jung

The genesis of the DH was the era of the Sixties, when the MLB All Star game was a much more important element to the baseball season that it is today. The All star game was serious business and it was taken very seriously by the players, managers, owners, fans and media. That had been so since its inception. It enjoys nothing like the prestige it once had. What had sort of gone awry is that the National League went on a run of 20 wins out of 23 All star games from 1963 to 1985. It was a devastating run as far as the pride and prestige of the American League was concerned. During this period the American League had been the league of the large, the slow, the old. All of the speed and youth existed in the National League and that was on display for the world to see every All star game. You got to see, NL players tracking down balls in the outfield, exhibiting greater range in the infield, running the bases like gazelles turning doubles into triples etc etc. In the mean time you could hardly find an AL player that could beat out an infield hit. It was the combination of play on the field and the All Star game won/lost record that was really telling and difficult for the AL owners to swallow. Both leagues knew that they had issues with pitching and defense dominating the game as HR numbers were really in decline and runs were hard to come by. Both leagues adopted lower mound heights and a more restricted strike zone at the same time. However while both leagues thought the new mound and strike zone would have a major impact on offense generally those changes being adopted by both leagues did not help the AL and its problem with the relative merits of the two leagues. While I think MLB should have forced itself to resolve the issue of the DH for both leagues, the AL wanted it for the same reasons that the NL did not want it. It was becoming difficult for the AL to define itself in terms of baseball value to fans when its rosters were generally stocked with these older slower players regardless of the fact that they were stronger for the most part. Again were it not for the differences in styles of play combined with the All star game results and prominence, none of this would likely have happened. The AL used the rational of more offense to support its view on the DH and the NL basically used the opportunity to suggest that the AL had thrown in the towel, that AL teams were virtually admitting that AL players could not stand the heat in the kitchen. It actually got kinda' ugly for awhile. So at the heart of the dispute if you will is a marketing issue between the two leagues that has raged on since the beginning of time in MLB, fueled by that 23 year run when the All star game was both very important and dominated by the NL. So now you have a rift that MLB still refuses to come to grips with for all the same old reasons. It reaches into the HOF in part for the same reasons steroids do. Clearly, it is easier for a player to extend his career and thus his career stats if he does not have to play in the field. Hence the DH represents an advantage to players in the accumulation of their career stats, clearly the most important element in HOF voting. I cannot see HOF voters allowing players that had accumulated most of their career stats as DH's entry into the HOF because there is only one Hall, not an NL Hall and an AL Hall. Entry into the Hall will in my view always be reserved for everyday players that accumulated their stats playing in the field and at the plate. Interestingly, while I am sure, that AL pitchers are not begrudged the fact that they do not hit in HOF voting I am just as sure that DH's will not be afforded the same perspective for the reason suggested above. When it comes to pitching having to hit or not hit is not considered an advantage from the perspective of accumulating career pitching stats while not having to play in the field is clearly considered to be an advantage in accumulating career stats for an everyday player.....plus you take defense completely off the table which I don't believe voters will do. Two things bear on the problem for DH's: 1) the National League did not adopt it 2) the everyday DH is fast falling into disfavor as more and more the job is going to guys that play the bulk of their games in the field rotating into the DH role. As such they do generate fielding stats and they do not enjoy he career lengthening advantage of not playing in the field. While the DH is an official AL position as I said in the earlier post it is the perspective of NL proponents that it is not a position but a job that in part gets in the way. At the end of the day, a player has to accumulate enough votes to get in and I just do not see it happening because the rift is to deep with proponents on both sides of the issue. It is tough enough to gain enough HOF votes just based on the career stats without adding in the rift between non-DH and DH proponents with all the baggage entailed in that discussion.

Well maybe the one place where Ells could be criticized in this case is that it was a bad slide....a really bad slide in fact and he got caught on the wrong side of the bag trying to reach back to hang on to it. If he had just made a proper slide he would not have been hurt. While there was all this talk of V and fundamentals blah blah blah I think it is actually a bigger problem than V can resolve. How many good hook slides do you see anymore? I don't see many. How many times do we see guys, from all teams just bouncing right over the bag and either jamming an ankle, a knee or what have you. How many good pop up slides do you see anymore? I don't see many. The pop up is as much a graceful art as a good hook slide...might even be better. The only time I see a good pop up anymore is when the guy probably did not need to slide in the first place. Even taking guys out at second has turned into some artless form of a football tackle and hardly looks like what we used to see around second base. What I see most often anymore is to some extent what I mentioned earlier....guys just bashing into the bag like some sort of enraged Rhino looking to destroy the bag like it was some irritant standing in their way. I just don't get it....learn to slide for crying out loud. I am not trying to make this one of those, things used to be better in the old days post cause there is no doubt in my mind that these guys are capable. They just don't seem to know how.

I would wonder who would really want dmac myself....to do what...play the occasional inning in defense?

I am not sure that the court case results really helps the players much. It seems to me that most of what is resulting from the court cases is distain for the system for the government prosecutors and the low life characters that the government was using as witnesses.

