Cabrera Treated, So What's Next?

By now, you've probably heard that Miguel Cabrera (a) spent three months getting treatment for alcoholism this offseason, (b) plans to continue with his program in spring training and during the regular season and (c) says he hasn't had a drop of booze since a drunken scuffle with his wife right at the end of the season and right at the beginning of the Tigers' collapse last year.

First off- let me say it's admirable that he's recognized his problem, sought help for it, plans to stick with his treatment, and is brave enough to speak publicly about it.  As an avid fantasy baseball player though, I wonder what impact this will have on his 2010 numbers.

For his six and a half year career, his average 162 game season looks like this: .311/33/117 with a .925 OPS.  Those, my friends, put him on pace for first-ballot induction into the Hall of Fame, especially considering he doesn't turn 27 until mid-April.  So he could easily string together another 8 or 9 seasons of at least that caliber before he hits his twilight years and that's with 1200+ hits, 200+ homeruns, and 750+ RBI already in the bag.

The one thing Cabrera has yet to do though, is put together a monster season.  As good as he's been, he's never hit 40 homeruns, never driven in 130, never hit .340, never walked 100 times, and never finished with an OPS above 1.000 (although he's come awfully close).  But just because he intends on being clean for all of 2010, I don't think we can assume this will be the year he does any, or all of those things.

First off, for all his apparent in-season drinking in the past, his health and playing time have never suffered.  Since being called up, he has yet to play in fewer than 157 games and has always amassed at least 650 plate appearances.  The drinking doesn't appear to have had an impact on his power, either.  In each of his six full seasons, he has smacked 65, 78, 78, 74, 75, and 68 extra base hits and never slugged under .510.

Although I don't know him personally, my guess is that Cabrera is one of those immensely-gifted athletes who, unfair as it seems to the rest of us mortals, doesn't necessarily need to take care of himself to be excellent at his sport.  Back when I played (p.s. I've done more than 300 posts to this blog and I believe this is the first time I've used that phrase) I wasn't that fortunate, so I didn't even try.  And I'm not implying that Cabrera's decision will have no impact on his body or his life, because it will.  I just think that people who are expecting to see Cabrera post career bests across the board because he's clean might end up disappointed.  My guess is, this life change is for his long-term good, not short-term.  Either way, good for him!

How The West Was Won? Not With Joel

Maybe I'm overreacting here, but I don't think I am.  Two years and $16 million dollars for Joel Pineiro?  I know the Angels lost John Lackey to free agency, failed to trade for Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, and whether they were interested or not, also watched serviceable free agent starters Rich Harden, Jason Marquis, Brett Myers, Brad Penny, Andy Pettitte, and Randy Wolf end up elsewhere, too.  With Pineiro, I just think they might have hit the panic button and felt like "doing something" was better than doing nothing at all.

In more than a thousand American League innings spent mostly with Seattle (he made 31 relief appearances with Boston in '07) Pineiro owns a 4.50 career ERA and a record that's 3 games above .500.  He's never been a big strikeout guy, either.  His best season was 151 and that was in 211 2/3 IP back in 2003.  Last year with St. Louis, he punched 105 in a career high 214 IP, and that was when he was facing pitchers!  On the plus side, he was a control freak last year allowing a league-best 1.1 walks per 9 and that translated into an excellent 1.15 WHIP.  But I don't see him repeating that, considering his career walks per 9 is more than twice what he posted a year ago (2.6).

Pineiro now joins an LA rotation that, even with him, just isn't that scary.  Jered Weaver is very good but not a true number one.  Ervin Santana has doubters after an injury-riddled '09.  Scott Kazmir is predictably unpredictable.  And at some point, Joe Saunders' luck has to run out.  The last two seasons he has somehow managed to win 33 games despite logging just 35 quality starts in 62 tries.  Seriously, check out his game log.  It's baffling!  He doesn't pitch deep into games, doesn't strike anybody out, is very hittable, prone to the big fly, and yet he keeps...on...winning!

Here's the reality for Angels fans.  Unlike what they've grown accustomed to recently, this team is, by no means, the consensus AL West favorite entering 2010.  As a matter of fact, there's an outside chance they could finish dead last.  I already covered their pitching.  And offensively, they've lost Chone Figgins and Vlad Guerrero while only bringing in Hideki Matsui, who turns 36 in June.  Torii Hunter turns 35 this July.  Bobby Abreu turns 36 in less than two months.  And while youngsters Kendry Morales and Erick Aybar finally fulfilled their promise last year, Brandon Wood is not a lock to stick around all season at third.  He's been a "can't miss" prospect for what feels like half a decade and in more than 230 plate appearances over three seasons, his strikeout-to-walk ratio is more than 10 to 1, and his career OBP is .222.  Maybe he'll figure it out and hit .260 with 25 bombs, but I'd be surprised.

