baseball obituaries 2020

I'm always more impressed by some of the votes the writers somehow got intuitively right. The first one I think of is the 1965 AL MVP: I was puzzled for years by the Zolio Versalles MVP ("but he only hit .273!"), but bWAR does show him as the best position player in the league. (Sam McDowell's a little higher.) Another one--if you put aside pitchers--is the '85 NL MVP. I think even James mocked Willie McGee winning, arguing that Dale Murphy was clearly more valuable, but McGee was indeed the best position player in the league by bWAR, well ahead of Murphy. (Not even close to Gooden, mind you...)

Sal Bando, on the other hand, got screwed by the time he was up for the HOF. Which, again, is strange seeing as how probably many of the same voters gave him lots of MVP support.

Bando’s bWAR is amazing considering how relatively brief his full-time career was. His chances were probably diminished by playing a lot during a pitchers’ era. But for all the sabermetrics chatter about a third baseman like Darrell Evans being one of the underrated greats, Sal might fit that description even more.

Bando was well respected in his prime, as Clem pointed out, he drew decent support in MVP voting. I'd compare him to a George Springer type of player -- a very good player but not quite a star, who will get some downballot support, and produces in the big moments. You absolutely need a couple of players like that to contend year after year. But nobody thinks of him as a HOFer, and he doesn't end up with the flashy round numbers for his career that HOF voters like.

yeah, he's an interesting case i guess, though not quite getting there, despite a 56.6 bWAR from '69-'78. he's a guy who'd maybe be a reputable HOFer due to that peak value. But he was still a solid tier below for example Rolen, and a couple below Santo.

He was arguably the best 3B in the game for a brief window, but then Schmidt, Brett, and to a lesser extent Nettles were really just much better throughout the '70s. He'd have needed another 4-5 years and he'd have a better case (he'd likely have gone the Santo route tho.)

looking at that 70's Athletics team, it's crazy how similar Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter were; yet only one is in the Hall (neither really should be imho). Blue has actually a stronger case (and not just through modern metrics), really – only difference maker I think is Hunter played for the Yankees...

Hunter: 3.26 ERA, 224 wins, 2012 Ks, 36.3 WAR, Cy Young, ERA crown, 8x all star, 5x world series
Blue: 3.27 ERA, 209 wins, 2175 Ks, 44.9 WAR, Cy Young, ERA crown, 6x all star, 3x world series AND an MVP award.

blue has a much stronger case, but he didn't have a cool nickname. big mistake on his part. they both seem like casualties of having to throw way too many innings in their 20s

catfish had 5 seasons in a row of the magical 20 Wins, that must have helped as well. fangraph's interpretation of "value" (based on FIP) is notable with his 1973 season. hunter went 21-5 with a 3.34 ERA over 256 IP. his fWAR, though, was just over replacement, at 0.5 fWAR. his ERA was way below his FIP, which was 4.40. Oakland's defense must have been pretty great that year...

Catfish Hunter had two things that are sure to get solidly above-average/usually not-amazing pitchers into the HOF: a nickname and a great mustache. not a beard (Blyleven rule) it has to be a bushy stache. i'll die on the hill that a clean-shaven Jack Morris is one-and-done on the HOF ballot. Someone should have advised Rick Reuschel to keep his mustache and make it really really bushy.

Vida Blue is a really cool name, though. Didn't have to dress it up. Much cooler than Jim Hunter.

I don't know if Blue's drug issues figured into that or not. He thought so: "I had some issues in my life that might have had a tendency to sway voting. There are some guys in the Hall of Fame who don’t have halos." His holdout in '72 was a huge story at the time: didn't start his season until May 24--big surprise, I think Finley really screwed him--and didn't get a postseason start until the sixth game of the WS. Glad to know he's 73 and still alive.

When Time magazine put baseball players on the cover (I assume they haven't in some time):

https://content.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/1971/1101710823_400.jpg

he seems like a good candidate for the Veterans Committee to revisit at some point. not saying it's deserved (he's a peak-value HOF guy but that was a brief and scattered peak), but i could see it.

https://i.imgur.com/zg7OkFL.jpg

Wow, missed that...I was going to say that it looks like the Red Sox winning in '04 was the last MLB Time cover, but I guess this is incomplete. (Rod Carew!)

https://time.com/vault/subject/baseball/

it's funny how 2 of the last 3 baseball-related covers (according to that link) are both about how playing baseball on elite youth teams is bad, and they both feature maybe the least-flattering possible photos of the kid

1999 kid is swinging at a pitch 15 feet outside

2017 kid's hands are about to sting as he weakly fouls off into the third base dugout

only difference maker I think is Hunter played for the Yankees.

During Hunter's prime though, the Yankees had lost their mystique. The A's were the cool, fun, and successful team with larger than life stars sporting nifty mustaches. He was there for the Yanks' '77 and '78 WS wins, but he was done as a star player.

Hunter was elected to the HOF thanks to 1) a great nickname and mustache combo, 2) winning 20 games in five consecutive years, 3) being one of the youngest pitchers ever to reach 200 wins, 4) being a key player on the A's three-peat (they're still the only non-Yankees team ever to do it).

Putting aside analytics, the A.L. '74 Cy Young field has to be the apex of the '70s workhorse era (the DH probably contributed):

1. Hunter - 25-12, 318.1 IP
2. Jenkins - 25-12, 328.1 IP
3. Ryan - 22-16, 332.2 IP
4. Perry - 21-13, 322.1 IP
4. Tiant - 22-13, 311.1 IP

sad to hear this

We mourn the passing of Tim McCarver, an All-Star catcher and decorated baseball broadcaster for generations of fans. He was 81. https://t.co/af8eb0Yyuf pic.twitter.com/6P9LLlDMJD

— MLB (@MLB) February 16, 2023

i've been reading october 1964. good insight in to mccarver as a player.

