Since it's the end of another decade for cricket , I thought why not reminisce about they great decade of cricket we had. I would focus on team India as it's the team of which I can claim to have followed the majority of the matches.
2011-12
The first year of the decade , Indian team was the No: 1 test side since 2009 , dominating at home and being extremely competitive abroad winning in NZ , Eng, drawing in SA and fighting well with Ponting's Australia down under all in a span of 3-4 years. To add cherry on top of that winning the World Cup meant this was the peak of Indian cricket and given where we were at the turn of the century it was one heck of an achievement to reach this position.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still pretty shit.
2012-13
As big as the highs were , who knew the lows were going to be just as deep. The no 1 test team team crashed and burned in incredible fashion and got white washed in two consecutive series in Eng and Aus , tons of legends had to retire and if that wasn't enough the nail to the coffin was hit by Sir Alistair Cook and his men when they beat India in their own fortress after 28 years when Panesar and Swann taught Indians how to bowl spin and I think at this point the stumps , bails , bat and ball basically anything to do with cricket should have been burnt and sent to England at that point. Funnily this series was my introduction to cricket as a 11 year old who despite being in india didn't know the name of a single cricketer other than Sachin Tendulkar.
Phew, Anyways the horror show ends here, or does it..? Though it doesn't feel like much now , but at that time when Pakistan was visiting for the first time after the terrorist attack and beat India in an odi series in India , it felt like a huge deal, I guess it was the series where we discovered Bhuvi, and during those days he used to swing like a banana albiet a bit slower, his wickets of the first balls on debut where fucking ridiculous. Regardless we did fine in ODi compared to our standards back then when we never used to win odi series in SENA , and Virat Kohli's thrashing in Hobart stands out even to this day , and to think that his 183 is still his highest after 43 fucking hundreds is a miracle.
Anyways the redemption in test cricket came when Australia visited India. We didn't know at the time , but in retrospect the worst Australian side I have ever seen play test cricket and poor bastards thought they could sneak a victory against this depleted indian side and they rightfully got demolished due their pathetic attitude towards homework and trust me Nathan Lyon back then was so bad that it felt like he was a club bowler , didn't know the dude would develop into the beast he is now. Luckily wade was shit then and now , the loud mouth's constant though.
That 4-0 victory over the fake team which tried to convince us that they were thev real Aussies is what I consider to be the beginning of our journey in becoming one of the best test teams in the world again, though is was not to happen any time soon , still this is where I can trace it all back , this is where Ashwin and Jadeja showed a glimpse of what they were going to do to the poor visiters for the rest of the decade , plus by this point Pujara and Rahane where abvious standouts in the middle order , along with Kohli, even Murli Vijay who a lot of people don't like , which goes over my head as he is unironically the best test opener for us this decade and yeah we were never able to find him a proper opening partner , and by the time he went completely shit , we had zero openers performing well for us in any conditions other than home.
Also who can forget Shikhar Dhawan's debut test century and Dhoni's double century.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still shit.
2013-2014
Now this was the year where we won our last ICC trophy of any kind, it's a shame they scrapped champions trophy after this year.Who knew Rohit Sharma's move to the opening spot would give us one of the finest batsmen in coloured clothing the world has ever seen. By that point even with his ridiculous talent™, it seemed like the final days of him getting anymore chances , if he had failed miserably there.
There was a great odi series against aus at home, Rohit scored the first of his three double hundreds, poor Ishant have away 30 runs off an over to end his loi career forever.
Faulkner was a good cricketer during this time who was supposed to achieve big things , he batted and bowled pretty well in this series.
Sachin played his last series , at the time it was quite a relief , and also very emotional , never seen a test match as jam packed as that in India , maybe the pink ball test against Bangladesh was close. Shami was the revelation of the series , and his reverse swing exploits in his debut match is still the best spell of reverse swing I have seen by any Indian this decade.
Now as the winner of champions trophy which basically means we where the champions among champions at a time when we ourself where the world champions , we went with all our super sayen power to tour South Africa.
