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February 16, 2012

Gary Carter career highlights

The baseball world learned Thursday the sad news of the passing of baseball Hall of Famer Gary Carter. The former catcher was only 53 years old when brain cancer claimed him.

Any time a person dies it is first and foremost a personal tragedy. Others can eulogize the man far better than I can. What I can do is provide a retrospective to his career. This is something I’ve done in the past here at THT when someone passes on.

Below is a list of Gary Carter’s career highlights. The list includes the greatest and most memorable games he participated in, as well as his personal best and worst moments. Also included are some odd or unusual or memorable moments he happened to be on hand for.

In chronological order:
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Posted by: Chris Jaffe

January 04, 2012

Melvin Mora career highlights

As 2011 came to a close, former Baltimore Oriole Melvin Mora announced his retirement. This isn’t too surprising since Arizona (his last team) cut him midseason and no one picked him up. Still, Mora’s recent decision to out-and-out retire makes it official.

Mora had an impressive career for someone who was such a late bloomer. Only seven men who debuted in their age-27 season or later have ever played in over 1,500 games: Jimmy Austin, Bob Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Davey Lopes, Bill Bruton, Earl Averill and Mora.

Many of those guys had circumstances delay their start. It was the race line for Bruton, the Pacific Ocean for Ichiro, and Averill was a Pacific Coast League star before the minor leagues were fully tamed. Mora was just a late bloomer.

Now that he’s gone, let’s look back on his career with the Mets, Orioles, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. Listed below are his career highlights—his best and worst performances, the greatest and most important games he played in, as well as incredible and unusual occasions he was on hand for. Here’s the list:
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Posted by: Chris Jaffe

July 20, 2011

Roberto Alomar career highlights

This weekend, Roberto Alomar receives the game’s highest honor: induction into Cooperstown. Recently, I've posted a series of career highlights about baseball figures upon their deaths—this gives me the chance to do something like that under far more cheerful circumstances.

The career highlights include a player's best (and worst) games, most memorable moments, most important games—as well as some oddities and interesting moments he happened to be on hand for, even if he didn't really take a leading role in them. They're all moments from the career of Roberto Alomar.


This weekend's new Hall of Famer.


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Posted by: Chris Jaffe

June 23, 2011

Taking one for the team and victory

When the Mets' Justin Turner dug in as a Brad Ziegler pitch violated his personal space, the home town fans got to celebrate a 3-2 victory over the Oakland nine*. Since this happened in the media mecca that is New York, it was called unusual.

* We can call them that, since they are playing in the National League with no DH. right. What, they used relievers in the game? I don't care. I like the sound of it.

Unusual? I happens about once a year. According to the play-by-play data from Retrosheet, 50 times since 1950 a game has ended with a bases loaded hit by pitch. Extra inning games account for 27 of those games. Game-ending balks and game-ending bases loaded triples are unusual. This, not so much.

Ziegler should not be upset, though. He joins a group of 49 pitchers who have ended a game by hitting the batter. Yep, somebody has done it twice.

Randy Moffitt, collect your prize!

Aug. 26, 1972: Moffitt came on to start the 10th inning of a 9-9 game. After two singles, he got a strikeout and then intentionally walked Ron Santo to load the bases*. Moffitt then hit Joe Pepitone, allowing Jose Cardenal to score the 10thand final run. CUBS WIN! CUBS WIN!

* There were men at first and third. This tactic baffles me.

May 20, 1978: Moffitt at least didn't load the bases this time. Gary Lavelle came in at the top of the ninth inning of a 2-2 tie between the Dodgers and the Giants. After a double, an intentional walk, a sacrifice bunt, and another intentional walk, Lavelle handed Moffitt a bases loaded and one out situation. Bill Russell took one for the team and Billy North scored the winning run.

Posted by: Mat Kovach

April 20, 2011

News and notes from 4/19/11

Brad Emaus demoted, melodramatic uproar ensues

Yesterday, the New York Mets demoted Rule V pick Brad Emaus. The Toronto Blue Jays now have the option to reacquire Emaus for $25,000. The Mets have activated Justin Turner, a player who has been lazily compared to a right-handed Daniel Murphy, making them logical platoon partners at the keystone. Altogether it is a pretty ho-hum move for the Mets who stand to gain a negligible bit of value by taking advantage of platoon splits.

Which brings us to the melodramatic uproar part. The overwhelming reaction on Twitter and baseball comment boards was that the Mets overreacted to a bad but small sample (42 plate appearances). In a sense, this critique is correct; from a data analysis standpoint it is impossible and exceedingly unfair to judge a player on such a small body of work. If this is truly what the Mets did—punt a potentially useful asset based solely on 42 plate appearances—then shame on them.

However, it stands to reason that this is not what the Mets did. After all, the Mets have resources that extend well beyond the spreadsheets and MLB.TV game replays that many of us Internet-dwelling baseball pundits lean on. In various places, an argument has been made that demoting Emaus based on this sample is inconsistent with rostering him in the first place. Basically, the Mets decided he was good enough on March 30 and then decided he was not on April 19. The flaw in this logic is that there's no reason to believe that the Mets ever decided Emaus was their man.

An alternate explanation could be that the Mets' talent evaluators were unable to form a conclusion based on spring training action alone. Perhaps the scouts were split, thinking that maybe Emaus would be a useful role player or maybe he would be overexposed. Since the performance of the 2011 Mets is rather unimportant, it makes sense for the scouts to continue their evaluation into the regular season. In this scenario, they reached their conclusion on April 19, effectively pronouncing Emaus a quadruple-A player. In this case, the cash-strapped Mets essentially gain $25,000 to roster the similarly endowed Turner, making this an easy decision.

In case your appetite for Emaus related analysis has not yet been whetted, Paul Swyden continues the new Fangraphs tradition of making an All-Star lineup out of everything with The Brad Emaus All-Stars. That lineup might even be able to outperform the Seattle Mariners offense.

James Shields helps Rays improve to 8-9

Manny who? It was not long ago that the Tampa Bay Rays had raced out to an 0-6 start before "improving" to 1-8. Nine days later, the Rays are a respectable 8-9, which ties them for second place in the AL East with the Toronto Blue Jays. Oh how quickly the tables turn. Recently, Kevin Dame ran a piece on the number of 0-6 teams to reach the postseason. The results were pretty dire—two teams since 1900. Ostensibly, the results change for 8-9 teams.

The impressive thing is that this streak happened without Manny Ramirez or Evan Longoria. Instead, a motley cast of Johnny Damon, Matt Joyce, Sam Fuld and Felipe Lopez has propelled the Rays offense while the pitching staff has tightened up. Longoria is hoping to rejoin the club on April 29 which should give the team a much needed shot of adrenaline if they want to stay in the playoff race.

Yesterday, James Shields was the star, carrying the Rays to a 2-1 victory. Shields was sharp and efficient, continuing to pitch backwards to great effect. As R.J. Anderson concludes in the linked piece, Shields will need to be careful going forward with this strategy. Since breaking balls are generally more difficult to locate than fastballs, the emphasis on early count benders can be expected to lead to less favorable counts. And it's not like major league teams won't figure out that Shields is leaning on the early count spinner. Chances are good that advance scouts noticed this before Mr. Anderson did. The entire purpose of pitching backwards is to throw unexpected pitches. Pretty soon Shields is going to be "surprising" hitters with first pitch fastballs.

Posted by: Brad Johnson


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