Sunday Notes: Ever Introspective, Charlie Morton Isn’t Quite Ready To Go Home
Charlie Morton met with the Baltimore media over Zoom a few days ago, and as would be expected, the 41-year-old right-hander was equal parts thoughtful and engaging. That’s who Morton is. Much for that reason, I made it a point to join in on the session.
His response to a question from Matt Weyrich was classic Morton. The Baltimore Sun scribe asked the introspective veteran of 14 big-league seasons if he sees himself as a role model and/or mentor for a comparably inexperienced staff.
“I’d love to say that I have the answers,” replied Morton, whom the Orioles inked to a one-year deal worth $15 million. “I don’t. I think that, as an individual, you fit in in different ways with different groups of guys. I’m not going to be the same guy that I was with the Rays, in the clubhouse. I’m not going to be the same guy I was with the Astros or the Braves. Each person in those rooms, they’re just a piece of that larger puzzle. While I am the same person, there are different factors that direct you towards behaving a certain way… the value to a person, in the clubhouse, is the human being that they are.”
As much as baseball is in his blood, Morton is a family man. In August 2023, shortly before his 40th birthday, I asked him how much longer he could continue to defy Father Time and excel against baseball’s best hitters. He told me that he doesn’t think about it that way. Rather, he viewed it as “When am I going to go home?” Blessed with a wife and kids, Morton has pondered walking away from the game he loves for several years running. As the 2024 campaign was winding down, he once again thought there was “a really good chance [this] was going to be my last year.”
That’s he’s continued to perform well enough to not have the decision made for him is a big part of his story. Going from “Ground Chuck” to a pitcher who misses bats helped allow that to happen. Echoing what he told me back in 2017, his first season with the Astros, Morton related to the Baltimore beat writers that his career-altering transformation took place upon his arrival in Houston.
“They had a little board room and a projection screen with charts and graphs, and they were suggesting to me to throw pitches in locations where I would get no swings, or a swing-and-miss,” explained Morton, who has enjoyed markedly more success since revamping his pitching style. “For seven years with Pittsburgh, I was trying to get the ball on the ground with three pitches or less, and now they’re telling me, ‘Don’t let them hit it’… you’re not relying on the fate of where the ball is going, you are relying on your stuff.”
Which brings us back to where he’s going now, which is Baltimore and at least one more season on a big-league mound. Morton admitted to having been on the fence as to whether he even wanted to hear if there were any offers this winter, but when the Orioles called, the situation sounded right. Not only would he be getting a chance to pitch for a legitimate World Series contender, it would “work logistically with myself and my family.”
When Morton does finally decide to “go home,” saying goodbye to the game will come with a heavy heart. Given the way he approaches life, it will also come with a healthy dose of reflection.
“I don’t know about the desire to play baseball going away,” said Morton, who had a 4.19 ERA and a 4.46 FIP over 165-and a -third innings with the Atlanta Braves in 2024. “I don’t think that will ever happen. I think it’s just a recognition that it’s time.”
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Ben Zobrist went 10 for 25 against Andy Pettitte.
Manny Ramirez went 14 for 24 against CC Sabathia.
Adam Jones went 16 for 41 against Mark Buehrle.
Jimmy Rollins went 4 for 11 against Francisco Rodriguez.
Ian Kinsler went 6 for 18 against Fernando Rodney.
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Several people have asked me why I put a checkmark next to Andy Pettitte’s name, and not next to Mark Buehrle’s, on my Hall of Fame ballot. Here is a brief explanation:
Pettitte had 68.2 fWAR, four seasons with a fWAR of five or higher, a 3.74 FIP, and 256 wins, Buehrle had 52.3 fWAR, one season with a fWAR of five or higher, a 4.11 FIP, and 214 wins. Pettitte also has the more robust postseason resume. (The degree to which postseason should be valued — ditto win totals — is obviously subjective. Nonetheless, each is part of a player’s résumé.) With all due respect to Buehrle — an accomplished pitcher who made five All-Star teams and was awarded four Gold Gloves — I feel that Pettitte is the more deserving of the two, As for whether I should have voted for both, the 10-player limit is an obstacle. My voting for Buehrle in the future remains a possibility.
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Who was better, Félix Hernández or Jon Lester? The latter becomes Hall-eligible in two years — King Felix debuted this year and got my vote — so I asked that question in a Twitter poll. The results weren’t close. Lester received a paltry 16.7% of the votes cast, while Hernández got a whopping 83.3%. Given their respective numbers — put up in nearly the same number of innings — as well as their awards and honors, I expected a closer race.