This was my first away tour as a fan to any country let alone the land where Steyn breathes fire.
First odi of the match , SA comes wearing pink , I laugh and make a few cringey pink = girly jokes. My first introduction to Steyn on Live telly and bruh the talented Rohit Sharma didn't touch the ball for his first 30 deliveries. I dunno how one can miss so many consecutive edges, maybe the balls where too good to get an edge , in that match Virat scored a four of Steyn with a straight drive when Rohit was being treated as if he was a drunk no 11 , and to this day that reminds me of how Virat is a cut a above Rohit regardless of how many mental gymnastics the mentally challenged brohit fans do to claim otherwise. Anyways we lost 3-0 in that series as expected but during those days even ODIs felt like impossible to win in SA for us. Also de dock announced himself with three centuries in all the matches that series.
That test series was Kohli's first in SA and he had a lot to prove back in those days , and he did and iirc so did Pujara. The second test is what everyone would remember where SA almost chased down the world record total, god the bowling was pathetic then.
During this time an awkward young kid with an even more awkward bowling action bowled for MI on debut , and it didn't seems like much at the time , just that he was awkward.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still pretty shit.
2014- 15
Then we go to New Zealand and baz scores a triple century and makes us fuck off.
The t20 worldcup was pretty good for us we went into the finals , Sri Lanka bowled really good at the death, basically every ball was a wide yorker and this was the beginning of a long stretch of losing on the finals or semi-finals for us in the decade.
Now comes the groups first test series in England , I meant just in essence , dhoni and Ishant had played their before but still this was the India in transition, the first test was a draw all I remember is Murli Vijay had a great knock . The next match at lords is one of the most important matches for us this decade , before this I guess we hadn't won a test match in SENA countries since I guess 2008 when we won in NZ 1-0 , I mean come on , I guess we all should be glad things aren't that bad now and we do win atleast a test in most places we play and other teams have to, lots of the times , work there asses of to win against us in their own backyard. Now Rahane scored probably the Indian test century of the decade according to me , and also his favorite century as claimed by the man himself after his exploits in the Boxing Day test recently.
Now hear me out , Ishant got his career best figures in the second innings here , but this is still a time when he was pretty mediocre, and even though I don't want to take any credit away from him , a lot has to do with a collective brain fade from England while playing the short balls from Ishant. Anyways we won and it was a great day, sweet victory in SENA after a long time after two matches we led the series 1-0 , and tbh if we were Sri Lanka or Pakistan we would be going on home after avenging our home test series loss, but no the big boys have to play 5 test matches FFS, nothing much to say here Bhuvneshwar Kumar was our best batsman and bowler that series , we got fucked really fucking bad by Anderson and yeah 3-1.
But even more than that the series would be known as Virat Kohli's lowest point in his test career [ yet (๑•﹏•)]. The world found out that he is no Tendulkar and does have a severe flaw in his technique playing the out swinger. And to be honest we all know that to some extent he still has that flaw , unlike Williamson and Smith who basically have no major flaws in their technique. Yet I would say he is the second best test batsman of the generation after Smith.
Atleast back in the day England used to be a piss poor odi side who played like it was the 70s , and we won that series , but it was not sweet enough to compensate for the thrashing in tests.
Now next we move on to the Border Gavaskar Trophy in Aus, Dhoni called it quits as a test cricketer and Virat takes the helm ,it was basically a run fest, Virat and Smith both scored tons of runs , and we almost won a test in Adelaide , but it could have been worse given how Mitchell Johnson blew England away and South Africa too, but the pitches maybe weren't that conducive or he declined a bit or both , anyways it was basically chat shit get banged for him that series anyways. We lost 2-0 , but this was a series where we could say we played respectable cricket.
Note that Ishant Sharma was still quite shit.
2015 - 2016
We weren't in great form as an odi side around the time of the world cup as we lost a series pretty badly to Australia , who where eventually the champions , Starc was breathing fire back then.
