had our own murder or two at Current Corporate Name Park in San Francisco in the last few years.   Even at the ballpark, there’s no escaping the world we live in.

Update on North American Players in Japan, Part V: H, I, J & K

D. J. Houlton, Fukuoka Softbank Hawks.  Dodger fans will remember Houlton.  He’s a 29 year old right-handed pitcher, who pitched for the Bums in 2005 and 2007.

In ’05, Houlton went 6-9 for the Dodgers with a 5.16 ERA in 129 IP.  Anyone with a 5.16 ERA who plays his home games in Dodgers Stadium isn’t getting the job done.  He spent ’06 in AAA Las Vegas and got hit pretty hard there too.

Houlton improved his ERA at Las Vegas by nearly two runs in 2008, and his improved performance got him another call-up with the Dodgers.  He had a 4.18 ERA in 28 IP over 18 appearances, apparently mostly in the late innings of blow-outs (8 games finished, no saves).

The Dodgers must not have thought he had much of a future with them because they allowed him to sign with the Softbank Hawks for 2008.  Houlton apparently had an up-and-down year last year.  He was 4-7 with a 4.27 ERA in 84.1 innings with six saves.  I don’t know whether he started ’08 as a starter and was moved to the bullpen or vice versa.  However, he racked up 86 K’s and only 31 BB’s.  What killed him was the long-ball: he gave up 10 HR’s last year.

This year the Hawks have used him exclusively as a starter, and he’s been great.  After eleven starts, he’s 5-3 with a 2.13 ERA and 62 K’s against only 21 BB’s in 76 innings pitched.  He currently has the fourth best ERA in the Pacific League.  At his age, he’s in a great position to have a fine Japanese career.

Luis Jimenez, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.  He’s a  27 year old 1Bman from Venezuala, who in eight seasons in the minors played for the A’s, Orioles (twice), Angels, Twins, Red Sox and Nationals organizations, failing to spend two full seasons in any of their organizations.  He can clearly hit, compiling a career minor league batting average of .285, OBP of .369 and OPS of .840.  My guess is he’s either got stone hands at 1B, or he’s a real pill.

The Ham Fighters signed Jimenez to a contract for 2009, which is surprising because he has only 58 games of AAA experience and no time at all in the majors.  After 39 games with the Ham Fighters, he’s hitting only .231 with a .665 OPS.  He’s hit with some power, but has few walks and many strikeouts.  He’s been sent down to the Ham Fighters’ farm team, where he’s off to a good start, hitting .357 after four games.

Because of his age and obvious talent, the Ham Fighters shouldn’t give up on him too soon.  He’s making just under $190,000 this year, which is not a lot a foreign player, but a lot for a Japanese player of similar NPB experience.

Dan Johnson, Yokohama Bay Stars.  I really loved this signing this past off-season because of Johnson’s age (29 this year), past major league success (.763 major league OPS in more than 1,250 plate appearances), minor league power and performance at AAA Durham last year (he led the International League in OPS).  He was stuck behind Carlos Pena in the Rays’ organization, and it was pretty much a no-brainer for a Japanese team to come calling.  That team was the Bay Stars, and they gave Johnson a 2009 contract worth about $1.15M.

However, even the best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley (Lowland Scots, an Anglo-Saxon dialect once spoken in southern Scotland, meaning “go often awry”, in case you were wondering), and Johnson has really been struggling making the adjustment to Japanese baseball.  He’s hitting a feeble .193 with 35 K’s in 150 AB’s.  He’s drawing walks and has nine HR’s, so his OPS is a not horrendous .704.  Still, his performance isn’t cutting the mustard, and he’s been benched and only appearing to pinch hit the last seven to ten games.

My best guess  would be that his one-year $1.15M contract is guaranteed, but I’m in no way certain of that.  Either way, because he has hit for some power and also because the player they have starting at 1B now is 39 year old Takahiro Saeki, the Bay Stars won’t give up on Johnson just yet.  At some point, I suspect that Saeki will either get hurt or stop hitting, and when that happens Johnson better start getting some hits.