Hernández went 169-136 with a 117 ERA+, a 3.52 FIP, and 54.0 fWAR. Lester, who pitched for better teams, went 200-117 with a 117 ERA+, a 3.78 FIP, and 46.2 fWAR.
Hernández was a six-time All-Star, won a Cy Young Award, a pair of ERA titles, and threw a perfect game. Lester was a five-time All-Star who won three World Series rings (two with the Red Sox, one with the Cubs). His Fall Classic résumé includes a 4-1 record and a 1.77 ERA, while his overall postseason ERA was 2.51 over 154 innings. He also has an LCS MVP to his credit.
Will Lester get my vote when he becomes Hall-eligible? That’s yet to be determined. He has a valid argument, regardless of whether his career is deemed as impressive as Félix’s.
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I also ran a poll asking which of Derek Jeter or Ichiro Suzuki was better. I won’t bother to cite any of their numbers — what the first-ballot Hall of Famers did over of the course of their careers is well known — but I will pass along the results.
Ichiro garnered 79.1% of the votes cast. Jeter received just 20.9%. Make of that what you will.
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One more on the Hall of Fame:
I’m of the opinion that Firpo Marberry deserves a plaque in Cooperstown. The first MLB pitcher prominently utilized as a “closer,” Marberry led the American League in saves six times, and in appearances another six times. Moreover, he did so while also serving as a starter. Playing primarily for the Washington Senators — the right-hander also took the mound for the Detroit Tigers, and very briefly the New York Giants — Marberry logged a 148-88 won-lost record, 101 saves (B-Ref has him with 99), and a 116 ERA+ across the 1923-1936 seasons . His best year was 1929, when he went 19-12 with 11 saves while starting 23 games and coming out of the bullpen 26 times. His top saves totals were 22, 16, and 15, those in seasons where no other hurler reached double digits.
Given his body of work and pioneer status, Frederick “Firpo” Marberry would be a worthy Hall of Famer.
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A quiz:
Cal Ripken Jr. drew 1,129 walks, the most in Baltimore Orioles history. Which Oriole has drawn the second most walks? (A hint: He is the franchise’s all-time leader in reaching base via HBP.)
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
Bob Veale, a left-hander who won 120 games while pitching primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates in a career that spanned the 1962-1974 seasons, died on January 7 at age 89. A flame-throwing Birmingham, Alabama native who made a pair of NL All-Star teams, Veale led the senior circuit with 250 strikeouts in 1964.
Felix Mantilla, a native of Isabela, Puerto Rico who spent the first six of his 11 big-league seasons with the Milwaukee Braves, died on Friday at age 90. An infielder/outfielder, Mantilla had his best year in 1964 when hit 30 home runs with the Boston Red Sox. Two years earlier, he was in the starting lineup when the New York Mets played their first game in franchise history.
Brian Matusz, a left-hander who pitched in 280 games for the Baltimore Orioles, and in one game for Chicago Cubs, from 2009-2016, died earlier this month at age 37. No cause of death has been reported.
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The answer to the quiz is Brady Anderson, who walked 927 times as an Oriole. His franchise-most HBP total was 148.
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A random obscure former player snapshot:
Ray Culp was a shrewd trade acquisition for the Red Sox in November 1967. Less than two months after losing the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston received the 26-year-old right-hander from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Bill Schlesinger and a PTBNL (Al Montreuil), a nondescript duo whose combined careers comprised all of six games and one hit in a dozen at-bats. Culp’s career was far more distinguished. At his best in his first four Boston seasons — this before arm woes entered the equation — the Elgin, Texas native went 64-44 with a 3.34 ERA over 937 innings. All told, Culp won 122 games pitching for the Cubs, Red Sox, and initially the Philadelphia Phillies, from 1963-1973.
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
NPB’s Seibu Lions signed a pair of players who saw action in MLB this year. Right-hander Trey Wingenter made a smattering of appearances with the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, while Tyler Nevin played in 87 games for the Oakland Athletics.
Hiroto Takahashi is working to add a two-seamer to his repertoire (per Yahoo Japan). The Chunichi Dragons right-hander went 12-4 with a 1.38 ERA, and just 107 hits allowed in 143-and-two-thirds innings, this past season. Takahashi turned 22 in August.
