Head Cases
The Brandon McCarthy injury, horrible as it was to see, reminds me of the time when pitcher Carl Mays hit shortstop Ray Chapman and killed him in 1920. Chapman was killed thirty years before players first started loosely experimenting with wearing batting helmets. It’s a hell of a way to lose your job, and when he did, up came Joe Sewell, who went to the Hall of Fame. As for Mays, he was known as a real surly son of a bitch who never showed much remorse for knocking Chapman down, so much so that it probably cost him the outside chance he had at the Hall of Fame in his era.
But here’s my question – how many soft-throwing right-handers need to be nearly killed before pitchers start wearing some sort of light-weight carbon fiber armor beneath their hats? How many Brandon McCarthy, how many Matt Hiserman near fatal injuries do we need to watch, especially when we are talking about right-handers who throw 85?
When batting helmets first showed up – and it was Branch Rickey with the 1950s Pittsburgh Pirates who made this happen, by the way – guys hated them. Henry Aaron didn’t want to wear one. Willie Mays only wore one because so many pitchers knocked his ass down. Joe Adcock once got hit so hard on the head that he looked like he was dead. But for all the concussions, batting helmets were considered less than manly. If I’m going to be real honest, players then didn’t wear them because they thought it made them look like a bunch of (rhymes with “wussies.”)
Well, first of all, today we have 8,000 bat makers making 8,000 brands of maple bats, and we have technology that allows for military-grade armor that will stop a bullet headed for a soldier’s chest – but we can’t come up with something to at least make pitchers a little safer?
Come on. I know baseball culture and position players won’t give a shit if pitchers wear it – hell, they’ve been diving out over the outside corner and whining when a guy throws on the inside black for years. Some guys, like Bryce Harper, have grown up so entitled to wear armor and dive over the plate that they are ghastly offended when somebody throws knee-high inside. And then they say the guys who throw inner half don’t respect the game. That is backwards.
I want to know why the NFL can look into brain injuries and Major League Baseball can’t spend two seconds asking itself, well, hmm, shouldn’t we at least take a leadership role inside the game so we don’t have a dead pitcher carried off the field one day? Because that’s almost what just happened to McCarthy.
It’s a pretty sad commentary that it took baseball 30 years after Chapman was killed to come up with batting helmets. Sure, the technology had to catch up, but that’s not an issue this time. Baseball is more concerned with developing the next app for a smart phone, so people can watch their games while they’re taking a shit, than they are about creating a safe product to protect not only major league pitchers, but also young pitchers in college, high school, travel ball, and what is left of little league. Because I promise you, one day there will be another Ray Chapman unless baseball mans up and uses its resources to pull its own head out of its pants.
Shutting Down Strasburg
What we see here again is business sense playing a larger role than baseball sense, treating an individual as a piece of real estate or a stake in a company. They should call this guy Stephen Stocksburg, because face it, this guy is a living, breathing commodity. But business and baseball decisions are not always mutually exclusive.
You know, if you know baseball history beyond the 1990s, there was a left-handed pitcher named Carl Hubbell who was called the “Meal Ticket.” Why? Because he dominated every fourth day (four-man rotation, complete games, work horse – and he went to the Hall of Fame throwing the screwball, which is hell on the elbow!) and was regularly among league leaders in every productive and durable pitching category during an offensive era (the 1930s) which was statistically and comparatively skewed toward hitters with ballparks geared to making pitchers look like garbage. Strasburg looks like a Food Stamp compared to the Meal Ticket. Times change, but baseball souls don’t, unless money gets in the way.
If you are really and truly a baseball person, a baseball mind, and a baseball soul – you have to hate this move. I don’t have a lot of respect for this decision because it puts money first and competing last, no matter how you spin it. It also diminishes the monetary value of competing and becoming a big game pitcher. It says that being a showcase guy means more than being a guy with the talent to put a team on his shoulders. It says that winning big games isn’t worth as much as selling tickets in July. That’s not baseball. That’s business. Businessmen don’t go to the Hall of Fame.
And the person we have not heard from is Strasburg. Even if he does not have the voice, power or audacity to call the shots, he can still prove he is more man than machine. He is the one who can stand up and say – even if he gets shot down by everyone around and above him – “You know what? This is crap. This makes me look like I don’t want to compete. This makes me look like I am more concerned with my own bottom line than my town, my team, and my time. This makes me look like I cannot make decisions for myself and that I will defer to my personal, professional, and team management rather than do what baseball courage says I should do. This makes me look like I am above the personal responsibility of rising to my obligations as a major league professional, because the share holders call all the shots.” There, I just wrote your press release for you. And it’s a scouting moment, too, son. You just told us you fear being on the mound in Game 7 of the World Series, with everything on the line, because you worship at the altar of the pitch count and the stockbrokers who value returns more than World Series parades.
Not running out there after 159 1/3 innings, forgoing the playoffs, because you or others fear throwing too much too soon, is just like the timid high school football player who is scared he will get hit. So he eases up, and when he gets popped, he breaks. I can guarantee you that no pitcher I have ever met with anything resembling a heart, a soul, desire and above all – fearlessness – could live with themselves with that decision.