Probably gone on so long cause it is such an interesting and provocative topic. However I really have my doubts both about using Ells as a trading chip successfully and prying Felix out of Seattle. May actually be easier to pry Felix out of Seattle than it would be to use Ells as a trading chip for him. Hasn't Ells or Boras actually said that it is a 100% surety that Ells will test the FA market? I think Ells said somewhere a few months ago that he would consider an extension but I think everything that has been said has been said within the context of Boras really being sure that Ells is going FA....meaning even if there is a chance of Ells signing an extension it will be for a boatload of money.

One thing that might play into this for the M's (should anything actually be possible) is what the M's would have left to help them go forward once Felix is gone. Do they have other guys anybody would be interested in. Do they have enough of a team with the guys we would be trading to them to get Felix. Clearly Felix is so dominant that he can get you a win almost entirely on his own. Once he is gone, unless the M's have guys coming up that can make it a team boy I would think they would demand a kings ransom for Felix. Financially the team looks OK and they are about to be able to really sweeten their TV deal. Seems like they should be in position to actually be a real baseball team at some point. Anybody know how they look down on the farm? Without knowing any better I would guess that they have pumped a bunch of money into safeco and things like that preparing to move forward as a team. Their player payroll is already $120M. You would think they could field more of a team with a $120M payroll. They sure as hell don't play like $120M.

Felix is probably the one guy that makes the "get an Ace" discussion so damned interesting. It depends on what they would have to give up. I completely agree that we do not have a true 1 at the moment. However, do we really need one to get it done this year or can we get it done with one really good arm...the equivalent of another 2. Funny some of us argued that we had a bunch of 2's right from the start of the season. If we could get it done with another good arm as opposed to an ace I would likely go down that road for this year unless you could really actually make a deal for a Felix. He is just such a special talent.

I actually think Gonzo got caught out by how quickly that ball was coming at him. If you look at the way Gonzo moved after the ball, he looked like a guy that thought he had it easy that suddenly did not have it at all.

Arnold....now there is a guy with deep baseball roots....you are right the first time though....these things do I think tend to be orchestrated with some producer behind the scenes pulling the strings on who will adopt what position. Lately eei has gone off the rails from my perspective. Spent hours upon hours yesterday trying to beat the whole Buch to Foxwoods thing into a frenzy and actually got called on it finally by enough call ins that they threw in the towel....Ordway was backtracking so fast you would think he was moon dancing.

I think the number is likely three not two also. Not sure Ells would want to go back home again because as mentioned before, I think he is looking for a different kind of stardom with requisite dollars than he will get in Seattle. Movie star looks, now with a reputation for power, short lived but still.....People will forget who he is in Seattle....even where he is.

Total ********...eei is really getting on my nerves lately taking the invent a story to get people rilled thing a bit to far these days. Geez I might be more critical of the Sox when they screw up than some....maybe even most but that is total ********.

I think there would be a riot on these pages if Lester started the first post season game instead of Beckett...rightfully so!

Well I know most of the posts of late have been about some ace or another but I think that is more because they are the more interesting discussion topics. What would you have to give up for one of those guys makes for a much more interesting discussion. Ace generally refers to someone holding down a #1 rotation spot somewhere and doing it well. I don't think that is necessary in this case and it might certainly be to expensive in prospects. I would not be willing to give up a bunch of prospects but I could give up Ells pretty easily. Ells is under team control through 2013 I believe so he would not be a rental player for whoever got him. Ells plus 1 solid prospect might work for somebody interesting. So I would be willing to give up Ells for the right deal. My expectations for the pitcher that would come back would likely go up if Ells were part of the deal but I could see doing that. I am also not insistant that we get an Ace although this team really does not have a true #1 at this point. Beckett is being anointed as the 1 on these pages but only because Lester has failed. Beckett misses to many starts, does not go deep enough into games with enough regularity and is to detached from the team in my view to be a 1. I just don't think he wants to be here and a 1 has responsibilities to the team that I just don't think he wants any part of any longer. Blame it on V if you want to. I don't think his relationship with Beckett is any better than Youk's was and it should be clear by now that the "peace" between Youk and V was a fabrication for convenience sake. Before I forget, I don't think Ells and Lester would bring back Felix either...Maybe if we want to build on the Ells/Lester idea, add one real prospect and you might get there. The M's would have to feel like they could land Ells and he might not be thrilled with going to play in that graveyard for fly balls. He would likely do well there cause he is the type of player that should do well there but it is hard to find stardom there....the kind of stardom he is looking for anyway. Not sure the M's would pay him what he would demand to commit himself to exile in Seattle. That is what it would amount to.