Alex Wells is 5-1 with a 1.56 ERA over 52 innings for the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox. The 27-year-old southpaw made 13 appearances with the Baltimore Orioles across the 2021-2022 seasons.
Brennon McNair is slashing .254/.361/.574 with a circuit-best 11 home runs in 145 plate appearances for the ABL’s Brisbane Bandits. The 21-year-old infielder/outfielder in the Kansas City Royals organization had a .660 OPS last year with the High-A Columbia Fireflies.
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What has been the best game of your life? I asked that question to a number of players this past season, originally for a standalone piece that ran in early June, and subsequently for inclusion in a handful of Sunday Notes columns. Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Colin Holderman was among those to share his memories.
“I was at Heartland Community College, it was one of our first games of the year, and we were playing Walters State,” Holderman told me at PNC Park in late September. “I went eight innings, and I think I struck out 12. I also went 3-for-4 with two homers, one of them a go-ahead homer in the eighth. They were the No. 1 team in the country for junior college, and we were No. 2, so it was a pretty big matchup. That put us on top of the leaderboard. It’s something I think about often, so that would probably have to be my best overall game.”
The right-hander considers an immaculate inning he threw against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 4, 2023 his “biggest big-league moment.” It was his first immaculate inning at any level, and he turned the trick throwing “one sinker, the rest were cutters and sweepers.”
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
At CBS Sports, Mike Snyder addressed a number of false Hall of Fame narratives, including the misguided belief that the Hall is getting watered down.
Baseball America gave us minor league park factors for 2024 (subscription required).
Baseball America surveyed evaluators on the current state of scouting (unlike most BA articles, this is not behind a paywall).
The Kansas City Royals had Brent Rooker on their roster late in the 2022 season, only to lose him to the Oakland Athletics via the waiver wire. Max Rieper wrote about the ill-fated decision to cut Rooker loose, at Royals Review.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Justin Verlander is 24-24 with a 4.42 ERA in his career against the Cleveland Indians/Guardians. The 24 losses are his most against any team. The most losses Verlander has against any other club is 14, against the Chicago White Sox.
Clayton Kershaw is 11-0 with a 2.03 ERA in 17 career starts against the New York Mets. He is 4-7 with a 2.73 ERA in 17 career starts against the Philadelphia Phillies.
In 1968, Baltimore Orioles left-hander Dave McNally went 22-10 with a 1.95 ERA over 273 innings. He had a 5.3% walk rate and a .202 BABIP-against.
Melvin Mora had a three-year stretch (2003-2005) with the Orioles where his average season included a .312/.391/.513 slash line, 23 home runs, a 142 wRC+, and 5.1 WAR.
Juan Marichal and Brooks Robinson were elected to the Hall of Fame on today’s date in 1983. Robinson was on the ballot for the first time. Marichal was on the ballot for the third time.
On today’s date in 1982, the Minnesota Twins selected Kirby Puckett third overall in the January phase of the MLB draft out of Triton College. The first two picks were Kash Beauchamp, by the Toronto Blue Jays, and Troy Afenir, by the Chicago Cubs.
Players born on today’s date include Nigel Wilson, an outfielder who had three hits in 35 at-bats while playing for the Florida Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, and Cleveland Indians across parts of the 1993-1996 seasons. The Oshawa, Ontario native had far more success in Japan, logging 37, 33, and 37 home runs in his three full seasons with NPB’s Nippon Ham Fighters.
Also born on today’s date was Togie Pittinger, a right-hander who went 115-113 pitching for the Boston Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies from 1900-1907. The Greencastle, Pennsylvania native won 27 games in 1902, then lost an NL-worst 22 games the following year. His 1903 season also saw him surrender the most earned runs, hits, home runs, and walks. Pittinger did hit his only career home run that year, going yard against left-hander Luther Taylor, who won 116 games after signing with the New York Giants out of the Kansas School for the Deaf.
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
I had Eddie Murray, who is 5th with 884, although he is only 5 behind Boog Powell and Ken Singleton.
The HBP hint should have helped me more. I forgot that Anderson got hit so much. I would have thought Murray got hit more than 15 times in 12 years with the O’s because power hitters in that era liked to crowd the plate.
I considered Singleton, Boog Powell and Brooks Robinson. Singleton was a big walk guy, but, he didn’t have the games played in Baltimore as the other 2.
Ended up going Brooks because he played so long.
Never even thought of Brady Anderson.
