Contemporary Minor League Stars, Part II

Continuing on with my list of contemporary minor league stars, who I define as players with at least 4,000 plate appearances in the high minors (AA and AAA) on the theory that they had to be pretty good ballplayers to last that long.  Part I of this series can be found here.

3.  Scott McClain (5,160 AAA plate appearances, 800 AA and 88 MLB).  Before wrapping up his professional career at age 37 at the end of the 2009 season, McClain played a whopping 20 seasons of pro ball.  His 5,160 plate appearances at the AAA level was the most of any contemporary player I could find.

McClain hit 292 home runs in the minor leagues and another 89 in Japan’s NPB.  However, he only hit two HRs in the major leagues during cups of the coffee with the Rays in 1998, the Cubs in 2005 and the Giants in 2oo7 and 2008.

McClain played mostly 1B and 3B and didn’t become a great AAA hitter until he was age 26.  He was at least able to make some money in his professional career by playing five season in Japan’s NPB, where American players generally earn at least the major league minimum.

4.  Andy Tracy (4,519 AAA, 1,247 AA, 314 MLB).  Another great minor league thumper, Tracy has hit 296 minor league home runs but only 13 in the show.

Tracy wasn’t highly regarded as a prospect out of college (Bowling Green in Ohio) and thus played four years in college before signing with a major league franchise.  He had a huge year in the Eastern League at age 25, which got him substantial playing time the next year for the 2000 Montreal Expos.  He got into 83 games that year and hit .260 with 11 HRs and an .824 OPS, excellent for a rookie.

However, Tracy got off to a dreadful start in 2001, hitting only .109 with a .427 OPS in 38 games before being sent down the minors, except for the briefest cups of coffee in 2004, 2008 and 2009 (a total of only 33 plate appearances), for good.  Like McClain, Tracy played mostly 1B and 3B, and was a great AAA hitter for years.

Tracy’s last season was 2011, when he hit .288 with a .987 OPS in 85 games for the Reno Aces of the AAA Pacific Coast League.  Reno is a great place to hit, but Tracy’s numbers are so impressive that I have to think that it was accumulated injuries (Tracy was 37 that year) that ended his professional career.  For what it’s worth, I saw Tracy take Carlos Marmol deep in a game in New Orleans between the Zephyrs and the Iowa Cubs in May 2007.

5.  Mike Cervenak.  (3,785 AAA, 2,091 AA, 13 MLB).  One of my favorite contemporary minor league stars, I’ve written about Cervenak before here and here.  He’s playing in Taiwan this year, most likely finishing out his pro career at 36.  He’s hit 192 minor league home runs.

6.  Cody Ransom (4,455 AAA, 554 AA, 687+ MLB).  Another one of my favorite contemporary minor league stars, almost certainly because, like Cervenak, Ransom’s a former Giants prospect.  However, unlike Cervenak, who never really got a fair shot with the Gints, Ransom was once a highly regarded prospect even though he was 9th round draft pick.  The Giants like toolsy prospects, and Cody had tools.

As I’ve written before a number of times, Cody is one of those rare players who developed significantly as a professional hitter after age 27, and he got his first significant major league playing time last year at the ripe old age of 37 (282 plate appearances for the Brewers and Diamondbacks after never getting more than 86 in any of his nine prior major league part-seasons).

Cody, or “Babe” as I like to call him, started the 2013 campaign with the San Diego Padres, but they designated him for assignment after he started the year 0-for-11.  The Cubs claimed him off waivers and in three games he’s off to a 4-for-9 start with home run, two doubles and a walk.  Given his red hot start as a Cubbie, and the fact that Wrigley Field is a great place for a guy with power like Ransom, there’s a good chance he’ll stick around in Chicago for a while.  It doesn’t hurt that the 2013 Cubs look to be a bad team in need of players who can hit a little.

7.  Kevin Barker (5,140 AAA, 1,320 AA, 323 MLB).  Another minor league bomber, Barker hit 271 minor league home runs (but only six in the Show), finishing his professional career in 2011 for the Oaxaco Guerreros (“Warriors”) of the Mexican League.

Barker got into 78 games for the Brewers in 1999 and 2000 at ages 23 and 24, but he didn’t hit the second year, and got only a few cups of coffee after that.  His best minor league season was probably 2009 when he hit 22 HRs and had a .927 OPS in 101 games for the AAA Louisville Bats.

8.  Michael Restovich (3,503 AAA, 565 AA, 297 MLB).  A former Twins prospect, Restovich hit 214 minor league home runs, but only six in the majors.  He was a fine minor league hitter who just didn’t hit in the limited major league opportunities he got.  His professional career ended in 2011.