Elsewhere in the division, Texas finished 6 games above .500 and 10 back of LA and that's with Josh Hamilton playing in just 89 games and Chris Davis finishing with a putrid .284 OBP in 391 ABs.  They've added Vladimir Guerrero.  Rookie Elvis Andrus hit .280 after the All-Star break and finished with 33 steals.  Julio Borbon swiped 19 bags in 157 ABs after being a summer call-up. Nelson Cruz had a break-out year with 33 homeruns in just 462 at bats and Ian Kinsler and Michael Young haven't gone anywhere.  Add Rich Harden, the continued development of promising young arms Scott Feldman, Derek Holland, Brandon McCarthy, and Tommy Hunter plus a full year of Neftali Feliz, and closer insurance in Chris Ray, and "the team that could win if only they could pitch," suddenly can.

Seattle now has arguably the best one-two pitching punch in baseball with King Felix and Cliff Lee.  And after the failed Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson experiments, they seem to be building a lineup to better-suit their big ballpark.  Newbie Casey Kotchman makes sense at first base as does Chone Figgins at third.  And if they can get Milton Bradley to play nice and stay healthy, he's a steal in left.  Jose Lopez, Ichiro, Franklin Gutierrez, and Ken Griffey all return as well.  The M's finished four games above .500 last year and could win a bunch of games by scores of 4-3 or 3-1.

Even Oakland could give LA a scare.  The A's hit the fewest homeruns and owned the lowest slugging percentage in the league in 2009.  They also started a rookie pitcher in more than 70% of their games.  And yet, they finished just 6 games below .500, were outscored by two runs all season, and finished tied for 3rd in the AL in ERA.  They also have the reigning rookie of the year in closer Andrew Bailey who led baseball in OPS against in 2009 (.476).  Newcomers Jake Fox and Kevin Kouzmanoff should provide a little more punch to their lineup along with the re-signed Jack Cust.  Mark Ellis missed more than 50 games a year ago.  And the newly-inked Justin Duchscherer should be physically and emotionally 100% after missing all of 2009 with arm trouble and clinical depression.  Plus, big-time outfield prospect Michael Taylor (a more complete player than the prospect they traded to get him, Brett Wallace) is waiting for a call-up.  I'm not saying the A's are a Wild Card dark horse but it would be foolish to write then off as cellar-dwellers for a second straight year.

The bottom line is this.  Top to bottom, the American League West should be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball (once again) in 2010.  Last year, it was the only division where every team won at least 75 games and between October and now, we've seen last year's runway winner get a little worse and the teams that finished behind them get a lot better.  That, more than anything else, could explain the Pineiro signing.

A Big Unit, Yes...But The Best Unit Ever?

With Hall of Fame voting on lots of baseball fans' minds right now and with Randy Johnson's retirement still semi-fresh as well, here's a question to ponder.  Is the Big Unit the best pitcher in the history of the game?

Clearly 5 Cy Youngs, 4,875 strikeouts, 303 wins, 10 All-Star appearances, two no-hitters (one of which was a perfect game) and a World Series co-MVP help to put him on the short list.  But that "short list" must also include names like Nolan Ryan, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Greg Maddux, and depending on your opinion of him, Roger Clemens.  So let's dig deeper.   

Of the players I just named, only Nolan Ryan has more career strikeouts than Johnson and he has nearly a thousand more.  But at the same time, Ryan also issued 2,795 walks giving him a career K:BB ratio of 2.04.  Johnson's is a much more impressive 3.26.  Also to the Big Unit's credit is his career mark of 10.6 strikeouts per 9 innings- the best in baseball history.  So the notion that Nolan Ryan was a "better" strikeout pitcher than Randy Johnson is somewhat misguided.  The Express just managed to throw 1200 more innings.  Other statistics of note when comparing the two: Ryan was the least hittable pitcher in big league history (6.6 H/9 compared to a still-respectable 7.3 for Johnson) but given his penchant for the free pass, Ryan's career WHIP is higher (1.25 versus 1.17).  In other words, Ryan managed to be "effectively wild" for almost 54-hundred innings.