#2 in franchise history is Harland Clift with 986 walks. He played all his games for the St. Louis Browns. Shouldn’t that be the quiz answer? I realize he never played for the Orioles but it is the same franchise and Baseball-Reference lists him as second in Orioles history.
Anyway, I also went with Brooks Robinson. Hard to believe he played 20+ years and didn’t have more walks.
Yeah, I thought the same thing. With 23 years in, I thought he’d have the most for sure.
Yep, I had Harland Clift and now I feel vindicated.
(This is obviously a lie)
Yeah Murray is the obvious pick and the one I chose because he played for the Orioles for a long time and hit well. But when I looked it up I was surprised to see Brady Anderson only had 600 less PAs for the Orioles than Murray did.
Amazing that early mid-80’s Orioles had 2 of the top 8 (Ripken #7 with 12,883, Murray #8 with 12,817) in all time PA’s in Murray & Ripken. They won the WS in 1983, but, that’s the only playoff berth with those 2 & once you get past 1984 those teams were awful.
BTW, Brooks Robinson is 25th all time in PA’s with 11,782. I still think he was the obvious pick because they all came with Baltimore, but, “only” 860 BB. & while his defense was other worldly, he wasn’t like Mark Belanger where he was an offensive zero. Slightly above average overall (which is pretty good considering he had about 1500 really poor PA’s between ages 18-21, 38-40) with a decent peak from 1962-71.
Yeah I decided against Robinson because he wasn’t a masher, but it’s true that he played way longer for Baltimore than Murray did.
Completely forgot about the January draft.
I imagine there are other MLB transaction rules or processes that were abolished 20+ years ago (I think the January draft was closer to 40) and I have forgotten. What a blast from the past.
I appreciate you taking the time to acknowledge how you voted with Pettite vs Buehrle. One thing I’d emphasize is that FIP doesn’t accurately represent Buehrle. His ERA of 3.81 is far lower than the career 4.11 FIP. Because of his ability to induce weak contact, not recognized by FIP, it’s better to use a runs allowed WAR. You’re unintentionally penalizing Buehrle for being too good at preventing runs by using FIP, which is why RA/9 WAR is more accurate.
Pettite was closer to his FIP, though his ERA was higher. So using his fWAR makes him sound better than he is.
I use to be very dogmatic when it came to using fWAR as well, but looking back at career totals I actually think looking at their RA/9 WAR becomes more important as FIP misses a lot and it’s better to recognize how they did in general at preventing runs.
Thanks for the explanation though!
Normally fWAR is the better choice because defense confounds the pitching, where the pitcher always has the same defense behind them and so you can never separate the two. But Buehrle is a weird case because Buehrle’s own defense was awesome. In cases like Buehrle, who is partially responsible for his own non-pitching, you should probably use RA9 WAR. Finding a way to separate defense means separating his own defense, which is part of why he beat his peripherals.
I don’t think he’s a Hall of Famer but he and Pettite have super similar records (the big differences being Pettite’s PED usage and postseason innings).
We are thinking the same thoughts again. I looked into the defense behind the two more closely. Pettitte’s teams were -134.1 dRAR and Buehrle’s were -108.5.
Pettitte:
95 – 03 Yankees: -101.6 (31st during that stretch)
04 – 06 Astros: +67 (5th)
07 – 13 Yankees: -99.5 (25th)
Buehrle:
00 – 11 White Sox -77.7 (21st)
12 Marlins: -13.1 (21st)
13 – 16 Blue Jays: -17.7 (17th)
Buehrle played great defense, but he was only in the field for 200 innings a year out of 1450 or so and the pitcher doesn’t get a lot of plays to make. I’m sure his defense helped his RA/9 a little, but not as much as the guys around him hurt it.
Pettite is a very good example of why fWAR works as well as it does most of the time, and Buehrle is a good example of a case where it doesn’t.
The Yankees had some unbelievably bad outfield defense with Bernie Williams (mostly him) and Paul O’Neill out there.
And it’s not like the middle infield was great either with Jeter and Soriano / Knoblauch for most of those years.
That last year they had Bernie Williams (-17 DRS, -21.2 UZR) and Hideki Matsui (-9 DRS, -20.1 UZR), just an absolute disastrous duo in the outfield, and they also had Jeter at shortstop with a -13 DRS and -3.7 UZR. The only players with a minimum of 400 innings that year who had a positive DRS or UZR (same in both cases) was Raul Mondesi and whoever was playing third base, and both were more “good” than great. That year Pettite had a FIP of 3.35 and an ERA of 4.02. Not hard to figure out why.