But we won every match in the group stages , and finally lost to Australia in the semi-finals. Fuck Starc , he's too good. No problem we'll win in 2019.
Now in the test world we have had lots of back to back tough series , all the players where new , but by now lots of them where quite experienced and settled in the squad.
Now many people like to say that Indian wins in Sri Lanka shouldn't be counted as away wins and it's still the sub continent etc etc , but before 2015, the last and only time india beat Sri Lanka in Lanka was in the early nineties. Now during this time Sri Lanka was still a great team especially at home they still had Sangakara , Herath both at their best and on top of that they had Karunaratne , Thirimanne and Chandimal. Also remember the time when Angelo Mathews was one of the best test batsman in the world? Yeah he was the captain. The first test match went to them after a second innings collapse from India , that would be the last test Sri Lanka wins against India and they played 8 more tests after this. Anyways India came back triumphantly to win the next two tests to get only their second ever test series victory in the supposedly easy land Sri Lanka and this was to be the beginning of a very dominant period of test cricket for India after which, eventually they'd become the country with the second most number of months as world no 1 in test cricket after Australia since 2003 when the icc ranking begun.
This was the first series where Ishant Sharma started to show some improvement.
Next , South Africa visits India for a test series. Now South Africa has drawn their last two test series in India and I would even go on as far as to say they were even better than the legendary Australia when it came to test cricket in India. Virat Kohli at this time wanted to get really spin friendly wickets as according to him many teams around the world create green wickets and all to get home advantage , there was lots of complaining from faf , but any ways they got thumped 3-0 for the first time ever in India and that was the beginning of a very dominant home stretch.
One highlight was the blockathon from ABD -Amla and also twin centuries from Rahane in that test which where the only centuries in the whole series iirc.
Now India goes to west Indies and get a convincing test series victory, now WI us still a good test team at home , they have beaten good sides like England and Pakistan but they always fail to show up against India, so that's that.
Note than Ishant was still a bit shit.
2016-2017
Next New Zealand visits India , and get ravaged 3-0 with huge margins , India used to always be a dominant side at home , but this was starting to get scary, Ashwin and Jadeja were unplayable literally every match.
Next comes England , the winners of the last series between the two in India. Oh the revenge was cold and sweet , the way we destroyed them was something else , huge scores , losing after scoring almost 500 runs multiple times , triple hundreds , who can forget the hundred from jayant yadav. This was a massacre, and it was due since a long time.
Now as you know Kohli and Shastri were quite cocky by this time, so were the fans and I mean can you blame us? Australia came after a lot of preparation, fuckers where praising Ashwin as the Bradman of bowling to jinx him. The Pune test was a shock, this was before Steve Smith's redemption in the Ashes and as an Indian fan the only other time I really saw him scoring lots of runs it wasn't really tough conditions and on top of that it was at home. This Pune test changed that, I think I have seen the best test batsman of the generation , and maybe even for the next 30 years. Kohli went fishing for that series , and we were again in the backfoot after the first innings of the second test. But then as Ashwin had warned Aussies didn't get a considerable lead , and Ashwin had them for soup . The last test was again won by India to finish a well fought test series.
We all know what happened in the t20 world cup, we reached the semi , and WI thumped us. Who can forget the Ashwin no ball , atleast I mean maybe it's just an anomaly surely an Indian bowler can't bowl a no ball in another major icc knockout match right? Right?
Note that Ishant is very very slightly shit
2017-2018
Okay I have a confession to make. I may have lied about something , ok I admit there was a champions trophy in 2017. And yeah we got thumped so bad , that idk what to say, fairytale stuff for pakistan though , tbh I don't remember them beating us in any other match since 2013 , but probs to them they won the second most important match between us this decade , after the icc wc semi final.
Atleast after the champions trophy we decided to bring in Kuldeep and Chahal and with the rise of Bumrah and even Shami we started to actually become a good bowling side in one day internationals.