Mariners are an embarrassment...dimensions of safeco are an embarrassment (M's management currently looking at Safeco blueprints to determine how much farther back they can put the fences) and their pitching should give up the required number of mistake pitches to insure another M's debacle/Sox win. I do expect that their coaches and manager will point out that they were hackin' from the dugout last night forcing a bit more patience out of them....probably won't matter. More important than their inability to hit is their inability to pitch.....at all outside of felix. If anything Ramirez has been worse than Noesi but will likely be forced to stay out there tonight serving up all manner of hittable pitches to the Sox lineup. While 17 runs is excessive, double digits would not be a complete surprise even at Safeco depending on how the Sox approach their plate appearances. I suppose this could be the night that Ramirez has a reversal but I doubt it. He has been worse in June than in May (hard to believe) and has given up 27 hits and 7 walks in 28 innings pitched. "Hang on to your M's stuff as memorabilia kid"....might not have another shot at it."

Based on the fact that Felix can not pitch every game, Uncle Bud invokes his newly invented "fairness clause" which gives him the right to insist that the the Sox play Lilibridge. Bud will also insist that dmac get at least one at bat as a rally crusher.

I have been afraid of that and I am afraid you might well turn out to be right 700.

and the Mariners are more pathetic as hitters than any of us probably imagined. Cooks incredibly low pitch count is a testament to how little patience the Mariners showed at the plate hardly ever giving the ump a chance to call a ball or a strike before pounding out yet another ground ball.

Don't know if you have a particular interest in the player but your question does make me remember that the Sox appear to be building their own logjam at SS. Could it be that teams, realizing that baseball is going back to pitching and defense post steroids, are trying to come up with SS that can both be plus defenders and hit? I for one do not think we will see future players that are limited as defenders playing such a key defensive position as SS just because they can pull the ball over the green monster. So I do think that the recent trend toward Scooter or Aviles types as front line SS is likely to come to an end even in Boston. This would be pretty new for Boston as plus defenders even in the key defensive positions usually end up dying at the feet of the Monster here in Boston.

26 is young but Frank is not a babe in the woods either. From what I can see, where it might have been hard for folks like us to see what Frank has is in his motion and delivery. When Frank has consistently got his arm slotted correctly, he seems to be fantastic. Has control and velocity on his fastball. Where he seems to struggle with that most is pitching from the stretch and since we have been seeing him mostly as a reliever much of what we have been thinking with regard to Frank is based on his reliever role. Many times that has meant we had not been able to see as much of him pitching full wind up to make any real judgements about that. For my part that has been an issue for me. I did not see him showing such terrific consistency until I got to see enough of him pitching full wind up as much as we have seen when Frank starts. Then when he does pitch from the stretch the difference in his consistency at least to me is really noticeable. So I think one thing Frank will have to work to improve is getting the same degree of consistency pitching from the stretch as he appears to have pitching full wind up. Surely I am missing some things but at least for me that turned out to be one thing that I could identify.

Well trading your starting catcher "this year" to get a pitcher hoping that you end up with enough starting pitching "this year" to get to the post season does not make much sense. Whether this will last for Salty is not really the question.....although I do tend to think we have to look at this as progress for Salty and recognize that a power hitting catcher that does not hit much for average is not really considered a bad thing. At this point I would have to say that based on what we see from Salty and what we hear about Lavs, Salty has finally turned into a superior defender when compared to Lavs. Anyway if one of them goes for a pitcher, I think it will be Lavs and not Salty...rightly or wrongly. Maybe neither Salty or Lavs will be part of any deal the Sox make to get another arm here.

Well that has been the question regarding Cook all along right...would he be able to survive in the AL east, populated by teams that can hit and that live in hitters ballparks for the most part. He will very likely end up with more men on base, will have to pitch from the stretch much more often....lots can change for Cook against a team like the Yanks. For example he did start to get the ball up a bit later in this stint tonight...just not enough times to matter against the feeble M's. A team like the Yanks will not let that stuff get by them and they will be much much more patient as well. The M's were hackin' at everything. But based on this performance he should at least get the chance.

What a job by Cook tonight....a very professional job of pitching....very impressive. Obviously he can not live up in the zone...his selection of pitches would all be death up in the zone but he did a tremendous job keeping the ball down.

Maybe it should be different but it won't be. I don't think the guys that enjoyed the bulk of their success as full time DH's will ever get HOF consideration. It is a job, not a position. You are designated as the hitter for the pitcher and that perspective is what will keep the DH's from getting in. Might have eventually turned the other way, if the trend of everyday DH had continued but it has not. Ortiz is now the exception, not the rule.

Whether we can find poor defensive 1st basemen or not is not the issue. The DH has not been really considered a "position" since its inception. The closest it got was a period of about 5-6 years when there were several AL teams with guys you could consider full time DH's. Now even that is on the decline and it is going back to how it was originally conceived....a job shared by a number of everyday players that play in the field for the most part. It is that lack of perspective as an actual position that kills it for the guys that had enjoyed most of their success as everyday DH's. I don't think you will see any of them get in especially now that guys who are the DH virtually every day are getting fewer and farther between.

Really even WMB's home run was not in one of those ridiculous power alleys. They have all been pulled and Noesi was so accommodating with his location eventually.