9.  Chris Richard (3,192 AAA, 1,065 AA, 1,006).  Originally drafted by the Cardinals, at age 27 Richard played 136 games for the 2001 Orioles in which he hit .265 with 15 HRs and a .770 OPS, while playing RF, CF, 1B and DH (a very unusual combination).  He didn’t hit well in 2002, however, and that was the end of his major league career except for cups of coffee with the 2003 Rockies and the 2009 Rays.  Richard slugged 198 minor league HRs in addition to his 34 major league jacks.  His professional career ended in 2010.

10.  Jeff Bailey (2,995 AAA, 1,826 AA, 159 MLB).  Yet another minor league slugger, he hit 191 minor league dingers but only six in the Show.  Bailey spent parts of six seasons with the Pawtucket Red Sox from 2004 through 2009 and got three cups of coffee from the true Red Sox the last three of those seasons.  He finished his professional career with the Rochester Red Wings in 2011.

11.  Tike Redman (3,549 AAA, 724 AA, 1,461 MLB).  Just in case you were thinking all contemporary minor league stars were sluggers, Redman was a center fielder who just wasn’t quite good enough on either side of the ball to have a long major league career.  However, the Pirates certainly gave him opportunities, as his 1,461 career major league plate appearances attest.

12.  Luis Figueroa (4,682 AAA, 1,602 AA, 16 MLB).  A shortstop who apparently hit just well enough to be a AAA starter for years and whose glove, I presume, wasn’t quite good enough to make him a major league late inning defensive replacement, Figueroa’s North American career appears to have ended last year with the Oaxaca Guerreros.  He got three major league cups of coffee in 2001, 2006, 2007, but appeared in a total of only 18 major league games.

13-16.  Joe Thurston (4,868 AAA, 633 AA, 384 MLB), Esteban German (3,720, 511, 1,170), Ray Olmedo (3,381, 734, 484) and Bobby Scales (3,342, 708, 158).  A quartet of middle infielders/jacks-of-all-trades.

Thurston got into 124 games for the 2009 Cardinals but didn’t hit.  German was a briefly hot prospect who played semi-regularly for the Royals from 2006 through 2008 but hit worse each successive year — he’s now playing in Japan.  Olmedo looks like a classic glove-tree shortstop who didn’t hit much even at AAA, but stuck around because of his defensive acrobatics.

Bobby Scales was a fine minor league hitter who played a lot of different positions but probably not well enough at 2B or 3B to keep him in the majors.  He had a .373 on-base percentage last year for Japan’s Orix Buffaloes, but the team didn’t bring him back in 2013, probably because he didn’t hit for power and his defense wasn’t very good.

I strongly suspect there are other contemporary minor league stars I have failed to identify, and I invite you to send in comments identifying them.  However, I think I’ve made a point: there are still a large number of minor league stars in today’s game playing great ball at the AAA level, who either through bad luck, late development or by virtue of being just a hair below the talent level of major leaguers have spent most of their long professional careers in the minor leagues.

Baseball Brawls

Because of the big brawl yesterday between the Padres and the Dodgers in which Zack Greinke broke his collar bone, apparently when he and Carlos Quentin traded shoulder blocks, Sports Illustrated is running an on-line article it advertizes as “the most notorious brawls in baseball history”.  It then lists 13 relatively recent brawls, only three of which occurred before 1993 and none before 1965.

At least the article included Juan Marichal hitting catcher John Roseboro over the head with his bat after Marichal claimed that Roseboro buzzed his head with a throw back to pitcher Sandy Koufax, because Koufax wouldn’t throw at Marichal after Marichal had plunked at least one Dodger (Koufax reputedly refused to throw at hitters because he was afraid his 98 mph fast ball, the fastest of his day, might kill someone).

You see, before 1965 baseball was a game of peace and love where no one ever mixed it up.

What a load of BS.  Baseball was a rough, rough game in its early professional days and has gotten more and more tame as players have become better paid and MLB has worked to make the games family entertainment.

In the 1880′s and 1890′s the game was hard fought in a literal sense.  Umpires were routinely threatened by players and fans, and it was not uncommon for both to back up their tough talk with physical violence.  The best teams of the era, the St. Louis Browns of the 1880′s American Association and the Baltimore Orioles of the 1890′s National League regularly abused umpires and opposing players forcing/inspiring other teams to follow suit.

During this era, there was generally only one umpire monitoring the action, and when his eyes were following the ball, fielders tried to impede base runners by getting in the way, tripping them, throwing knees or elbows and even body blocks, or grabbing their belts.  Baserunners responded in kind, and one base runner famously defeated the belt-grabbing strategy by unhooking his belt so that when an opposing fielder grabbed it, the fielder was left holding the belt as the runner continued round the bases.