Ben Kozlowski, Hiroshima Toyo Carp.  Kozlowski is a 28 year old, 6’6″ left-hander who played in the States in the Braves, Rangers, Reds, Angels and Yankees organizations.  His only major league experience was two September starts for the Rangers in 2002 in which he got hit hard.  He appears to have had some arm problems in 2003 and 2004, and he just didn’t really didn’t develop after that the way his American organizations wanted him to.

Kozlowski had a good year at age 26 for the Yankees’ AAA team at Scranton Wilkes-Barre with a 3.00 ERA as a reliever and spot starter with nearly as many K’s as innings pitched and a K’s-to-BB’s ratio of better than 2.5 to 1.  And so the Carp came calling.

In 2008, Kozlowski had an acceptable but unimpressive year for the Carp.  In 38 innings over 26 appearances, he went 2-1 with two saves and 4.74 ERA.  The Carp brought him back for another year this year, but at a steep cut in pay from about $550,000 to about $175,000 this year.

This year Kozlowski has made only one appearance for the Carp.  He gave up 2 earned runs in a third of an inning.  He’s spent most of the year pitching for the Carp’s minor league team and hasn’t done much better.  After 10 games and 36.2 IP, he has a 6.38 ERA and is having great difficulty throwing strikes.  His Japanese career is in serious jeopardy.

Marc Kroon, Yomiuri Giants.  Marc Kroon has been one of the great recent Gaijin success stories in the Japanese leagues.  He’s a right-handed closer, who’s now 36 years old.

Almost twenty years ago, Kroon was the Mets 2nd Round pick in the 1991 Draft (51st overall).  The Mets clearly liked his arm strength, Kroon throws the ball exceptionally fast.  However, like a lot of fireballers, control has been a career long problem.

Between 1995 and 1998, Kroon had four major league trials with the Padres and the Reds, and his pitching was brutal.  He apparently suffered a serious arm injury in 1999, because from 2000 through 2002, he pitched a combined total of only 3.2 minor league innings.

Once he was back for good in 2003, even though he was now good pitcher in the high minors, he was already 30 years old.  Also, his control was still suspect.  He had a fine year at Colorado Springs, a very tough place to pitch because of the altitude, in 2004, picking up 20 saves with a 2.70 ERA in 50 appearances, with 72 K’s and 26 BB’s in 49.1 IP.  This performance earned him his final major league cup of coffee for the Rockies late that year, but he gave up 10 BB’s in 6 IP, and that was pretty much all she wrote for his major league career.

Kroon signed a contract with the Yokohama Bay Stars for the 2005 season, and his time in Japan has been an almost unmitigated success.  In his first four full seasons in Japan he has posted save totals of 26, 27, 31 and 41 and has had ERA’s of 2.70, 3.00, 2.76 and 2.21.  In a total of 228.2 career innings pitched in Japan, he has 314 K’s agains 85 BB’s.

In 2005, he set an all-time Japanese record by throwing his fastball in a game at 161 kilometers per hour (a little over 100 mph) and topped that with a 162 kph pitch in 2008.

After the 2007 season, Kroon wanted a big raise which the Bay Stars were unwilling or unable to give him, so they cut him loose and he signed with the Yomiuri Giants for 2008 for roughly $3M, a million dollars more than he made the year before.  He rewarded the Giants by leading the Central League with 41 saves.  Along with foreign stars Seth Greisinger and Alex Ramirez, whom the small market Yakult Swallows couldn’t provide the money they wanted and whom the Giants could, Kroon helped the 2008 Giants to their first Japan Series since 2002.

What explains Kroon’s phenominal success in Japan after never really being able to put in together in the U.S.?  Part of it, obviously, is that the level of play in MLB is higher than in the NPB.  There’s more to it than that, however.  Pitchers who throw as hard as Kroon last longer and often have their best success after age 30 when they finally develop some control.

