On Friday, when I was writing about Carl Yastrzemski, I thought about Willie Mays. Anecdotally, when we think of the worst-ever final season by a great player, we think of Mays wasting away on the Mets. But is that really the example we should think of, or is it simply the most well-known? With both Vladimir Guerrero and Todd Helton announcing their retirement over the weekend further adding fuel to the fire, I figured I’d dig in and see if we could look at this a little more objectively. I’ll be splitting this into four posts — two for hitters, and two for pitchers.

Read the rest of this entry »

There are at least three remarkable things about Carl Yastrzemski’s playing career. The first is that he played forever. Second, he hit for the American League triple crown in 1967. But third, and most importantly, nobody played the Green Monster like Yaz. I asked my father about it, as he became eligible to vote during Yaz’s rookie season, and he put it simply: “He had it all mapped out.” With the Red Sox belatedly deciding that it’s time to erect a statue in honor of Yaz (I mean, come on, Frank Thomas already has his statue at US Cellular Field) I thought we could take a look back at Yaz’s career.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Giants have not had a great year, to put it plainly. In first place as late as May 26, things went south in a hurry, and they have spent most of August in last place. The race for the bottom in the National League West remains tight — only two games separate the third-place Rockies and last-place Giants. Still, the team’s predicament begs the question of whether or not San Francisco will be the next member in the selective first-to-worst club.

Read the rest of this entry »

In 2003, the city of Boston wasn’t exactly desperate for the winter, but they were longing for one. Yes, the Patriots had won at 2002’s outset, but Boston has never been a Patriots town, and when they followed that up with a 9-7 season that ended without a playoff appearance, they lost their grip on the public. The Celtics and Bruins had reliably made the playoffs, but even though the Celtics put up a good fight in 2002, neither won their respective conferences.

So the eyes of Boston turned back, as they tend to do, to the Red Sox. And they were hopeful. The team had won 93 games in 2002, but that still left them six games shy of the postseason. Even under today’s new Wild Card rules they would have missed out, as the Twins finished 1.5 games ahead of them (of course, who knows what would have happened had the rules actually been different, I’m just saying there were lots of good teams that year).

Read the rest of this entry »

Not everyone liked Dave Parker. Certainly the fans who threw things at him in the Pittsburgh outfield, slashed the roof of his convertible and even threatened his life could be counted in this camp. Pundits who may have poured cold water on Parker’s Hall of Fame candidacy thanks to his involvement in the Pittsburgh Drug Trials might also find themselves in this camp. But whether you loved him or hated him, Parker was always one of the game’s most entertaining and best players, and his recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease shouldn’t overshadow that fact.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hitting triples is pretty hard. At the height of triple-icity, they only comprised six percent of all the hits in the majors in any given season, and that was back in the first Dead Ball era. Today that figure hovers around two percent. Back in Stan Musial’s day it wasn’t a great deal higher — 3.3 percent during the seasons of his career (1941-1963, with 1945 excepted). And yet, Musial, a power hitter, hit the heck out of some triples.

Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone remembers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. The duo pitched 11 years together in Brooklyn and in Los Angeles. Together, the pair  helped the Dodgers reach the Fall Classic five times, three of which their team won. But there’s a good chance  they wouldn’t have won their third and World Series title without the help of their third wheel, Claude Osteen.

One of just 56 players to debut in the majors at or before the age of 17, Osteen pitched  18 seasons for the Reds, Senators, Astros, Cardinals and White Sox — in addition to the Dodgers. It was there, in Los Angeles, where his presence was felt most. The Dodgers acquired Osteen in a trade with the Senators that included Frank Howard, so they didn’t exactly get him cheap. But the Dodgers certainly got their money’s worth, especially since it took several years before Howard became a star. Osteen, meanwhile, was a Dodger from 25 to 33 years old and spent the bulk that time outworking his competitors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Much of the time, the pitcher who starts the All-Star Game is very deserving, and is very obvious. It may not be the most-deserving pitcher mind you, but the selection is generally someone good enough that the selection is not worth arguing. This year is such a year: Both Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey rank second in their respective league in WAR, and are close enough to the front runners (Felix Hernandez and Adam Wainwright) as to make the differences negligible. But that hasn’t always been the case. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at some of the starting pitchers who weren’t quite as deserving.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Cuddyer just finished going streaking. His 27-game streak, which lasted from May 28th to June 30th, was the longest since Dan Uggla’s 33-gamer in 2011. While he didn’t reach the 30-game benchmark that many sites use, 27 games is nothing to shake a stick at — Cuddyer’s streak was just the 135th of 25 or more games since 1916 that happened during the same season (there were also 18 that spanned two seasons, but I don’t count those. If you have a problem with that you can go suck a lemon). I didn’t have the time to go through all of those streaks, but I did have a chance to take a look at the streaks of 30 or more games, and I thought we could put Cuddyer’s streak into perspective.

Read the rest of this entry »