Fans threw glass bottles and rotten eggs at opposing players and umpires, and on-field fist fights were common.  Most professional baseball players came from poor or working class backgrounds, life was hard for working class men in the late 19th century when the national economy was notoriously boom or bust, and a major league ball player’s salary was something worth fighting for.

The game got so rough that baseball and ballplayers got unsavory reputations, which kept many potential fans away from the ballparks.  This only changed when the American League announced itself as a major league before the 1901 season and quickly began moving teams into the biggest cities.

The AL’s driving force and strong man Ban Johnson felt the “rowdyism” of the 1890′s was bad for the game, and he wouldn’t allow it in his league.  The NL eventually followed suit.

Further, as major league revenues and salaries, more former college players entered the game and brought with them the ethics of elite and more upper class amateurism.  Most notable of these players was New York Giants ace Christy Mathewson, probably the player most mythologized during his own day of any player in baseball history.  [Matthewson had attended Bucknell University, was exceptionally handsome and was far and away the best player on the dominant club of his day -- there is a certain irony in the fact this All-American icon died prematurely as a long-term result of being gassed by his own government in a training exercise during World War I.]

However, the cleaning up of major league baseball wasn’t something that happened over night.  It was a long and slow process, and with the exception of the famous Marichal/Roseboro bat incident, the game has gotten more and more tame as high salaries and professionalism have reduced the incentives for violence.

Here is a post from espn.com which at least goes back beyond 1965 in referencing famous baseball brawls/fights.  I particularly like the quote from Yankees’ catcher and Hall of Famer Bill Dickey after he famously broke Washington Senators’ outfielder Carl Reynolds’ jaw with a single punch following a home plate collision on July 4. 1932: “It was hot, and the games had been close, and I had been banged around for days,” Dickey said. “When Reynolds came at me high, I just had to hit somebody.”  [Dickey received a month-long suspension and was fined $1,000, probably a sixth of his 1932 salary.]

Even if Sports Illustrated’s memory doesn’t extend back any further than incidents for which it can provide pretty pictures, don’t for a minute think that human nature has changed much since the American pastime turned pro in the late 1860′s.

April Is Good (and Big Catchers)

April is a good time.  After the month-long tease of Spring Training, we finally have major league baseball games again that count toward the championship season.

Only three or four games into the 2013 season, we’ve seen Bryce Harper become the youngest player to hit two home runs on Opening Day and the fourth youngest player to hit a home run on Opening Day, Clayton Kershaw become only the second pitcher since at least 1916 to pitch a shut out and hit a home run on opening day (Hall of Famer Bob Lemon did it in 1953), and Yu Darvish come within one out of a perfect game.  That’s what we’ve been waiting for since the 2012 World Series ended five months ago!

One start into his major league career, Hyun-Jin Ryu, the 2012 off-season’s most exciting foreign signing, looks like the real deal.  While he took a hard-luck loss against the Giants, he allowed only one earned run in 6.1 innings pitched and struck out five while walking none.  However, he also allowed 10 hits and two unearned, suggesting he’s still got some things to learn about pitching to major league hitters compared to those in the Korean Baseball Organization.

I read somewhere during Spring Training that Ryu was probably only a fourth or fifth starter in MLB.  However, his spring training numbers didn’t show it.  In six starts and seven appearances this spring, he had a 3.29 ERA with a pitching line of 27.1 IP, 17 hits, one HR, eight BBs and 27 Ks.  You couldn’t ask for much more than that from a pitcher pitching against major league (and high minors) hitters for the first time.

I’m sure Ryu still has some things to learn, he could blow out his pitching arm before the 2013 season’s over, and I still think he needs to lose a few pounds, but so far he hasn’t done anything to suggest he isn’t worth the big contract the Dodgers gave him.

I read yesterday on mlbtraderumors.com that the Orioles tried, but were unable, to sign catcher Matt Wieters to a long-term contract extension this Spring.  This may be the best contract the Orioles never signed.

Catchers Matt Wieters’ size (he’s listed by baseball reference as 6’5″ and 240 lbs) very rarely have long major league careers.  Of the top 20 catchers all-time in terms of games played at the position, the largest to date was Lance Parrish, who baseball reference lists as 6’2″ and 210 lbs (fangraphs says he weighed 220 lbs).