They didn't start giving out the Cy Young until 1956 and there wasn't an AL and NL winner until 1967, so you can't penalize...er...Cy Young, Christy Mathewson or Walter Johnson for their lack of hardware.  We can at least try to compare their other numbers though, and I'll start with Young.  He and Johnson both played for 22 years but during those 22 years, Young made 813 starts to Johnson's 603, meaning Young averaged 9.5 more starts a season.  Based on that, it's no wonder he has Randy by more than 200 wins and everybody else not named Walter Johnson by at least 100. It was a different game in the late 19th and early 20th century, though.  I can pretty much guarantee you'll never see a pitcher repeat Young's 1892 season with Cleveland: 36 wins, 1.93 ERA, 453 IP.  But if we look at their entire careers and break it down to "average box score per appearance" here's what we get:

Young: 8.1 IP, 2.4 ER, 7.8 H, 1.3 BB, 3.1 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

Young got about 4 more outs per appearance, but he also allowed more baserunners and did not feature the strikeout as a weapon nearly as much as Johnson did.  So in today's game, you could argue that the strikeout pitcher might fare better than the pitch-deep-into-games-contact guy.  And let's not forget that Johnson spent his career facing the likes of Bonds, Pujols, Sosa, Canseco, McGwire, Frank Thomas, Belle, Bagwell, Helton, Piazza, Manny, Papi and others, whereas during Cy Young's monster 1892 season, Bug Holliday led baseball with 13 homeruns and Dan Brothers was batting champ at .335.  In 1908, when Young posted a career-best 1.26 ERA over 299 IP, Tim Jordan led baseball with 12 homeruns and Honus Wagner was probably one of the game's biggest offensive threats.  That year, H-Wag (they probably called him that back then) went .354/10/109 with 53 steals.

My argument isn't a whole lot different when it comes to Mathewson and Walter Johnson.  For comparison, here are their average pitching lines next to Randy's.

Mathewson: 7.5 IP, 1.8 ER, 6.6 H, 1.3 BB, 3.9 K
Big Train: 7.4 IP, 1.8 ER, 6.1 H, 1.7 BB, 4.4 K
Big Unit: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K 

Matthewson won 30 a total of four times and had five seasons of at least 25 wins and an ERA under 2.00 (as low as 1.14 in 1909).  But in 1909, Ty Cobb won the Triple Crown with a .377/9/107 season and 76 steals.  I don't know this for a fact, but I bet there were a lot of 2-1 and 3-2 games that year.

Walter Johnson, a two-time MVP and career shutouts leader (110) had his best year in 1913.  It was one of his two MVP campaigns and in earning the award, he went 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA, 11 shutouts and 243 strikeouts.  In 1913, no player topped 20 homeruns and just two topped 100 RBI.  By 1924, the game had started to change.  The Babe had arrived and smacked 46 homeruns (19 more than the next closest guy) and Rogers Hornsby hit .424.  Johnson went 23-7 with a 2.72 ERA, 6 shutouts and 158 strikeouts- not overly eye-popping, but good enough to win the MVP.

My point in all this is if you were to put some of these old-time, dead-ball-era pitchers on the mound against the 2009 Yankee lineup, I doubt they would pitch into the 8th inning.  And by head-to-head average box score, durability is their only clear advantage.

Gibson was probably the best pitcher in the 1960's while Carlton and Seaver shared that honor in the 1970's.  And because I think it works, let's showcase their average box scores next to Johnson's.

Gibson: 7.4 IP, 2.4 ER, 6.2 H, 2.5 BB, 5.9 K
Carlton: 7.0 IP, 2.5 ER, 6.3 H, 2.5 BB, 5.6 K
Seaver: 7.3 IP, 2.3 ER, 6.0 H, 2.1 BB, 5.6 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

Gibson won 20 five times, won an MVP and a Cy Young in 1968 (the year he went an astounding 22-9 with a 1.12 ERA, 13 shutouts, and 268 K's...sidenote: how did he lose 9 times?!) and another Cy Young in 1970.  But again, in 1968 one guy, Frank Howard, hit more than 40 homeruns.  Three guys drove in more than 100, and just six guys hit above .300.  Whereas that same year, 8 pitchers finished with an ERA below 2.00, 12 guys threw at least six shutouts, and seven guys won 20 or more.  All-time, Gibson currently ranks 14th (and could fall to 15th if John Smoltz notches 34 K's in 2010) on the strikeout list, and won just 251 games- 46th best all time, fewer than Jack Morris, Jamie Moyer, Mike Mussina, Jim Katt, and Bert Blyleven.

