Jim Gentile’s big-league career was filled with peaks and valleys. Short in duration — seven full seasons preceded by two cups of coffee — it was bookended by a lack of opportunity. In between, Gentile was a beast with the bat. From 1960-1964, the slugging first baseman logged a 139 wRC+ and made three All-Star teams. His 1961 campaign was Brobdingnagian. Playing for the Baltimore Orioles, “Diamond Jim” slashed .302/.423/.646 with 46 home runs and 141 RBIs — the last of those numbers being noteworthy for more reasons that one. Five decades later, it made his bank account just a little bit bigger.

Gentile — now 86 years young — reminisced about his bygone career over the phone earlier this summer.

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David Laurila: You were signed out of (a San Francisco) high school by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. What was that experience like for you?

Jim Gentile: “Well, we didn’t have a draft. Once you graduated, you hoped your phone rang. I knew I was going to get signed, it was just a matter of with who. I talked to the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Phillies, and then the Dodgers scout came over last. We had dinner with him at the house, and we liked their offer. I signed for a bonus of $30,000 with a Double-A contract. Once I got a big-league contract, I got $7,500 more.

“This was in June of ’52 and they said, ‘Let’s wait until ’53; then you can go out to spring training.’ So I was home, and around August they called and said that one of the pitchers in Santa Barbara — that was the California State League, Class C — had gotten hurt. Would I like to go down there and see what professional baseball was like?

“I walked into the clubhouse, and [manager] George Scherger met me. We talked, then he handed me a baseball and said, ‘You’re pitching tonight.’ [San Jose] had just signed two guys for $80,000, and Marty Keough for $125,000. They were all my age, but starting out in Class C. I pitched against them. I had a no-hitter for seven innings, then they beat me in the eighth inning, The score was 3-2.”

Laurila: So your first professional game went pretty well…

Gentile: “Yes, but after that it was ‘Get the married men off the infield,’ because they started hitting me all over the place. I won two and lost six. The two I won, I won with my own home runs, so when ’53 came around they asked if I wanted to pitch or play first. I said, ‘I really like to hit, so let’s try first base.’ They put me at first, and that’s where I stayed. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Hall had a long and remarkable career, and at 90 years young, his memory remains strong. There’s a lot for him to reminisce about. Originally an infielder/outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates — he debuted in 1952 — Hall converted to the mound in 1955 and went on to pitch for 16 big-league seasons.

A right-hander who both started and relieved, Hall had his best years with the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he had 65 wins, 60 saves, and a 2.89 ERA over two stints and nine seasons. His career culminated with three consecutive Fall Classics, the middle of which saw Baltimore beat the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970 World Series. All told, Hall pitched eight-and-two-thirds postseason innings without allowing an earned run.

Hall discussed his career shortly before becoming a nonagenarian in late September.

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David Laurila: You pitched for a long time, but only after starting your career as a position player. How did that come about?

Dick Hall: “Well, there was no draft when I signed with the Pirates in the fall of 1951. I then started playing in their minor league system in 1952, and after my
second season — after the 1953 season — they sent me down to Mazatlán, Mexico
to get further experience. I was a second baseman/outfielder in those days. Mazatlán almost sent me home, but then I changed the grip on my bat and started hitting home runs. Mazatlán calls Pittsburgh and said, ‘We’ll keep him after all.’

“I set the league home run record, so they welcomed me back the next year. I told the manager, ‘Look, I pitched all the time in high school, college, and semi-pro,’ so if he wanted, I could pitch. One Sunday we were up in Hermosillo, which is a few hours from Arizona, and we played a four-game series which included a doubleheader on Sunday. We carried four pitchers. We had a Cuban pitcher, a Mexican pitcher, and two from the United States. Anyway, on Sunday they scored a couple runs early. Our starting pitcher ran into huge trouble, so the manager called me in from center field. I ended up pitching six-and-a-third innings and gave up one single. Read the rest of this entry »

Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I’ve been spending most of my time watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. From a workflow standpoint, it makes sense for me to prioritize and complete my evaluations of these prospects before my time is divided between theoretical fall instructional ball, which has just gotten underway, and college fall practices and scrimmages, which will have outsized importance this year due to the lack of both meaningful 2020 college stats and summer wood bat league looks because of COVID-19.

I started with the National League East, then completed my look at the American League West and Central. Below is my assessment of the AL East, covering players who have appeared in big league games. The results of the changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on The Board, though I try to provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s well-chronicled that the Twins have now lost 18 consecutive postseason games. What it isn’t is well-explained, and that’s for good reason. A streak this torturous is inexplicable. Getting swept in a short series is by no means uncommon, but having it happen repeatedly, at the worst possible time, is soul-crushingly rare.

Derek Falvey was asked about the failings when he met with the media following Wednesday’s elimination. Moreover, he was asked what can be done to reverse those fortunes in Octobers to come. Minnesota’s Chief Baseball Officer answered as best he could, but again, what’s beset his club is inexplicable.