Players at all positions are steadily getting bigger, and A. J. Pierzynski (who is listed as 6’3″ and 235 lbs, is currently 27th all-time in games played at catcher, and has averaged 124 games caught per season for the last three years) is only 75 more games played away from jumping up to 19th all-time in games caught.  However, the only other catcher of that size in the top 30 is Ernie Lombardi (6’3″ and 230 lbs) who is currently 28th all-time.

Matt Wieters has played 126, 132 and 134 games at catcher the last three seasons, and, so long as he doesn’t get hurt, is likely to play roughly that many each of the next three seasons before he becomes eligible for free agency.

I’ve written many times over the last few years about how the Twins should stop running Joe Mauer (6’5″, 230 lbs) out at catcher 120+ games a year at catcher, and Brian McCann (6’3″, 230 lbs), who had his best two offensive seasons at ages 22 and 24 and has seen his OPS drop each of the last four seasons, is pretty much the poster-boy for the problems with playing a man that size at catcher 120+ games a season year after year.

Wieters is represented by Scott Boras, which usually means that it will take the absolute maximum to get Wieters signed long term.  If the O’s plan to play Wieters 130+ games a year at catcher for the next three seasons, they’d almost certainly be better off letting some other team give him the ginormous contract he’ll get as a free agent.

Schadenfreude

For those of you not up on your German, schadenfreude is the taking of pleasure in the misfortunes of some one else.  In this case, the misfortunes are happening to the New York Yankees, and I’m not exactly sad about it at all.

J. A. Happ broke Curtis Granderson‘s arm with a wild inside pitch in a Spring Training game today, and Granderson will miss ten weeks while his arm heals.  I’m certainly not saying I’m happy about Granderson getting hurt.  I don’t wish that any player get hurt. Also, Granderson’s a great player, and I always want great players to stay healthy and play.

It’s just that I find it hard not to take a certain pleasure when bad things happen to the Yankees as a franchise.  They spend so much money to buy up the best players, and the team and its fans are disappointed any year they don’t win the World Series, even if they go deep into the post-season.  As a fan of a team that had a long, long stretch of futility before the last three seasons, it’s hard not to enjoy seeing the Yankees fall flat on their collective faces once in a while.  See how the rest of us live, you New York blowhards!

Everything seems to be going wrong for the Yankees right now.  They have gotten old and so overpaid that the team can’t (or won’t — see below) simply spend to bring in a whole new line-up of new stars, as they did under the Boss.

Derek Jeter is old and coming off a broken ankle.  Alex Rodriguez will miss at least half the year after hip surgery and is embroiled in another steroid scandal.  Mark Teixeira isn’t the player he once was, and at age 33 isn’t likely to be that player again.  C. C. Sabathia in 2012 showed signs of the injury problems many analysts, including his one, have been been expecting for a pitcher his size now in his 30′s.

In a rare confluence of events, not only the Yankees, but also the Red Sox, look like they won’t make the play-offs in 2013.  The Sox lost 93 games last year, and they don’t at all look a team that will suddenly turn around and win 90+ games in 2013.

Meanwhile, the underdogs may finally be ready to have their days.  The Blue Jays made several big moves this off-season at what appears now to have been a particularly opportune time for them to do so.  Maybe they’ll make the post-season for the first time since they won the World Series in 1993.

The 2012 Orioles made the post-season for the first time since 1997, and they have a relatively young team that will presumably get better.

The Rays are one of MLB’s smallest market teams, but they make the most out of what they have to work with and can be expected to contend again in 2013.

The last time neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox made the post-season (excluding the strike-shortened 1994 season in which the Yankees finished with the best record in the American League) was 1993.  It’s long past time that someone else get the opportunity to fight it out in the play-offs.

That being said, the underdogs better make hay while the sun shines.  If the Yankees and Red Sox finish no higher than third in the Eastern Division, expect them to start shelling out again next off-season.  Their potential revenue streams (and in the case of the Yankees the fact that so many of their fans are front-runners) are such that it’s worth it for them to spend big on free agents if that’s what it takes to reach those play-off revenues.

The Best and Worst Hitters’ Parks in MLB 2013

Last summer I discovered that espn.com provides stats for what it calls “park factor”, which for purposes of this post means the ratio between the number of runs scored at a ballpark in any given season divided by the number of runs scored by said ballpark’s occupant (and its opponents) in away games that same season.  I wrote a post last June which evaluates each park’s park factor for the five years ending with the 2011 season.

As we approach the 2013 season (and the 2012 stats have long been in), it seems like a good time to update my earlier post incorporating the 2012 season.  Without further ado, here are the average park factors for all major league ballparks over the last six season (or less for the five ball parks that have opened more recently).