(You can keep going if you want. 2001 had an almost 1 run gap between FIP and ERA, and the team didn’t have a single player with a TZ rating on the positive side with a minimum of 400 innings. The middle infield was Jeter and Soriano, which who combined for an amazing -36 TZ.)
And then he goes to Houston and suddenly the gap between his FIP and ERA doesn’t look so bad anymore! He even beat it handily in 2005.
But I’m out on him because of PEDs, so I don’t really care one way or the other what people think of his case.
They were both very good at holding base runners and I don’t think FIP accounts for that either. Buehrle was fabulous at everything except having velocity and deception.
There are ways to adjust for defense quality and B-Ref does something along those lines so it’s not a binary choice between FIP and RA9.
But we’re talking time consuming calculations with big error bars so I’ve never bothered.
The postseason difference is a lot more than the regular season difference
“so it’s not a binary choice between FIP and RA9”
Tom Tango said just to average them and stop worrying about it. I agree that’s probably the best (or maybe the easiest) solution.
I do think the best solution is coming up, when external sites get access to the split data he used to write the Snell/Strider article from last year.
Neither one is perfect, but my main problem with RA/9 based WAR for pitchers is that I don’t think it accounts for defense well enough. There are a lot of fly balls in the gaps that could be doubles or outs depending on how good the defenders are and of course errors are going to hurt a pitcher under bWAR when he has no control over things like that. Neither really take into account lowered inning totals due to needing to get 4 outs in an inning r increased stress of facing hitters with guys on base because those thing are hard to measure.
FIP has it’s problems, but at least it reduces the effect other players have on the pitcher some.
My main problem with FIP-based WAR is that it treats differences in a pitcher’s performance from the stretch and windup as random variation.
Spencer Strider’s LOB numbers aren’t “unlucky” – he’s demonstrably worse at every aspect of pitching when there are men on base.
If I have a five year sample, rWAR is a better measure…and I don’t think it’s close.
I think of fWAR as describing the pitcher ‘quality’ so this is useful for year to year projection. Whereas RA/9 describes what actually happened, so I feel this is a better way to evaluate for Cy Young and Career totals.
Example I think of is what happened in that WS game where the consecutive brainfarts allowed LAD to score 5 runs in the inning against Cole. I posit that Cole himself had a lot of blame on that, even though FIP wouldn’t capture it.
How can you blame Cole for giving those runs??
It’s not HIS fault that he had Cole playing defense on the mound!!!!
Nigel Wilson…first Florida Marlins pick in the Expansion Draft after Colorado took David Nied and three time BA Top 100 Prospect.
They made a lot of plans for Nigel
Turns out his future was in fact with British Steel.
Re: Firpo Mayberry, were closers recognized as a role on the team in the 1920s? Was a “save” referred to as some other term before the 50’s?
Firpo was credited with 101 saves and Lefty Grove with 55.
Firpo had 148 wins. Jack Quinn had 247 wins and 57 saves.
Granted Firpo had the best name of the three
Great article as always. Isabela, PR is spelled with one L.
Thanks. Mantilla’s B-Ref page, where I took his birthplace from, has it spelled with two Ls, but you indeed appear to be correct. Correction made.
Thank you, much appreciated!
I’d pick Pettitte over Buehrle for postseason heroics, but Buehrle is a valid candidate.
I’d pick Lester over Felix as a HOF candidate for postseason heroics but I considered Felix the better pitcher contemporaneously. Lester never approached being the best pitcher in MLB.
I think Buehrle and Felix are close enough as candidates that I would have to think hard about a choice and even then have a 50-50 chance that it’s the wrong one.
But I thought Felix was easily the better pitcher while watching their careers
Extremely similar careers…Pettitte definitely has the playoffs going for him. I think Buehrle gets a couple in his favor for the no-hitter, perfect game, not being a cheater.
*known cheater
Also 14 straight seasons with 200+IP, and missing a 15th by 1 out.
The list of guys who have done that is a bunch of HoFers and Buehrle, and we’ll never see that sort of performance again.
Ultimately I find it difficult to vote one but not the other, but if I can only pick one it’s Buehrle (ignoring Pettitte’s PED use, which happened prior to the implementation of testing).
I’m on the Firpo bandwagon!