I introduced that angle in a follow-up question near the end of Falvey’s session: Given the randomness of short series, is there truly anything that can be done to flip the postseason script? Are the Twins akin to the pre-2004 Red Sox in that they’ll only win once the Baseball Gods deem it time for them to win?

“I hear your perspective on trying to make sure we don’t overreact to some history,” responded Falvey. “We want to make sure that we assess this as objectively as we can… but I do think there is some reality that in a baseball season, over the course of two or three, or four or five games, things can go a little haywire on you — even if you feel you have a good foundation. Maybe if you played those games all over again, you might have a different result. I get that. That speaks to your question a little bit about randomness. Read the rest of this entry »

The Baltimore Orioles have guaranteed that they will finish below the .500 mark after dropping four of five games to the Tampa Bay Rays. After playing relevant baseball for a good chunk of this shortened season and hovering in wild card contention into early September, fighting with the Red Sox to stay out of the AL East basement might be a disappointing result to some. As a suburban Baltimore native — like Elaine Benes, I’m from Towson — I can’t deny that the Orioles making the playoffs would’ve been cool, even with the COVID-19 restrictions preventing me from sneaking out of the press box for some pit beef. The 2020 season is unsuccessful from the point-of-view of the standings, but in terms of building a future contender, the O’s made real progress.

When it comes to roster construction, my personal credo is that if you can’t add good players, add interesting ones. I feel that even in a season that’s lost from a qualifying-for-the-playoffs perspective, there are no lost at-bats or innings pitched. Rebuilding isn’t just adding a bunch of players in the draft and seeing what happens; it’s a process of finding out every bit of information about your talent that you can. Even in just 60 games, the Orioles know a lot more about their roster than they did at the start of the year. The team has some veterans, but in most cases, they made sure to find playing time for a large percentage of the players with a plausible future in Baltimore.

We learned a lot about the players in the end, and for many of them, I feel better about a larger role in 2021 and beyond than I did before this season. And because it’s me, let’s just throw in some (preliminary) 2021-25 ZiPS projections. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s column leads with three perspectives on minor-league contraction, which is slated to occur once the current CBA expires at the end of this month. At least 40 teams are expected to lose affiliated status when that happens, with entire regions of the country finding themselves devoid of professional baseball. A wide-ranging look at the business side of the proposed contraction was provided here at FanGraphs, courtesy of SABR CEO Scott Bush, earlier in the week.

Today we’ll hear from a pair of broadcasters, each of whom paid his dues down on the farm before reaching the big leagues, and from an MLB general manager.

Joe Block, Pittsburgh Pirates broadcaster:

“It’s a two-way street, because I can see where the economics makes sense for Major League Baseball. They’re trying to streamline the minor leagues, and I can see the rationale for that. There maybe are too many teams; there are so many organizational players, as opposed to actual prospects. Realigning some of the leagues makes sense for easier travel. From a business standpoint, those things make a lot of sense to me.

“At the same time, I worked in Billings and in Great Falls. Those were two of the greatest experiences of my life, and not just my baseball life. I was living in Montana during the summers. I know how important [baseball] is to folks that live there. The winters are brutal, so having a ball game to watch, a family event… the team is a fabric of the communities in those particular towns.”

Dave Raymond, Texas Rangers brodcaster

“Contraction will be very tough on young broadcasters. Minor League Baseball is the training ground. [Play-by-play] takes time to figure out, to become comfortable with your voice, how to present the game every night. how you control that action. There are executives at the Major League level who, when I’ve applied for jobs, told me, ‘I’ve got to see at least a minimum of 500 games in the minor leagues before we would really even consider a guy.’ It might be 1,000 games.

“Now we’ll be dealing with a smaller pool of potential broadcasters. The guy who would have had a job for a team that gets contracted might have been the next Vin Scully. If he never gets the opportunity, we’ll never know. Plus, even if it doesn’t materialize in the ultimate — a big-league play-by-play job — for so many people, simply getting to call games is a realization of a dream. It would be disappointing for young guys, and gals, to miss out on that opportunity if there is indeed contraction. Read the rest of this entry »

Geoff Arnold knows the East. Not only do the Baltimore Orioles, the team he serves as a play-by-play announcer for, compete in the American League East, their inter-league schedule this year is solely comprised of the National League East. As a result, Arnold has been getting regular looks at two of the game’s most intriguing divisions. Surprises, both pleasant and not so pleasant, are present in both.

How would Arnold rank the teams and players he’s seen this season? That was the crux of a conversation I had with the radio (and sometimes TV) voice of the Orioles prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: Which is the best team you’ve seen this year?

Geoff Arnold: “The best team I’ve seen this year is probably the Tampa Bay Rays. They’ve got a really good starting rotation. We saw Tyler Glasnow when he was at his absolute best, and Blake Snell has obviously got great stuff. They’ve also got some hitters that can really make you pay for mistakes. They’re an extremely patient team; they get to 3-2 counts and work these long at-bats. I think their batting average on 3-2 counts might have been the highest in baseball when we last saw them.