We started to not only win at home in loi but in SA , NZ , Aus and that too convincingly, the only loss I remember during this time was probably against the future worldcup champions England at their home , but then again they are probably the greatest odi side probably only second to the legendary Aussie side.
Now we tour Sri Lanka again and by this time Sri Lanka has detoriated quite a bit , they aren't their previous self and don't have Sanga , Herath and Mathew is not his former self. They get thumped 3-0 at home and it's probably our first overseas whitewash.
Next they tour us and we are arrogant enough to act as if this is practice for upcoming overseas tour and make green pitches and all. I remember the Delhi test with pollution and yeah two matches where drawn rather surprisingly still India won 1-0.
By this time you can see that Ishant is slowly improving and his performances are becoming much better.
Now India visits SA and this time India is an experienced side , they are still not a world class bowling line up , but that was going to change , and that happened here when Bumrah was given his test cap. There were lots of questions about this , people where saying that he cannot get swing or seam and his action was not meant for test cricket etc etc, anyways it didn't even take much time tbh , he was an instant success just like he was in loi and took decent amount of wickets every innings , India lost the first two test matches , but all those matches were close , popular consensus is that ABD was the diffrence , India won the last test match which was on a green mamba of a picth, and Bumrah takes his first fifier in the last test match and rest is history. It's too early , but still he is easily the best fast bowler India has ever had, greatest not yet solely due to the fact that some others have more years of service.
Note that Ishant is finally bowling as one of the best bowlers.
2018-2019
Now we go back to England , all eyes were on Kohli , I think he played one of his best innings that match playing with the tail to keep India in the game. Yeah India was in the game a lot of the times infact , yes the scoreline was 4-1 , but this series was well fought , still England were the better team , but India got one famous victory in Nottingham and yeah that's that.
Pretty disappointing , a similar result was predicted down under. Who knew Warner and Steve Smith had diffrent plans , they did their noble deed and we're kicked out of the sport for an year , and yeah this did play a part in giving India a huge advantage.
So yeah we visited down under and as we all know we thumped Australia , should have been 3-1 if not for the rain in Sydney , it was a historic series win , the bowling we faced was still the best in the world. Pujara played the series of his life , and Indian bowling was as good if not better.
In ODIs we are doing really well but still haven't found a good middle order. And yeah we never found that before the world cup.
Note that Ishant Sharma is one of the best bowlers in the world.
2019-2020
Back to back odi series against Australia , both win one of the series at the opposition's home , but we beat them in the WC. We again reach the semi finals and again just like last time lose in the semi's , at this point if we didn't have a decently stacked trophy cabinet we would be the chokers of the decade.
We visit west indies and I think I see Bumrah bowling the best he ever has , he was literally unplayable before getting a stress fracture , which gave real scares to all of us.
Next South Africa visits India again and if last time was a thumping , this time was a complete annihilation , even the pitches where pretty balanced and our pacer out bowled their pacers , tbh it wasn't even a contest , they looked like club cricketers , except faf, he was the lone warrior. 3-0 , but we all know SA is going through a crisis, so nothing surprising.
Bangladesh visit India for 2 tests and again if SA had one batsman doing well , Bangladesh had zero. The day-night test was the most fun test match in terms of crowd participation since Tendulkar's farewell series. But in terms of cricket it was completely one sided.
Note thatIshant is one of the best bowlers in the world
2020
By this time we have been the world no 1 test side for 4 consecutive years , and rightly so according to me , we haven't been world dominators or something , but we where still the best of the lot.
But the biggest disappointment atleast for me in the decade after the England series in 2012 , came when we toured NZ , yeah Ishant Sharma wasn't available , but the way we got rolled over in both the tests after making so much progress in all these years was very disappointing , but we can consider it of as only 2 off tests but still it was very disappointing.
On top of that being white washed in odi series was also pretty humiliating and one concern has to be the ineffectiveness of the odi bowling side recently. But one thing is the middle order is doing slightly better plus the world cup is in India , so bowling won't be that much of a problem I hope. It's still a long way.
