Let's just make our way around the infield, alright? The other day Travis Jackson won the honor of being called the worst hitting Hall of Fame 3rd baseman. Now I'm at shortstop, which is actually the position Jackson spent most of his career at. How about that? Maybe I should go back and give the award of worst hitting Hall of Fame 3rd baseman back to Brooks Robinson?

Shortstop is one of only two positions that has a large amount of Hall of Fame inductees who were actually below average hitters (the other being 2nd baseman.)

The first player that may jump into your head is Ozzie Smith. Smith had a career 87 OPS+. His career OBP was only .337 and even worse, his career slugging percentage was an anemic .328, obviously Smith is in the Hall for his glove and not his bat.

But, believe it or not, there are actually two shortstops in the Hall of Fame with even lower OPS+ than Smith.

One of them is Rabbit Maranville who played from 1912 to 1935. His career OPS+ was only 82. His career batting average was .258 which is the lowest of any Hall of Fame shorstop. His .318 OBP is 3rd worst and his .340 SLG is 2nd worst (above only Smith's.)

The other is Luis Aparico who played from 1956 to 1973. His OPS+ was also just 82. His BA/OBP/SLG career numbers wer .262/.311/.343 --- Only once in his 18 seasons did he have an OPS+ above 100. In otherwords he was a below average hitter all but one season. The one exception was 1970 when he hit .313 with a .372 OBP and a .404 SLG for an OPS+ of 114.

So who is the worst hitting Hall of Fame shortstop? It's really a toss-up between Maranville & Aparico with Smith getting an honorable mention.

In the end I'm going to go with Rabbit Maranville. The clincher is that he he hit just 8 home runs from 1920 to 1935 (Babe Ruth hit 667 homers during the same time period.)

That also makes Maranville the worst hitting Hall of Famer overall (not counting pitchers of course.)

Labels: Hall Of Fame, Luis Aparico, Ozzie Smith, Rabbit Maranville

What, you think I'm trying to come up with the most random topics I can think of? You don't think it's relevant that Pedro Feliz & Vic Power are tied for #999 all time in OPS? What can I say. This is how I get down.

I intend this to be some kind of series on the worst hitting Hall of Famer at each position. But I am going to continue my policy from the past of pretty much ignoring players who played their entire career in the dead ball era. It's just too hard to compare them to the players that played ball post 1920.

With that being said, my selection for the worst hitting 3rd baseman among Hall of Famers is none other than Brooks Robinson. Certainly his numbers are dampened somewhat by playing in a pretty pitcher dominated era, but regardless of your era it's hard to put a positive spin on a career OBP of .325 or a career SLG of .401 or a batting average of .267 for that matter.

But his career OPS is actually above 100 (104 to be exact) so I will not say he was a below average hitter, just far below average for a hall of famer. Obviously he was selected to the hall mostly on the strength of his glove (16 Gold Glove awards) and his long solid career.

Robinson won the MVP award in 1964. He hit .317 with 28 home runs that year. Both numbers were career highs. That was actually the only time in his career he finished in the top 10 in OPS. He was 6th at .889.

Actually. I'm wrong. It really should be Travis Jackson. At 102, his career OPS+ is even lower than Robinson's. In fact it's the lowest of all of the 3rd basemen in the Hall of Fame (including dead ball era players.)

Who is Travis Jackson? I consider myself reasonably well versed in baseball history but his name doesn't even ring a bell for me. He has to be one of the least known Hall of Famers.

He played from 1922 to 1936. His entire career was with the New York Giants which probably explains why he's in the Hall of Fame (New York bias anyone?) There were no Gold Glove awards back then but I assume he must have been considered a very good fielder to make up for his rather average hitting. It's hard to understand how he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting 4 times otherwise. (Except for maybe New York bias...)

Labels: Brooks Robinson, Hall Of Fame

Pedro Feliz is #999 all time in career OPS at .7252, actually he's tied with Vic Power.