To even consider Lester to be Félix’s peer, you have to give tremendous weight to postseason performance – which you can do, I guess, but it doesn’t seem like a particularly robust approach.
Absolutely no one thought they were comparable pitchers in their primes, and every measure you want to use supports that – Félix’s top five seasons by fWAR are all better than Lester’s best season, and Felix has 2.46 career Cy Young shares, 18th all time, to Lester’s 0.89 shares, 83rd all time.
Lester was a very good pitcher, with some iconic moments and obviously a very inspiring W over cancer, but he wasn’t in Félix’s class as a pitcher.
All true but that’s an argument against Lester not an argument for Felix HOF-wise.
It does answer the poll question which was probably what you meant
Dave did not mention Lester’s no hitter on 5/19/08.
The date sticks out in my mind because that was my Mom’s birthday, the first after she had passed away from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. When Lester was diagnosed with lymphoma, the globe had on of those public well-wishes cards for him, and I wrote a note mentioning my Mom’s and how she had been fighting it successfully for nearly a decade at that point. I always have felt Lester did it for her.
Turns out, last year I was diagnosed with the same disease. Chemo successfully knocked it out, non-detect 6 months since my last treatment. So in my book, Lester’s health ranks up with the no hitter and the rings.
Charlie Morton has one of the more amazing careers- He had – 0.6 pitching rWAR thru his age 32 season & now has 20.2 since he joined the Astros at age 33.
There is something positive to be said about him & The Astros finally figuring it out at an age where he was probably close to being done if the breakout didn’t happen.
You look at his strikeout and walk rates in his first 6 years and it’s wild how much they have changed. Really wonder what his career would have been like if he hadn’t been marooned in Pittsburgh for so long.
For Morton, I’m sure throwing 4 MPH harder had a lot to with his newfound success.
Except for not getting injured, he would be the poster child for how pitching has changed in the past 10 years.
Another week, another great quiz, another fail from me.
I guessed Brian Roberts.
I would put Firpo on the ballot if we could get some love for Tony Phillips and Ben Zobrist for their unprecedented versatility. Utility player isn’t a position but it is a unique skill.
Well they elect part time pitchers over more qualified starters, so sure, happy see Phillips and Zobrist get consideration.
Wagner put up more RE24 than Chuck Finley in 1/3 the innings.
When talking “Relievers in the Hall,” it’s very important to understand that Jansen’s about as far away from Lee Smith and Joe Nathan as those two are from Wagner…and Kimbrel’s closer to Dave Robertson than he is to Jansen.
Maybe they should expand the “Pioneers” criteria to include players who basically created something new (way of playing, new pitch, etc.).
I love this Sunday column even though my Sundays are often too hectic to read it on the same day….
Great call out of Marberry. Great pitcher, big factor in the Nats’ 1924 World Series season.
It would be great if he was added to the Hall of Fame or at least an exhibit about him as a pioneer.
The 1924 and 2019 Nats’ team played in different eras, but, they are similar in three ways – Ace being one of the best RHPs in the game’s history, incredible clutch hitting and come back ability, winning dramatic World Series game 7’s to become champions.
Neither were dominant, but, man, they seem to both have been so much fun to watch…on the 1924, Gary Sarnoff’s book is a great way to bring that magical season to life since it was so long ago…
I only knew of Felix Mantilla by his light-hitting utility role with the Milwaukee Braves, but golly what a weird career arc he had. Never reached 300 PA over his first 6 seasons, very poor hitter. Becomes a full-time player with expansion Mets and is decent. Then has 3 seasons in Boston where he is an absolute BEAST, with wOBAs of .376, .399!!!, and .355. Goes to Houston at age 31, stats absolutely disintegrate. Tears Achilles … annnnnnd … never takes the field again.
“Friendly park effect” does not feel like a satisfactory explanation for that insane 30-homer season in 1964 (in only 470 PAs no less). Even in a small-sample 1963, his first year in Boston, his walk rate spiked and K rate plummeted. Can anyone familiar with Red Sox history provide additional context on what the hell happened there? Did Mantilla show up 40 pounds heavier than he was in Milwaukee? lol
My first thought was that maybe he benefited from sign-stealing, but since that Sox team was an abysmal 72-90, it’s hard to imagine they had figured out some secret edge on the competition.
So, yeah, those January drafts are a rabbit hole. I’d be curious as to how Kash Beauchamp never made it for even a cup of coffee… he hit well in the minors for 6 years before the Jays moved on… and then his player register gets weird.