We white wash them 5-0 is a T20 series with two of them in super overs and that was very satisfying.
Then Covid hits and the world goes into a frenzy.
We visit Australia again in 2 years , and start by very poorly losing the first two ODIs , the bowling looks problematic.
We redeem ourself in the t20s though and since the next two world cups are t20s I guess that's good that we are consistently winning.
And at the fag end of the decade we play the first test in Adelaide , we start well considering Ishant isn't available again , we get them quite cheaply getting a handy lead , at the end of day two we where thinking of scoring another 200 runs atleast to get a good enough lead to win the test match. In probably the worst session of cricket India has ever played in their 88 years of playing this game , we get all out for 36 , and rightly everyone starts prediction a 4-0 whitewash , I mean who wouldn't.
I guess one of the best test match victories for the country not just in this decade but in our entire history came as the last test match of the decade.. Coming back from an all time low , not having Kohli , Ishant , Bhuvi , Shami and Umesh getting injured mid game , with two debutants India makes a great comeback coming back from a historic low.
That's that, it has been a great decade , certainly India's best decade in terms of win rates and results and all and even icc trophies , not getting atleast one ICC trophy in the later end of the decade dampens the fun a bit , let's hope that changes in the future. The biggest thing to happen is certainly getting good fast bowlers in the second half of the decade.
Exciting times ahead , we probably have more talent coming through every year in domestic than ever before, especially in fast bowling , currently very excited for Kartik Tyagi , and also hope nagarkoti and Mavi don't get lost , Natrajan , Siraj , Saini are all good. As usual lots and lots of batting talent coming through, also a couple of exciting wicket keepers in Rishab and Ishan kishan and even Sanju , if Rahul can keep well , that's the best case scenario for the loi teams.
All through the decade IPL has evolved into a mature league and is only going strength to strength .
One thing which has detoriated a bit I feel is our fielding which was top notch for a long time from champions trophy 2013 untill recently. Lots of catches being dropped and there's no excuses for that.
I think in the first decade of the century we went from a average team to a good team , this decade after a blip early on , we have transitioned easily into a top 3 team irrespective of the format. Without a doubt the most successful decade for Indian cricket in terms of results , the 2000s died for this.
At the end I want to have a word for Ishant Sharma , for the majority of his career he was the most mediocre cricketer I have ever seen , he was statistically the worst fast bowler to play the number of tests he did with a bowling avg of about 38-40 , I don't think anyone except Ishant himself would have ever thought that he would be averaging around 17-18 accross the world over a 3 year span , and I for one never thought I would say that he is one of the best test bowlers in the world. It's one of the greatest cricket career redemptions ever and I for one respect the hell out of the dude. Being mediocre wasn't his fault , he was still the best the country had produced for a long time and that was probably more frustrating, that we had no choice. Regardless he has 3 tests to go to reach 100 tests and I think he is certainly among the Indian greats and without doubt a vital part of the greatest Indian bowling unit ever.

The report of this series’ death was an exaggeration. When will it stop? When I say. Which is not now. Anyway, If you don't know what this is, basically a bunch of players qualify for the Hall of Fame ballot (10 years in the MLB), but only a few make it on. This is thanks to a Screening Committee who screen who gets on by committee (wow who woulda guessed). Here we take a look at the people who got cut. I've done a couple more of these that you can check out at the bottom. On with the show.

Jason Marquis

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 10
Career bWAR (15 years): 6.8 (4.3 w/o batting)
Stats: 124-118, 4.61 ERA, 93 ERA+, 377 G, 318 GS, 1968.1, 1174 K, 769 BB, 1.447 WHIP
League Leading Stats: Losses (16, 2006), Earned Runs (130, 2006), Home Runs Allowed (35, 2006)
Awards: All-Star (2009), Silver Slugger (2005), World Series Ring (2006)
Teams Played For: Braves (2000-03), Cardinals (2004-06), Cubs (2007-08), Rockies (2009), Nationals (2010-11), Diamondbacks (2011), Twins (2012), Padres (2013), Reds (2015)
Jason Marquis has one of the more intriguing Major League careers I've ever come across. In most cases, having 6.8 bWAR across your entire time in the league doesn't mean you regularly started MLB games for 15 years. But it appears Marquis, in addition to garnering staying power, got Luquis. Nope, didn't work. While he would have bad years, many times he’d have a good one or two right after. Thanks to an interestingly distributed amount of high highs and low lows, his overall career trajectory doesn’t resemble the normal gradual ascent and decline of a curve, but bears more similarities with an outline of a mountain range. Since he wasn’t on the ballot, we can take a look at all the stuff that happened. Did he deserve all the chances he got?