Top 1000, that ain't bad really. When you consider the long history of the major leagues. Although clearly players who have played during the last 15 years have a large advantage due to the higher offensive numbers. I haven't checked this, but I bet Feliz isn't in the top 1000 in OPS+.

So who is Vic Power? Well he was a 4 time all star during the '50s and '60s. Which is 4 more times than Feliz has been an all-star. This is a good example of how these sorts of offensive stats have to be era adjusted to be very meaningful. Obviously Vic Power was a better hitter for his era than Pedro Feliz is for his.

Power's best season was his second (1955 with the Kansas City A's) when he hit .319 with a .505 SLG. He finished 9th in the AL MVP voting that season and was selected to the All Star team. His OPS+ was a career high 129 that year. He reached 124 in 1958, his second best season.

Power's production did dip considerably after 1959 and he spent his last 5 seasons as a below average hitter which is why his career OPS+ is just 97.

But Pedro Feliz's career OPS+ is just 86 and his career high OPS+ is just 102 (in 2003) --- Basically at Feliz's peak he was an average hitter and he's certainly never finished in the top 10 in MVP voting or been selected to an all star team.

So there was an All-Star game last night? Yeah, OK.

Labels: Pedro Feliz, Vic Power

Last year rookie pitchers Dice K of Boston and Tim Lincecum of San Francisco were heavily hyped. Both had pretty good seasons and showed signs of great promise. But both also fell somewhat short of the hype.

But in their sophomore seasons they are living up to the hype. Check it out:

Daisuke Matsuzaka went 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA and 201 SO in his rookie season for the Red Sox. Somewhat underwhelming numbers for a pitcher who was as hyped as he was. But the Red Sox won the World Series so folks were pleased enough.

But this year he's killing it. He's currently 10-1 with a 2.65 ERA in 2008. Although it's not all good news. He's had some problems with his control this year and he has 57 walks in just 88.3 innings. In fact he leads the AL in walks. His WHIP is actually slightly higher this year compared to last thus far (1.38 vs. 1.32)

Tim Lincecum went 7-5 with a 4.00 ERA (and 150 SO in just 146.3 innings) last season. Pretty good numbers.

But like Dice-K, this season he's turned it up to the next level. He's 11-2 with a 2.57 ERA. He's currently 2nd in the NL in ERA and 3rd in wins. He leads the NL with 135 SO. He's been selected for the NL all-star team.

At only 24 years of age, Lincecum looks like he could be one of the top pitchers in majors for some time to come. He almost makes up for the epic failure that was the Barry Zito signing.

Labels: Dice K, Tim Lincecum

In this day and age, there are still many people on this planet. Most of them think Derek Jeter is totally awesome and not COMPLETELY AVERAGE THIS YEAR (OPS+ =99). I think a lot of those people are responsible for America's got talent, American Idol, Americans making jackasses out of themselves, and America molests the 5th grader that is smarter than them.

I believe it's the magical time in this to mention THIS THIS THIS THIS or BURN DOWN YOUR WHOLE FUCKING CITY NOW LEVEL STUPID or just try any of the other 880,000 results.

Or simply put:
SI via USSMarinier

"'I agree that he looks terrific on the plays that he does make, and he has great fundamental techniques, but he simply doesn't cover as much ground as other players with more lateral movement, and that hurts the Yankees, though obviously his offense more than makes up for his defensive shortcomings, and he's still a Hall of Fame player. But, defensively, he's great at the things that don't matter that much and not so good at the one thing that matters a lot. And if you're interested, I've got some really cool data to back all these claims up.'

"And then they'd call me an idiot and walk away."

So I got this last night:

[22:10] DR. X: i relayed your thoughts on the drays to a yankees fan and he called u an idiot

[22:10] DR. X: i told him how you called this before season

[22:11] DR. X: and he said they will explode soon enough

[22:14] DR. X: i said "ok", since he is my boss


YEAH, THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP.