He was prickly, but I always liked him in the booth. Saw him as a player on the downside of his career, don't remember much, but he caught Gibson and Carlton in their primes, and that's something.

https://i.postimg.cc/hPzN6dNc/32179165-B76-C-490-B-B2-F8-D66-B0-ACE9-A3-A.jpg

Every time I read about pitchers and catchers this quote comes up again and again.

another tim mccarver quote - i'm sure there's a million different slightly different versions of it because he would tell this story pretty much any time bob gibson came up during a broadcast:

“I remember one time going to mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter; that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit.”

first encountered him alongside ralph kiner (basically insane) and steve zabriskie (utterly straight) doing mets games on WOR in the eighties -- and he was honestly good, unlike his later cardinals/national broadcast persona

also he seemed like a really decent guy. rip

I only knew him from the national broadcasts. He was definitely an old school colour commentator much like Joe Morgan was, relying on his wit and intuition about the game to tell a story. I enjoyed listening to him for the most part.

I hadn't realized that he had a 20-plus year career as a player. He played in four decades!

lol, i missed this 2013 all-star game moment from mccarver. very hard to explain

This will always be remembered as the moment Tim McCarver crossed over into legendary status — hands down #STLCards pic.twitter.com/zaEkdf0313

— 𝙰𝚗𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚠 𝚆𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎𝚛 | 🗺 (@drewmaniac) February 16, 2023

(xpost) As a player, I always group him in my mind with Bob Boone and Jim Sundberg, although the other two are much closer in terms of timeline and being mostly about defense.

(kramer voice) joe pepitone!

I literally just read the part in Ball Four where they prank him by putting talc in his hairdryer so when he blow dries his wig after a game he looks like George Washington.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vqJ-WSC-QI

I think I've got this right: it's him in Ball Four who puts a piece of popcorn under his foreskin and tells the trainer he's got some new form of VD...As flakes go, he sounded like one the greatest--he was near the end when I started watching.

rip dick groat, 8-time all-star, 1960 NL MVP, 2-time WS champ

Hobie Landrith, first Met, last week or so, i think

Vida Blue!

We mourn the passing of Vida Blue, a Cy Young, MVP and three-time World Series winner. He was 73. pic.twitter.com/dTJScoMstO

— MLB (@MLB) May 7, 2023

damn, a guy with hall of fame talent but not quite enough of a career to get in there. dominant during his relatively brief career though, kinda like ron guidry in that respect.

and one of the best names of all time

As I've mentioned many times, my fandom began in 1970, so his '71 season looms so large for me: one of those things that you spend the rest of your life measuring everything else against. (Everything baseball...I think.) Greatest season (eclipsed by Gooden and a few others since), greatest name, greatest decade, greatest everything.

All in all, underrated after that, in that '71 was an albatross he could never duplicate, plus the holdout, plus the drug issue, plus the itinerant nature of his career. For his career, his numbers are probably better than at least a few pitchers in the HOF.

Vida Blue was awesome, RIP. Loved hearing him talk too.

There's a decent argument for him being in the HOF and sometimes I think briefer peak value types like him really belong. That's more in line with what the NBA and NFL halls do. I know the MLB HOF loves longevity though.

The other thing he has going against him besides what I mentioned was pitching in a pitcher's era--not to the degree the '60s were, but his old-school stats only leave him with 45 bWAR after adjustments. Plus he's surrounded on all sides by 300-game winners like Seaver, Carlton, Perry, Niekro, and Sutton, and also legends like Gibson, Marichal, Palmer, and others.

Looking at his '71 game log is amazing:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=bluevi01&t=p&year=1971

He made a DeGrom like run at Gibson that year (without going down). His ERA was 1.03 after his May 23 start (12th), and he was still at 1.37 as late as July 25. He tailed off a bit after that and ended up with 1.82.

Lots of other eye-opening stuff in there, like six consecutive CG more than once.

Thought he moved around more than he actually did: only three teams (two stints in San Francisco). That's not many in the free-agent era. (His '72 holdout, where--surprise--Finley railroaded him into coming back should get more credit than it does in ending the reserve clause.)

Posnanski on Vida, with a nice tweet from Fergie Jenkins:

https://open.substack.com/pub/joeposnanski/p/blue-monday?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Reminded me of how close his career numbers were to Catfish Hunter's.

roger craig, 93

Last words, as he sat at home watching the A's: "Can't anybody here play this game?"

People you thought were 80 years old already when his team humiliated yours in the 1989 NLCS

He had been in ill health for some time aiui

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/419Yf4Bi7WL._AC_UL600_SR600,600_.jpg

Enjoyed this book as a young Tigers fan. (Shout-out to scott pl.)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F1mlG0PXgAIHZDF.jpg:small

We mourn the passing of Jim Price, a treasured member of the Tigers organization for decades.

He spent all five years of his playing career wearing the Olde English ‘D’, including the 1968 World Series championship season.

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) August 8, 2023

A Statement from the Robinson Family and the Orioles:

“We are deeply saddened to share the news of the passing of Brooks Robinson. An integral part of our Orioles Family since 1955, he will continue to leave a lasting impact on our club, our community, and the sport of…

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) September 26, 2023