I find it fitting that a few days before Strasburg was shut down, across the Beltway, Cal Ripken Jr. was honored for his consecutive games played streak. I am certain that Ripken also had great short and long term value to his town, team, and time. And from a scouting vantage point, Gold Glove shortstops with 20-plus home run power who play every inning of every game have more industry value than a right-hander with a plus fastball and curveball. Ripken could have long ago cashed out of Baltimore, claimed playing every day was bad for his long term career value, and declared strapping it on was just too darn risky. Instead, he has a statue of himself at Camden Yards. If Strasburg ever has a statue, it should be a big bronze, 159 1/3.
And in all this mess, there was such a simple compromise. Shut him down after one September start, put him on a basic throwing maintenance program, and have him ready for the playoffs. Have him on a short playoff leash. But by not even allowing the possibility of five innings per playoff start, this decision is not only bad for the team, it’s bad for baseball. It says your contract matters more than your team. It says playing it safe is better than playing hard. He’s the boy who cried Tommy John, baseball’s best example of the bait and switch. Ask the Giants if they would have won the World Series if they hadn’t decided to get every last good pitch out of the fragile arm, body, and mind that is Tim Lincecum. When we, as scouts, go out into the bushes and we see some hot shot kid pitcher who is coddled and babied, who can’t grow a pair because he saw Strasburg’s held, well, we’ll know why.
Rocket Man? Try Candle In The Wind
I’m about to spend the next few minutes of my life writing up an NP. A bunch of scouts reading this just moaned, “Preaching to the Choir.”
But it’s not every day that the NP is a 300-game winner, a 50-year old former Cy Young Award Winner with a now-famously checkered past. History is one thing, what you bring to the field is another. And while it may be cute that Roger Clemens is pitching to one of his “K” kids, and that the locals in Texas are eating it up, and that the Houston Astros might be saving that last spot on the 40-man for a box office kick rather than a guy who can actually help them in the future, it doesn’t change the fact that he is what he is. And what he is, ain’t much to look at.
These scouting notes are gleaned from a 1-plus innings look on TV, really for a game that has no business being on TV for a non-starter of a story. I mean, as Billy Wilder once wrote, there’s nothing wrong with being 50 unless you’re acting 20.
OK, to the task at hand – writing up today’s NP. Usually I do this with showcase kids. I feel like I’m writing up my 90-year old chain-smoking grandfather, who, frankly, has a better body than Roger Clemens does.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Big Sloppy body. Broad shoulders, thick trunk, beer gut, wide hips & thighs.
DELIVERY: Full wind-up, sporadically labored & uphill, trouble consistently finishing. DESCRIPTION: FB 85-88 max effort, pushing, some downhill, otherwise no life. CHG 79-81, slow and sloppy, occasional sink, nothing late or hard. SL 77 soft slurve. Trouble repeating FB location & downhill. Lacks arm strength. Lacks speed distinction between FB and CHG. Trouble making CHG deceptive.
SUMMARY: NP 40 AA-tops. Wants to be Jamie Moyer but lacks ML average FB control or better, lacks feel for CHG, can’t throw it anytime for a strike. No upside, hopeless cause. Would have rather seen Satchel Paige at 59 (haha! He was really 65!) than this guy at 50. Do Not Acquire.
Skaggs and His Stuff
After writing about Roger Clemens, dear please God, let me write up a young pitcher who can actually play in the major leagues. I had a fresh look at lefty Tyler Skaggs in person at Dodger Stadium. This was my first prolonged look at Skaggs since I saw him spinning curveballs one fine afternoon at Hawthorne High in the spring of 2009. I also saw him for one inning in Instructs in 2010. So here he is, at 21, in the big leagues, just like he vowed he would achieve when I talked to him after he signed in 2009.
Skaggs, fastball, 90-93, comfortable 91-93 lots of heavy downhill bite, fastball looks heavier than when I saw him in high school. Curveball, 74, quick two-plane downer, still in my opinion his best weapon. The slider has come a long way, 77-80 and tough on right-handers, backdoors the back foot with sharp bite. Pretty nasty.
Obviously it’s front-end rotation stuff and possibly ace material in its best years. I think Skaggs should listen to me right here, though, and I’ll say it because he won’t listen to me or probably even read this, so who cares, right?
Dude, good slider, but you’re in love with it. You are throwing it too much and not throwing your good curveball enough. I know the thinking – why throw something slower. But guess what? You and I both know these guys will hit the hanging slider as well as the hanging curveball. And your curveball is and always has been more consistent. So to me, you are in love with your slider, falling behind with it too many times, and getting away from dancing with the lady who brought you to the dance.