P.S. LOL

The Yankee slugger revealed Friday he slips on a gold lamé thong with a flame-line waistband when he's trying to get out of a hitting slump - and he's shared it with his teammates.

...

Derek Jeter agreed that Giambi's thong works, although "it's so uncomfortable running around the bases."

Labels: Captian Intagibles, I would like to gamble against your boss for money, IHateU

According to his agent: Read The Story At ESPN.com

Here's hoping the Mets or Yankees sign him before I leave NYC so I can see the greatest hitter of all time before I leave.

It's absolutely ridiculous to me that no one has signed the man who lead the majors in OBP last season. As his agent says - it's clearly a conspiracy of some kind. Which is such BS, as the whole steroids thing is the leagues fault and the owners fault as much as the players. They are looking for a scapegoat (Bonds) instead of taking responsibility.

Labels: Barry Bonds

At age 28, Pujols became the 5th youngest player in MLB history to hit his 300th home run today. He's less than one year older than the youngest player to reach the milestone; Alex Rodriguez.

Obviously if Pujols continues at the rate he's on now, he will one day reach some much bigger milestones.

Pujols is having another awesome year this season. He's current hitting .348 with a .470 OBP and a .625 SLG.

If he can keep the .470 OBP up that would be a new season high for him. His current highest OBP is .439 in 2003.

Labels: Albert Pujols

The Arizona Republic

...Snyder suffered what was diagnosed as a left testicular fracture after he was struck by a foul ball off the bat of Corey Hart.

OH GOD. Don't pull the blade on the guy in shades, OH NO.

Labels: I wear my sunglasses at OUCH MY BALLS, IHateU

After looking at the results this season for Day/Night splits, lets see which ones are just dumb luck by looking at last year.




Of these magical teams, it seems only the Orioles consistently suck ass during the day. The Giants' also appear to hate the day, but they may just be missing breakfast at Denny's or something GET OFF MY LAWN.

Oddly enough, masturbating hero of drunkards, Aubrey Huff appears to love the shit out of days:

Aubrey Huff
2008 Day: .883 OPS
2008 Night: .826 OPS
2007 Day: .809 OPS
2007 Night: .768 OPS
Career Day: .826 OPS
Career Night: .812 OPS

So I guess the rest of the Orioles need to drink and whack off more.

On the other side, the Red Sox, and the Royals appear to love the day. Since the Cubs play about half their games as day games, maybe they should get more drunkard chicken chokers, or Royals. Whatever.

In related news, Mark Prior was trapped in the phantom zone and beaten up by General Zod.

Labels: Aubrey Huff's Muff, Day Night Splits, IHateU

I posted a lot about the Giants rookie Tim Lincecum last season. This year he's proving I was right to do so. Check out these numbers:

9-1 (even more impressive because he's pitching for an awful Giants team.)
2.38 ERA (2nd in the NL)
114 SO (1st in the NL)

It looks like he's got a real shot at the Cy Young award if he can keep up at the pace he's on now. Although it will take a bit of a miracle to keep winning at a 90% clip while pitching for the Giants.

Also: Barry Zito who? Ah Barry "leads the NL in losses" Zito.

Barry Zito: 3-12, 5.99 ERA (ouch.)

Looks like they gave the wrong pitcher the $126 million contract.

Labels: Barry Zito, San Francisco Giants, Tim Lincecum

Since I am a degenerate gambler, I have begun to wonder about day/night splits. In this episode of Big Show Baseball, let’s see who needs to get some amphetamines.

Well that or porn.



The Orioles, Indians, Rangers, and Phillies seem to be some sort of weird vampire. The Blue Jays seem to be some weirdo morning people freaks.

In other news, Mark Prior was mauled by a emu.

Labels: Day Night Splits, DIV TAGS FIXIN TABLEZ, IHateU