“What Kevin Cash has done managing that bullpen… there were some guys they’d bring in and it was like, ‘I don’t know who these people are,’ yet he knew how to slide them into these specific roles — just like he figures out how to get enough production from their offense. Kevin Cash seems to know every right button to push. I’d say the Rays are the toughest team I’ve seen in the AL East, and probably the best overall.”

Laurila: What about in the NL East? Read the rest of this entry »

Wracked by injuries and currently running fourth in the NL East at 15-20 — but even so just two games out of the eighth playoff spot — the Mets added a trio of players via separate deadline deals with the Rangers and Orioles on Monday. While catcher Robinson Chirinos and infielder Todd Frazier are the more familiar names and could have relevance beyond this season, it’s reliever Miguel Castro who will probably have the most staying power. Each addition addresses an area of need, though their 2020 impact might be minimal, and the hard-throwing righty did cost them a prospect of note as well as either a player to be named later or cash.

On a team that lost Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman to an opt-out, then sent Michael Wacha and now Steven Matz to the Injured List with shoulder woes, the Mets have raided their bullpen to draft Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo into the rotation alongside Jacob deGrom, Rick Porcello, and rookie David Peterson. Particularly with Dellin Betances joining the IL due to right lat tightness, the need for competent relief work became particularly acute, and the addition of Castro, a 25-year-old righty with a live arm, helps to remedy that. Castro’s two-seam fastball averages 97.7 mph and goes as high as 99; as Ben Clemens recently observed, when he’s facing lefties, he tends to use his changeup as a secondary pitch, while against righties, he goes to his slider as an alternative. The fastball is even more hittable than most, but the secondary pitches are very good.

While Castro, who debuted with the Blue Jays in 2015 but still has two years of arbitration eligibility remaining, got rather mediocre results in 2019 (4.66 ERA, 4.73 FIP in 73.1 innings), this year, he’s pitched markedly better (4.02 ERA, 3.71 FIP in 15.2 innings). His strikeout rate has spiked from 22.3% to 34.3%, while his walk rate has fallen from 12.8% to 7.1%; as a result, his K-BB% has nearly tripled, from 9.4% to 27.2%. His home run rate has climbed from 1.23 per nine to 1.72, but at the same time, his batted ball profile has taken on a different shape — harder contact but more grounders, and a ridiculous HR/FB rate:

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like new Rockies pitcher Mychal Givens has had a robust trade market each of the last two summers, both because he is a good pitcher and because he has multiple years of team control left. The Orioles finally pulled the trigger on a deal for him and scooped up three prospects from the Rockies: Terrin Vavra, Tyler Nevin, and a player to be named later.

Givens has thrown 336 innings across parts of six seasons with the Orioles and has amassed a 3.32 career ERA (he’s sporting a cool 1.38 ERA this year) and struck out just shy of 11 hitters per nine (roughly 33% K%) during that time. His strikeout rate has climbed each of the last two years as Givens increased the usage of his changeup, which had previously been a distant tertiary pitch behind his fastball and a slider.

But Givens still works heavily with that mid-90s fastball (nearly 70% of the time), which averages 94 mph and tops out at 98. In addition to having a great arm, the right-hander has a unique low-slot delivery that lets him attack hitters in the top half of the zone from an odd angle. For how terse and explosive Givens’ delivery is, he has good feel for locating his secondary stuff to each pitch’s appropriate zip code and he adds stability to a Rockies bullpen filled with pitchers who have a history of being rather wild. Read the rest of this entry »

With half of the season in the books, the Atlanta Braves are holding down first place in the National League East. In this season of expanded playoffs, that translates to a 92.4% chance of reaching the postseason. Accordingly, they’re buyers at the trade deadline, with an eye towards shoring up their postseason rotation. To that end, they made a deal with the Orioles today, acquiring starting pitcher Tommy Milone in exchange for two players to be named later:

Atlanta #Braves Acquire Tommy Milone: pic.twitter.com/y2mO0iyqgp

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) August 30, 2020

Wait, Tommy Milone? He’s an odd addition to a team that looks like a lock to make the playoffs; Atlanta is looking for players to help in the postseason, not help them get there, and Milone is more the latter than the former.

They’ve struggled mightily with rotation depth, however, as expected starters Mike Soroka and Cole Hamels are on the shelf with injury. Hamels could theoretically return for the playoffs, but that’s iffy at best, and Soroka is out for the year. Ten different players have made starts for Atlanta this season, hardly the stability they’d hoped for. Milone can, if nothing else, provide them with bulk innings. For a pitching staff that’s already running out Robbie Erlin, Josh Tomlin, and rookie Ian Anderson, that’s quite valuable. Read the rest of this entry »