Carlton won 26 more games than Johnson but he also had the advantage of 123 more career appearances.  He also added four Cy Young awards, six 20-win seasons, and he led the league in strikeouts five times.  His best season was 1972, where he notched 30 complete games, went 27-10 with a 1.97 ERA and 310 K's.  But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, 1972 was another good year to be a pitcher.  Ten of them won 20 or more, 16 of them finished with ERAs of 2.50 or less, and only seven guys hit 30 homeruns.

With Tom Seaver, it's almost a tale of two careers.  There are his New York Met days where, between 1967 and 1977, he led the league in wins twice, ERA three times, strikeouts five times, WHIP three times, and strikeouts per 9 six times.  But in his nine seasons after 1977, he never won more than 16 games, had a sub-3.00 ERA twice, was an All-Star twice, and struck out more than 150 just once.  All told, he managed to win 311 games, Rookie of the Year, and three Cy Youngs.  Despite eclipsing 250 IP a total of 11 times, he never racked up 300 K's in a season but he did finish with a sub-2.50 ERA five times (again, all between 1968 and 1975).  So in many ways, Seaver was the anti-Johnson.  He was great at the beginning of his career, but just okay in the middle and end.  Had he been able to enjoy similar success (and health) with the Reds, I think Seaver's career numbers would compare more favorably with Johnson's, but that's simply not the case. 

And while Tom Terrific dominated during some of Johnny Bench, Willie Stargell, and Hank Aaron's best years, the head-to-head average box scores tell the true story.  When comparing all four, Carlton averaged one more out recorded, and Seaver and Gibson averaged two more than Johnson.  Earned runs and walks are very similar and while Johnson has a slight edge in hits, he has a sizeable advantage in K's, and in my opinion, an overall advantage against these three.

That leaves Johnson's contemporaries- Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens.  Both are ahead of Randy in the 300-win club (Maddux has 355, Clemens 354), and both boast an equally impressive number of awards.  Maddux won four Cy Youngs and 18 Gold Gloves while Clemens won seven Cy Youngs and an MVP. 

Unassuming but lethal, Maddux was unhittable in the 90's, leading the league in wins three times, ERA four times, complete games three times, innings pitched five straight times, WHIP four times (including in 1995 where he had allowed a sickening 0.88 baserunners per inning), and strikeout to walk ratio three times.  A true control artist, Maddux issued fewer than 50 walks in each of the final 15 years of his career and just 20 in 232 2/3 IP in 1997.

Clemens on the other hand, threw hard, was big and bad and had an up and down career with bouts of dominance in three decades.  He enjoyed baseball's lowest ERA in '86, '90-'92, '97-'98, and then again in '05.  He ranks just one slot and 203 strikeouts behind Randy Johnson on the all-time list and had six 20-win seasons.  But it's his inclusion in baseball's fact-finding steroids document known as the Mitchell Report that has some questioning the legitimacy of those numbers.  Clemens denies using PEDs but the proverbial "cloud of suspicion" coupled with former trainer Brian McNamee's allegations to the contrary will likely stick with him for years to come.  We'll see what HOF voters think in 2013.

That said, here's a look at their side-by-side average box scores, which are significant in that they played during the same era and pitched to a lot of the same guys:

Maddux: 6.7 IP, 2.4 ER, 6.4 H, 1.3 BB, 4.5 K
Clemens: 6.9 IP, 2.4 ER, 5.9 H, 2.2 BB, 6.6 K
Johnson: 6.7 IP, 2.5 ER, 5.4 H, 2.4 BB, 7.9 K

All three went about as deep into games, allowed about as many earned runs and baserunners, but despite the Rocket's proximity to Johnson on the all-time list, his per-appearance K totals are far behind.  Plus, unlike Clemens, Johnson's numbers are assumed to be clean.

A few final points about Randy Johnson, and why I consider him to be the greatest ever.  He achieved what he did and was at his best during, what most believe to be a drug-influenced era.  In the late 90's and early 00's, we saw hitters put up some of the greatest offensive numbers the game has ever seen and we also saw Johnson go from good to silly-good. 

