Archive for Jamey Carroll

Monday was an important day for the Chicago White Sox. After a weekend sweep at the hands of the Detroit Tigers left them in a tie atop the AL Central, they rebounded with a 4-2 win over the Minnesota Twins. Come nightfall, the White Sox once again had sole possession of first. Monday was a less important day for the Twins. The Twins are a bad team just trying not to finish last in the league. On any given day, they don’t have a whole lot at stake.

But Monday was an important day for one Twins player in particular. With one out in the top of the fifth, Jamey Carroll batted against Hector Santiago. Carroll worked a trademark long, annoying at-bat, and then he lined a 2-and-2 fastball just over the fence in left field. It wasn’t the first home run of Carroll’s career — in fact, it was the 13th — but it did snap the longest homerless drought in major-league baseball. Carroll hadn’t homered since August 2009, and while home runs in Chicago aren’t quite like home runs in Seattle or home runs in Oakland, we don’t award fractional homers. You either hit a home run or you didn’t, and Monday, Jamey Carroll hit a home run.

There to greet him in front of the dugout, appropriately enough, was Ben Revere.

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A couple of years ago, Sky Andrecheck used the power of hindsight to see if an MLB team could have built a 2009 playoff contender using only players who were available on the free-agent market that previous off-season. The only caveat was that this team had to have a league-average budget. Using actual WAR and salaries, Andrecheck pieced together the perfect 25-man roster — actually 18, since he left his bullpen to fend for itself with replacement-level players — and on Aug. 24, his hypothetical team was on pace to win 96 games. And it all happened for the bargain price of $78.6 million.

While this is an interesting exercise, and one I replicated for the 2008 season, I don’t need to tell you that a pretty strong team could have been built on the backs of 2011 free-agent steals such as Bartolo Colon, Brandon McCarthy, Jhonny Peralta and Ryan Vogelsong. Instead, Mr. Dave Cameron, in his infinite generosity, has given me a budget of $80 million FanGraphs Pesos to piece together a free-agent team for next season, without the benefit of hindsight. In case you’re wondering, the ratio of FanGraphs Pesos to Schrute Bucks is 3:1.

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At 47-43, the Pittsburgh Pirates sit just one game back in the NL Central standings. The club has a winning record after the All-Star break for the first time since Sid Bream slid and Barry Bonds bolted. And for the first time since the 1997 “Freak Show” edition of the club, whose entire payroll was less than what Albert Belle made that year, the Bucs will play pennant-altering games in the second half. The fans are taking notice: attendance is up by 3,000-4,000 per game at PNC Park, and local TV ratings have increased by a third.

But there’s one major weakness that could turn the Pirates’ resurgent season sour: the offense. Pittsburgh ranks 11th in the NL in on-base percentage, 14th in slugging and 12th in runs scored. Outside of MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen, no current starter has been comfortably above-average in the batter’s box. It’s going to be hard to keep up with the Cardinals and Brewers with such a tepid lineup.

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