HOFer Dazzy Vance is probably the best example: he won 197 major league games and led the NL in strikeouts seven times, all of it after his 31st birthday.  A more recent example is Randy Johnson, who had his first truly great season at age 29 and is still pitching at age 45.

Another thing: the home plate used in Japan is wider than that used in the U.S.  Any pitcher with great stuff but little control will benefit more than anyone else by a bigger strike zone.  A great example in the U.S., was the 1960′s.  In 1963, the strikezone was lengthened to encompass the bottom of the hitter’s knee to the top of his shoulders.

Guess what happened?  Pitching and particularly power pitching dominated the major league game in the 1960′s.  Just about every team had a power pitcher who became absolutely dominating for at least a couple of years, because of the taller strikezone.  A 95 mph fastball at the shoulders is just about impossible to hit, and most power pitchers are wild high.  In the 1960′s, those pitches were called strikes and pitchers like Sandy Koufax, Sam McDowell, Jim Maloney, Bobby Veale, Dick Radatz, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson and Jim Bunning dominated.

In 2009, Kroon got off to perhaps the best start of his Japanese career.  In his first 22 appearances, he notched 11 saves and had an ERA of 1.13.  However, on June 6, in a game in which Kroon picked up his tenth save of the season, as the Giants beat Japan’s best pitcher, the Ham Fighters’ Yu Darvish, 3-2, Kroon tore a tendon in his left middle finger (non-pitching hand) on a rundown play.  According to Kroon’s official website, the pain from the injury was intense enough that he decided to have surgery on June 17.  Post-surgery recovery time is anticipated to take four weeks.

One thing I found amusing about Kroon’s web post about his decision to have surgery is that he apologizes to Yomiuri fans for getting hurt.  This is extremely Japanese.  American fans probably remember a few years ago when Hideki Matsui was seriously injured for the first time since becoming a Yankee, and he apologized to Yankee fans for getting hurt.  There was something kind of refreshing about Matsui’s apology, but I suspect that it’s common practice in Japan.  In the U.S., of course, the attitude is that it’s kind of ridiculous for a player to apologize for getting hurt, since no one wants or tries to get hurt and miss games.

Anyway, it’s hard to imagine that an injury to his non-pitching hand will have any effect on Kroon’s long-term success in Japan, and if he’s still throwing in the high 90′s, he’ll probably be a top closer there for at least another four or five years.

The Real Story on Luis Ayala

I posted a piece on the Twins’ decision to designate Luis Ayala for assignment a few days ago, although he really wasn’t pitching that badly.  It turns out that one of my readers was right: the Twins were unhappy with Ayala’s attitude.

According to this article by Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Ayala hanked the Twins off when he demanded a trade three weeks ago, because manager Ron Gardenhire had refused to make Ayala the 8th inning set-up man to Joe Nathan after Ayala blew his first three late game leads.

Reports have it that the Pirates are interested in Ayala, so there’s a good possibility of a trade to resolve the Ayala situation.

P.S. This blog post says that the Pirates want the Twins to pick up a big chunk of the remaining $700,000+ owed to Ayala in any trade.

Requiem for Donald Fehr

I wasn’t going to comment on Donald Fehr’s retirement.  The media is full of stories that basically summarize Fehr’s tenure as executive director of the MLB Players’ Association: he gained a lot for the players in their struggles with management, particularly in terms of player salaries and benefits, but he was behind the curve on the steroids issue.  However, I read Gwen Knapp’s article in the SF Chronicle today, and I suddenly felt like I should say something.

One of the problems with articles written by newspaper reporters is that they have to be written in order to sell newspapers.  This means writing down to the lowest common denominator and also making issues about individual personalities and the struggles between dynamic individuals, rather than correctly describing the larger institutional forces behind specific individuals’ actions or positions.