In 1998, 13 players topped 40 homeruns, four topped 50, two topped 60, and one hit 70.  That same season, Johnson won 19 games and struck out 329 hitters.  In 1999, another 13 hitters topped 40 homeruns and the same two hit 60-plus.  Pitching in the same league as those two, Johnson led baseball with a 2.48 ERA, 12 CGs, and 364 strikeouts.  In 2000, 16 players hit 40 homeruns.  That same year, Johnson led baseball in winning percentage, starts, complete games, shutouts, and strikeouts.  In 2001 a total of 12 players hit 40+ and one man hit 73.  Another man had the best ERA, strikeout total (a career-best 372) and WHIP.  And in 2002 just as power numbers were beginning to come back to Earth (only eight topped 40 homeruns, and two topped 50) Johnson turned in perhaps his greatest season- a career-best 24 wins and 2.32 ERA, a fourth consecutive 325+ strikeout season, a fourth consecutive time leading baseball in K/9 and a fourth consecutive Cy Young.

He held future HOF'er Rickey Henderson (whom he faced more times than any other hitter) to a career .119 batting average and struck him out 30 times in 85 plate appearances.  In 62 career meetings he allowed 3 homeruns to Barry Bonds and none in 13 times up during his record-setting 2001.  Sammy Sosa's career OBP against Johnson is .274 over 62 PAs.  HOF'er Cal Ripken had a career OPS of .651 against the Big Unit in 61 times up.  Frank Thomas and Albert Belle both hit .233 against him, Mark McGwite .225, Gary Sheffield .209.  Todd Helton drove in two runs off Johnson in 50 meetings.  HOF'ers Paul Molitor and Dave Winfield hit .200 and .211 off him.  He struck out Jose Canseco 17 times in 25 meetings.  David Ortiz had a .494 OPS against Johnson over 28 plate appearances.  HOF'er Wade Boggs managed two singles and a walk in 18 times up.  Newly-voted-in Andre Dawson hit .133 in 15 at-bats.  And poor, poor Rafael Palmeiro.  In 21 plate appearances he reached base one time.  It was a single.

Johnson is a lock for first-ballot induction into the Hall and if ever there was going to be a unanimous selection, it should be him.  Given his career numbers, the time during which he pitched, and the juiced-up hitters he had to face, nobody was better.

Hall of Fame Voters Are Absolutely Nuts

I submit to you the following names as proof: Robin Ventura, Ellis Burks, Erik Karros, Kevin Appier, Pat Hentgen, and David Segui.  Each of these players, All-Stars and award winners though they might have been, are not by any stretch of the imagination Hall of Famers.  Yet, each one of them received votes today.  A few of them even appeared on multiple ballots! 

Ventura appeared on the most- seven, which is one more than the number of Gold Gloves he won at third base.  But he's a career .267 hitter who slugged 294 homeruns, made a pair of All-Star games, got votes for Rookie of the Year, MVP twice, and had 1885 hits in 16 seasons.  In other words, he had a nice, long career and was a solid player.  But does he belong in Cooperstown?  C'mon.

Offensively, you could probably make the strongest "case" for Burks.  He was a two-time All Star, got MVP votes twice, won a Gold Glove and two Silver Sluggers while finishing with 352 homeruns, 2,107 hits, 181 steals and a .291 average over 18 seasons.  And his 1996 season in Colorado was one to remember- .344, 40 homeruns, 142 runs, 128 RBI, 93 XBH, 32 steals, and an OPS of 1.047!  But his name still doesn't belong between Jesse Burkett and Roy Campanella.

While all these Hall of Fame votes are astonishing, the David Segui ballot is the one that truly makes me think there are mental patients in the BBWAA.  Segui was never an All-Star, never won a major award, and never even received votes for a major award.  So if you're scoring at home Segui got more Hall of Fame votes than he got MVP votes in 15 seasons. 

And it's not like he had a bunch of good-but-under-the-radar seasons.  The most homeruns Segui ever hit in a year: 21.  Number of times he appeared in at least 150 games in a season: 1.  Number of 100 RBI seasons: 1.  Number of mentions in the Mitchell Report: 1.  Number of public steroid-use admissions: at least 1.  His best season, by far was 2000 when he went .334/19/103 in 150 games.  These were all career highs achieved right smack-dab in the middle of the Steroids Era.

Nothing against Segui.  Good for him for admitting he cheated, and good for him for notching almost 6,000 plate appearances.  I'd just love to talk with the guy who thinks he deserves a spot between Tom Seaver and Joe Sewell in baseball immortality.