I know the other thinking – if you throw too many curveballs, Gibson over there is gonna get on your ass and tell you these guys will sit off-speed. Yes, but that’s only because you don’t have consistent average-plus major league fastball control yet, now isn’t it? Because if you spot that fastball more consistently than I saw at Dodger Stadium the other night, you and I both know they will sit FB but not attack FB when you hit the spots. And when they take that FB, Lord Charles can roll off your fingertips like the skate-or-die punk you are at heart. The slider should keep these guys honest, Skaggs. The curveball should fuck them up.
Hanley Ramirez taught you everything I’m saying, didn’t he? Hey, at least I don’t give you whiplash when I point some things out.
Scuffing 101
Let me get one thing clear: I dislike juicers, but I respect pitchers who doctor the ball, and here’s why. When you juice, you don’t need to learn to do anything new, except, you know, dispose of the evidence. Some guys are really good at that. But when you load the ball, a pitcher has to learn how to use the sticky or the scuffmarks, and some guys, believe it or not, can’t do this. Scuffing is a skill. Loading the ball is a work of art. Drugging is just an idiot, a needle, and a good defense attorney.
While at Turner Field on the book trail this summer, I ran into Jay Howell in Atlanta, former Oakland and Dodgers All-Star closer. We talked about Lew Burdette, the famous spitball-slider-sinker pitcher of the Milwaukee Braves. Off the air, I asked Howell, “You ever throw a spitter?” Howell said, no, he couldn’t control it. What’s ironic is that I believe Howell got caught with sandpaper in his glove once.
Sandpaper is the poor man’s spitball. When Tampa reliever Joel Peralta was busted for pine tar in the glove this June against the stay-classy Washington Nationals, it brought to mind a few things. Number one, you should really check and see how many guys on that club have pine tar in their blood streams.
Second, I remember when Frank Robinson was managing the Nationals at Anaheim several years ago. Brendan Donnelly was searched and busted, I believe for pine tar. The likely culprit was former Angel Jose Guillen, who in his long and robust and underachieving career, was never one to miss a chance when he had an axe to grind. Donnelly wasn’t equipped to handle that media crush. He looked like a guy who couldn’t handle a follow-up question, because he was. Fact is, pine tar is pitcher’s pot. They all do it, so you may we well legalize it.
Tampa manager Joe Maddon, who was with the Angels the night Brendan was busted and may or may not realize that he is morphing into Casey Stengel, complete with hidden edges, called it “A common practice for many years for people to try to get an edge in any way.”
Well, of course. Maddon basically told the press he thought the Nationals were a bunch of bushers. Where there’s smoke, there’s sandpaper.
But it doesn’t change the fact that, yes, Maddon is right. He said he didn’t want the pine tar to diminish the guy’s season, which is fine. But the bigger thing is this – nobody in baseball ever says in public what they all know is true – that some guys can throw a loaded ball and it can really make them better, but most guys can’t.
Votto Returns
I’ve always said the mark of a good team is the team that figures out how to win when the most important guy in the lineup gets hurt. Most teams, of course, fade, but the Reds took off when Joey Votto went down and struggled this week when he came back. Why?
Without getting into the nuts and bolts of the statistics, I have this to say: Yes, teams that win without a star player have a chance to go a long way because the role players prove that they are actually enough to be everyday players, at least for short spurts. And the rest of this is basic on-the-field common sense. Guys rising to the occasion and deciding that this is a bump in the road and not the end of the line. Guys who let a new offensive continuity begin and adopt a hero-a-day summer mentality.
And what happens when the star comes back, back to his old spot in the lineup, and he hits, but the team looks just a touch slower when he first returns? Well, simple. Just like they had to learn without him, now they’ve got to learn how to win with him, again. Obviously you don’t add an MVP-type bat and freak out about a streaky week. But it does speak to something true, that especially at this time of the year, it’s a human game played by gassed guys.
Hunter Can Still Hit
I went and watched the Angels. Sat on the first group BP. Took scouting notes. Know what my report on Torii Hunter said? Here it comes, it’s pretty quick: Can Still Hit. There, I’m done. Truthfully, this guy is still an everyday player, even coming up on 40. Old scouts will tell you that each guy declines differently and at different paces. A guy like Steve Finley, I remember how his bat went first. His legs still worked. But his bat went first. Hunter, he’s the opposite. Still an adequate runner, will go first to third, no longer a burner, but enough. The raw power is the one thing that has slipped, but slipped to what? Try average. It’s amazing to watch, from a scouting perspective, how older players change, the rates of decline that can surely be studied statistically but might be just as well studied empirically and communicated effectively, much the way it is to watch how young players change or do not change.
Dude, Where’s My Bullpen
Here’s a pretty good big league bullpen: Fernando Rodney closing. Jose Arredondo setting up. Darren O’Day as a situational seventh inning type guy. Joel Peralta as a sixth or seventh inning guy. What do these guys all have in common? You guessed it, those who have been outcast from the Angels bullpen over the last few years. I know, I know, I’m going to hear they weren’t effective. But here’s my question – did they have good stuff and they weren’t used right?
P.S.
In newspaper terms, this column was 82 inches. Take that, newspaper MF’ers.