1.  Coors Field (Rockies) 1.301

2.  The Ballpark at Arlington (Rangers) 1.148

3.  Chase Field (Diamondbacks) 1.134

4.  Fenway Park (Red Sox) 1.131

5.  U.S. Cellular Field (White Sox) 1.111

6.  Wrigley Field (Cubs) 1.086

7.  Camden Yards (Orioles) 1.080

8.  New Yankee Stadium (2009-2012) 1.066 [Old Yankee Stadium, 2004-2008, 1.002]

9.  Great American Ball Park (Reds) 1.057.

10.  Comerica Park (Tigers) 1.044.

11.  Kauffman Stadium (Royals) 1.018

12.  Rogers Center (Blue Jays) 1.010

12.  Miller Park (Brewers) 1.010

14.  Citizens Bank Ballpark (Phillies) 1.008

15.  Marlins Park (2012) 1.005  [Sun Life Stadium, 2007-2011, 1.038]

16.  Nationals Park (2008-2012) 0.998 [RFK Stadium, 2005-2007, 0.892]

17.  Minute Maid Park (Astros) 0.986

18.  Target Field (Twins, 2010-2012) 0.983 [Mall of America Field (the Metrodome), 2005-2009, 0.966]

19.  Turner Field (Braves) 0.978

20.  Progressive Field (Indians) 0.960

21.  Angels Stadium 0.939

22.  PNC Park (Pirates) 0.936

22.  Busch Stadium (Cardinals) 0.936

24.  Oakland Coliseum (A’s) 0.919

25.  AT&T Park (Giants) 0.917

26.  Dodger Stadium 0.915

27.  Citi Field (Mets, 2009-2012) 0.904 [Shea Stadium, 2004-2008, 0.886]

28.  Tropicana Field (Rays) 0.889

29.  Safeco Field (Mariners) 0.864

30.  Petco Park (Padres) 0.808

The rankings didn’t change much from last year.  Among last year’s ten best hitters’ parks, U.S. Cellular Park, where the White Sox play, was apparently a great place to hit in 2012, moving it up two slots.  New Yankee Stadium was apparently not a great place to hit, moving it down two slots. Coors Field improved on its status as far and away the best hitters’ park in MLB.

The Marlins’ new park, which looked like a great place to hit in late June of last year, turned out to be only a little better than average for the full season — we’ll have to see how it plays over the next few seasons.

The Royals’ Kauffman Stadium moved up two slots, and the Phillies’ Citizens’ Bank Park fell two slots.  The Astros’ Minute Maid Park also fell two slots.  The Twins’ Target Field was a hitters’ park for the first time in its three year history, jumping it up four slots.  The Pirates and Giants and their respective opponents scored a lot more runs on the road in 2012, causing both PNC Park and AT&T Park to drop three slots.

With another year in the books, the Mets’ Citi Field is developing into as much of a pitchers’ park as the old Shea Stadium.  San Diego’s Petco Park remains the worst place to ply one’s trade as a major league hitter, but Seattle’s Safeco Field narrowed the gap considerably.

Royals Scraping the Bottom of the Geezer Barrel

Sometimes small market teams like the Royals have to take chances to try to squeeze just a little bit more out of players who don’t look like they have anything left to give.  The Royals just signed Miguel Tejada to a minor league contract which would pay him $1.1 million if he makes the major league club this coming spring.  According to Tejada, the Royals have assured him that he will be added to the 40-man roster as soon as there is an opening and that he is virtually assured he will make the major league club as a 2Bman and utility infielder.

We’ll see if that actually happens.  If so, it doesn’t say much for the Royals’ talent level in the middle infield.

Tejada will be 39 next May and didn’t play in the majors in 2012.  Instead, he played 36 games for Baltimore’s AAA team, the Norfolk Tides, and didn’t hit much better there (.621 OPS) than he did for the San Francisco Giants in 2011 (.596 OPS).

The Royals have also signed Endy Chavez, Xavier Nady and Willy Taveras to minor league deals this month.  Chavez turns 35 in February and hit .203 with a .515 OPS in 2012 in 64 games for the Baltimore Orioles.  Nady turned 34 in November and hit .184 with a .569 OPS in 59 games last season, although he hit better (.240 batting average and .733 OPS) in 19 games after being called up by the Giants in September.

Willy Taveras only just turned 31, but he hasn’t played in the majors since 2010, when he accumulated only 37 plate appearances for the Washington Nationals.  Taveras played fairly well in the AAA Pacific Coast League in 2011, but apparently didn’t play baseball professionally anywhere during the summer of 2o12, due to the collapse of the sports agency that represented him, although he is currently playing in the Mexican Winter League.