Gwen Knapp’s article is a perfect example.  Her article makes the MLBPA’s failure on the steroids issue Donald Fehr’s personal failure, which really gives too much credit (or blame) to Fehr individually and fails to understand or explain how the MLBPA’s failure was really the failure of the union’s membership (i.e., the players as a group).

From everything I’ve read, the MLBPA is a very democratic organization.  Decisions are made by the union’s executive board, which is primarily comprised of players.  Fehr and Gene Orza, the long-time general counsel, and other permanent staffers, provide advice, experience and legal counsel, but it is ultimately the players as a group (by majority vote) who make the decisions on the MLBPA’s policy.  That is the main reason why the union responded so poorly on the steroid question.

Forty years ago, before anyone in baseball knew anything about steroids or human growth hormone, Jim Bouton is his classic Ball Four wrote that if there was a pill that pitchers could take that would make them 20-game winners but would take five years off their lives, an awful lot of pitchers would take it. That, in a nutshell, is steroids, only with less certainty that it will guarantee success or take years off your life.

At the time Bouton was writing (1969), use of greenies (dexedrine, an amphetamine) was rampant in the game, had been in common use since the late 1950′s or early 1960′s, and continued to be widely used until MLB’s recent drug policy went into effect in the last few years.  Those who have been following the game for a long time may remember the minor scandal involving the Phillies in the early 1980′s in which pitcher Randy Lerch testified in court that a team doctor for the Phillies’ AA team prescribed him greenies and that numerous players on the Phillies used them.  Stars as big as Pete Rose and Willie Mays either admitted or were accused of using them.

The point is that players have always turned a blind eye when it came to the things that they and other players were putting into their bodies to improve performance.  By the time that it had become obvious to the public that a large number of major league players were using steroids, a large number of major players were, in fact, using steroids, greenies or both.

I obviously can’t say what happened at the closed-door sessions of the MLBPA’s executive board meetings, but I would wager that a few players who were clean, like Curt Schilling among other vociferous anti-steroids players, spoke out on how steroids were a scurge, etc., etc., and few other players made more muted statements about how it should be up to each player to decide for himself as an adult what or what not to put into his body, and then a large majority of the membership quietly voted down any action to test for steroids.

The problem was that a LOT of players were using illegal substances, and most of them probably felt that the ‘roids, greenies or whatever gave them an edge.  I’m sure that plenty of players felt that without steroids they wouldn’t be major league players, they wouldn’t be starters, or they wouldn’t be big stars pulling in the really big salaries.

The consensus is that steroids do actually improve athetic performance, and the members of the union are almost all young men between age 20 and 40, who are all looking for a competitive edge.  If steroids make them better players, but have long term risks, an awful lot of players will take those risks.

One thing we don’t know is what, if anything, Donald Fehr or Gene Orza told the members about the long-term consequences of steroid use and the long-term reprecussions when the public found about about rampant steroid use.  For all we know, Fehr and Orza may have warned the players ten ways to Sunday about the risks and the consequences of steroid use, and the players still decided to stone-wall any meaningful action on testing.

Fehr and Orza are career lawyers.  A lawyers’ job is to provide his client with unvarnished, accurate advice about risks and consequences, and then once the client has made a decision, so long as that decision does not clearly violate the law, to advocate doggedly on behalf of the client.  Once the players collectively made a decision to resist drug-testing, Fehr, as a career lawyer, was going to champion the players’ position to the gates of hell, if necessary.

Making the steroids era any one person’s failure, while perhaps making for a better story, has little to do with what actually happened.  An awful lot of people — players, the union, everyone on the management side, and the for-profit media — were making money hand over fist from the homerun and offense barrage that was the period from about 1995-2004.  Juiced players putting up big numbers put cans in the seats, which is the ultimately goal of any entertainment enterprise.  It was a collective failure throughout baseball, and everyone in the game deserves some share of the blame.