In sum, it’s pretty hard to imagine any of these four players, except maybe Nady, helping the 2013 Royals in any appreciable way.  At least, the Royals signed all four to minor league contracts.

South Korea’s KBO Growing Fast

I’ve already written about how South Korea’s KBO is growing by leaps and bounds — the eight-team league drew seven million fans in 2012 for the first time; it was the fourth year in a row KBO set a new attendance record; and South Korea’s 2008 Olympics Gold Medal and 2009 World Baseball Classic (“WBC”) second place finish have shot baseball past soccer as South Korea’s most popular team sport.  Yet, I’m embarrassed to admit that until today I was unaware that the KBO is expanding.  KBO will add a ninth team, the NC Dinos in 2013 and a tenth team, as yet unnamed, to bring the league back to an even number of teams in 2015.

The NC Dinos will play in Changwon, a city in the far south of South Korea with a 2010 population of nearly 1.1 million.  Changwon is not far from Busan, home of the Lotte Giants, KBO’s most popular and successful franchise.  Clearly, the NC Dinos are hoping that some of the Lotte Giants’ magic will rub off on them.  Busan is a much better city, but the Dinos will have an immediate rivalry with KBO’s most popular team, which can only be good for the Dinos’ box office.

The Dinos wasted no time signing two American pitchers, Charles Shirek and Adam Wilk, whom I wrote about a week ago.  [KBO has a salary cap for foreign players of $300,000 per season, but reports are that KBO teams now routinely violate the cap to sign better American pitchers such as Wilk, Dana Eveland, Doug Slaten and in 2011 Justin Germano, to name only a few.  Bringing in the best available talent costs money, and with interest in the KBO exploding, the wealthier KBO teams are, not surprisingly, playing fast and loose with the rules.  Also, since KBO teams are limited to two foreign players each season, a salary cap makes little sense.]

However, baseball owners being baseball owners regardless of the country or continent, it took a push for KBO owners to agree to adding a tenth team, as obvious as such a move seems after expanding to nine teams in light of the obvious scheduling considerations.  The Korea Professional Baseball Players’ Association threatened to boycott various events, including the 2012 Gold Glove Awards and the 2013 All-Star Game, unless the KBO owners agreed to expand the league to ten teams.  That got the ball rolling.

The as yet unnamed tenth team will spend two years playing in KBO’s Futures League (which is actually two six-team minor leagues that develop talent for the eight-team Korea Baseball Championship League, which I have been referring to as the KBO), just as the NC Dinos did in 2011 and 2012.

P.S.  The SK Wyverns signed long and lean left-hander Chris Seddon.  Seddon will be 29 years old in 2013, and he’s yet another pitcher that more likely would have signed with a Japanese NPB team in years past based on his North American professional record, except perhaps for his unfortunately high home run rate.

P.P.S  A shout-out to myKBO.net, where most of the information for this post originated.

Dae Ho Lee Sweating Up the Mountain

One of my favorite players, the Orix Buffaloes Dae Ho (“Big Boy”) Lee, has reportedly reduced his body fat from 25% at the end of the 2012 season to 18% now.  He gets up at 6:00 a.m. and spends two hours every morning climbing a mountain near his home (presumably in Korea, although there are plenty of mountains in both South Korea and Japan for the determined to climb).

Despite the reported reduction in body fat, Lee has only lost five pounds and still weighs in at a svelte 128 kg (282 lbs).  Lee stands in at 6’4″; they don’t call him “Big Boy” for nothing.

In fairness to Lee, double-chin and all, his bulk doesn’t seem to be holding him back.  There is no doubt about his ability as a hitter — his .846 OPS led the 30 NPB Pacific League qualifiers in 2012 — there is no offense in Japan since the introduction of new baseballs two years ago — after years and years as a top hitter in Korea’s KBO).  However, he also spent 2012 manning 1B for the Buffaloes (what other team should Lee play for?), even though they use the DH in the Pacific League.  In theory, at least, his defense at 1B can’t be that bad.

Lee is a major star, and he has the drive of a major star.  I’m not surprised that he is working to improve his conditioning, so that he can reach new heights in years to come.

P.S.  The Hiroshima Carp signed 26 year old Venezuelan pitcher Miguel Socolovich, who pitched poorly in 12 appearances for the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs in 2012, to a one-year contract for approximately $480,000.  Socolovich had a 1.90 ERA in 52 relief innings for the AAA Norfolk Tides in 2012 and has struck out 145 batters in 126 innings at the AAA level during his professional career.

This is a great sign for a small revenue team like the Hiroshima Carp.  If he can make the adjustment to pitching in Japan, he could be an excellent relief pitcher in Japan for years and years.

More Former Major Leaguers Sign with Asian Teams

South Korea’s KBO is growing by leaps and bounds.  More proof of this fact is the three signings announced in the last two days.

Scott Richmond, who pitched briefly for the Toronto Blue Jays last year, reportedly signed with the Lotte Giants for a reported $600,000.  Dana Eveland, who pitched 32.1 innings for the Baltimore Orioles last year, reportedly signed a $675,000 deal with the Hanwha Eagles.  Finally, Aneury Rodriguez, who pitched for the Houston Astros the last two seasons, signed a deal with the Samsung Lions for an as yet unreported amount.

Richmond looks like the kind of pitcher KBO teams usually sign.  He’s 33 in 2013, and he’s coming off a mediocre year as a starter for the AAA Las Vegas 51′s in the Pacific Coast League (5.61 ERA, which was still good enough to finish with an 11-7 record and fairly good strike out and walk ratios).

However, both Eveland and Rodriguez look a cut above the American pitchers who have joined KBO in recent years.  In fact, I’m surprised Eveland wasn’t recruited by a Japanese NPB team.  Eveland pitched well at AAA Norfork (2.79 ERA in 14 starts) and reasonably well for the Orioles (4.73 ERA mostly in relief), and he’ll only be 29 years old in 2013.

Aneury Rodriguez had a dreadful year in 2012, posting a 6.60 ERA for the AAA Oklahoma City RedHawks.  However, Rodriguez was only 24 years old last year, and he’s got major league stuff.  He just doesn’t have major league (or last year even AAA) command yet.  I don’t know why the Astros apparently gave up on him, although it’s possible that he became a minor league free agent based on service time once the Astros dropped him from their 40-man roster.

Along with the signing of Doug Slaten by the SK Wyverns earlier this week, it seems clear that KBO teams are determined to compete with Japan’s NPB for the best available 4-A pitchers.  If the reported Richmond and Eveland contract numbers are correct, it puts them near the very top of KBO player salary scale.

Meanwhile, NPB’s Yakult Swallows locked in their best foreign players with long (for NPB) contract extensions to Wladimir Balentien, Lastings Milledge and Tony Barnette.  Balentien reportedly signed a three-year $7.5 million dollar extension covering the years 2014 through 2016; Milledge reportedly signed a three-year $4.4 million deal with a mutual option for 2016; and Barnette reportedly signed a two-year $3.2 million deal.

In my mind, these are great moves for the small-revenue Swallows.  They have identified good young players (Barnette will be the oldest next year at age 29) who could potentially be stars in NPB for years, and once those players proved that they had what it takes to succeed in Japanese baseball, the Swallows locked them in to long-term contracts before they could flee to the high-revenue Yomiuri Giants, Hanshin Tigers or SoftBank Hawks for more money.  If the players in question stay healthy, the Swallows will definitely get their money’s worth.

 

Kansas City Royals Finally Decide It’s Time to Win Now

The Royals have decided that they are going to make a run at the play-offs in 2013 and 2014, after years and years of unsuccessful rebuilding.  The Royals haven’t had a winning season since 2003, haven’t won 90 games in a season since 1989 and haven’t played in the post-season since 1985 (when thankfully for Royals’ fans, they won the World Series).  At least, that’s the only way to understand the big James Shields/Wade Davis trade.

The Royals certainly gave up a boat-load of talent to get Shields and Davis.  Wil Myers and Jake Odorizzi are definitely grade-A prospects — both look like they are ready to start 2013 in the major leagues.  Mike Montgomery, who turns 24 next July 1st, didn’t have even AAA command in 2012 but appears to have major league stuff.  Patrick Leonard at age 19 hit 14 HRs in 62 games in the rookie Appalachian League, propelling him to an .833 OPS even though he hit only .251.

In short, the Rays unloaded salary (although the deals they had for Shields and Davis going forward are extremely reasonable by MLB standard) and got a lot of cheap, controllable talent for the years to come.  The Rays are a small market team playing in a crappy in-door stadium; this is the kind of painful trade they must occasionally make to stay competitive given their budget constraints.  Needless to say, they won’t get the flack the Marlins got for the latter’s big salary dump this off-season, since they just extended their franchise player Evan Longoria through 2023.

The Royals gave up a lot, but they addressed their biggest need going into 2013 — pitching.  Shields is a legitimate No. 1 starter, and the addition of Wade Davis should give the Royals one of the best bullpens (if not the best) in the American League.

Despite the addition of James Shields and Ervin Santana, the Royals’ 2013 rotation looks weak.  It’s hard to get excited about Jeremy Guthrie, Bruce Chen and Luke Hochevar.

At least the Royals now have some options.  If/when some of the bottom three starters prove they haven’t got any more of what little they once had, the Royals can fall back on Luis Mendoza, Will Smith, Felipe Paulino, and, when he’s fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, Danny Duffy, at least pending trades now that the Royals have brought in Shields and Santana.

In fact, roster spots for Royals pitchers on Opening Day suddenly look extremely hard to come by.  With the addition of Wade Davis, the Royals should have a terrific bullpen in 2013.  Among Kelvin Herrera, Greg Holland, Tim Collins, Aaron Crow and Louis Coleman, none had an ERA above 3.71, a Ks/9IP ratio lower than 8.2, a Ks/BBs ratio of less than 2.7, or will be older than 27 in 2013. Wow!

The only knock on the Royals’ bullpen plus Wade Davis is that only one of the six pitchers is a lefty (Tim Collins is listed as 5’7″ and 165 lbs and has the nickname “Tiny” — only lefties can get away with being this small in MLB).  That’s good news for lefty Francisley Bueno, a Cuban defector who as a 31 year old rookie had a 1.56 ERA (but only struck out seven in 17.1 innings pitched across 18 appearances) in 2012.

The Royals need to hope that their bullpen remains healthy in 2013, because they are likely to be worked hard.

The Royals still have a lot of questions at 2B, CF and RF.  Christian Colon should be ready soon to plug the 2B hole, but in an ideal world, he’d start 2013 in AAA.  Johnny Giavotella also looks like he’s ready to help the Royals there.

In center, Jarrod Dyson is probably a better player than his stats and age indicate at first glance.  While his batting skills are suspect, he gets on base, he runs extremely well and he covers the ground on defense.  He’s likely good enough for at least 2013.

In right field, the Royals need to do better than Jeff Francoeur gave them in 2012.  While Francoeur still has the best right field arm in baseball (19 assists in 2012 and 116 assists in his career), he didn’t do anything else well in 2012.  The Royals are on the hook to him for $7.5 million in 2013, so it comes down to the fact that Francoeur needs to hit better in 2013.  At least, he’s only 29 next year, so it could happen.

I’m also not as sold on catcher Salvador Perez as the Royals apparently are, at least for 2013 and 2014.  Perez’s talent is obvious, but his inability/unwillingness to draw walks is a major concern.  In his career, Perez has walked only 73 times in 1397 minor league plate appearances and 19 times in 463 major league plate appearances.  At some point, likely sooner rather than later, major league pitchers will stop throwing Perez strikes.  It remains to be seen whether he can take enough of those balls to force pitchers to throw him strikes again.

At the very least, the Royals have finally dumped Yuniesky Betancourt, which should improve the team at least a little bit in 2013.

As a final note, opinions have been all over the map regarding this trade.  An article (apparently) by Jay Jaffe on SI.com particularly caught my attention, due to the way the author manipulates the statistics to support his pre-conceived opinion. Among other things, the article argues that James Shields really isn’t a No. 1 starter because his ERA was only 3.80 over the last six seasons.

Um, Shields had ERAs of 2.82 and 3.52 the last two seasons while striking out 448 and walking only 123 in 477 innings pitched.  2011 and 2012 are a lot more relevant to project Shields’ likely performance 2013 and 2104, the years he’s under contract, than 2007-2010.  The only thing that’s likely to keep Shields from being a great pitcher in 2013 and 2014 is a sore arm from too many innings pitched the last two years.

The author also suggests that Shields isn’t a true No. 1 starter because he isn’t one of the best five starters in the American League.  Technically, any pitcher who qualifies as one of the 14 best starters in the AL would be a No. 1 starter, given the number of teams in the league.

Fangraphs says that Shields’ performance over the last two seasons was worth $41.2 million, but Shields will be paid, if he pitches well, $21 million over the next two seasons.  ‘Nuff said.

The Sports Illustrated writer also foolishly looks at Wade Davis’ career 3.94 ERA, which is stated to be above league average.  However, this fails to take into account how well Davis pitched in relief in 2012, or, even assuming he returns to the starting rotation in 2013, how good his career ERA would be for a starter.

The author then indirectly criticizes Wil Myers for not being Jurickson Profar or Dylan Bundy, perhaps the two best prospects in baseball.  You don’t have to be Alex Rodriguez to be a great major league player.  It’s a little like saying that Mike Trout has no right to be good because he was only the 25th selection of the 2009 Draft.

At the end of the day, the Royals have made a trade that will, absent injuries, make them a better team in 2013.  For a team that hasn’t been competitive for a long, long time, it’s a refreshing change.