Marquis's career technically started after he got drafted, but I would be remiss if I ignored the time he pitched a no-hitter in the Little League World Series against Team Canada to secure third place. Anyway, Jason Marquis's career started after he got drafted. His 35th overall selection was by the Atlanta Braves, and a signing bonus of $600,000 led to him reneging his letter of intent to play college ball at Miami. It's fine, they made the College World Series for three straight years anyway. Marquis was touted as the best high school prospect out of his hometown of NYC since Manny Ramirez. The year before, Ramirez had been an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger, and finished 12th in MVP voting at the age of 23. No pressure kid. Oh, it's three years later and you haven't finished a season with an ERA below 4? Sounds like a bust to me. And at only 20 years old. Wait, you just started 6 games in high-A and allowed exactly 1 earned run while striking out 41? Okay maybe we spoke too soon. You can go to double-A. Marquis would only need one more year after that to prove his first three seasons were just tune-up years, even the one when he went 2-12. After a nice showing at AA at the beginning of 2000, the 89th-ranked prospect in all of baseball got called up to Atlanta in June to help in the bullpen. The call-up was courtesy of John Rocker threatening a reporter and the Braves telling him "no, you can't do that" by demoting him, so thanks John Rocker! Probably the first time that phrase has been said in a while. Marquis had been drafted as a starting pitcher, but the Braves of the 90s and early 2000s weren't exactly lacking in that department. His first appearance was in relief of Tom Glavine after a start against the Blue Jays got away from him, and it ended after one inning with Marquis delivering his first Major League strikeout against Shannon Stewart. The rest of his year would go rather sloppily, with a 6-run outing in late July punching his ticket to triple-A, and the September call-up that followed only really happening thanks to his prospect status. Thankfully, he did well enough the next spring training that it left no question as to where he'd start the season: on the Opening Day roster.
Marquis's 2001 season started when he was named the 92nd best prospect, slightly below where he was a year ago. Still, he was ready to go out and prove he could be better than whoever was 91st. What was their name, anyway? Some scrub no one remembers named Miguel Cabrera? Oh. Moving on, Marquis spent roughly half the year in the bullpen, with his first start came in May. Even with it being a spot start, you wouldn’t have known that after he hung up six innings of shutout pitching against the LA Dodgers, allowing just two hits and striking out five. What’s that? He was facing Kevin Brown who matched him blow for blow and finished the game with eight innings of nine strikeout greatness and the Braves lost on a walkoff Gary Sheffield home run? We can just ignore that bit. Marquis would finish the year as a member of the rotation, starting 16 games, the best of which was an 8-inning showing versus the Brewers where he struck out 13. Even showed up as a relief arm in the playoffs, finishing two NLCS games and allowing no earned runs. Four unearned ones, though. Braves lost that series to a five-year-old franchise from the desert, but they had hope for the future even as their pitching core was aging. Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz were all over 35, though you wouldn't know it to look at their stats. Even so, Father Time is undefeated, so Atlanta had to find people to replace them. And in 2002, it seemed they had begun to do just that. Kevin Millwood, the 28-year-old established arm, would form a core of the future with the 25-year-old surprise named Damian Moss and the hotshot young gun, Jason Marquis. Or Glavine and Maddux could carry the rotation once again with ERAs under 3, Smoltz turned in a fantastic season in relief, Moss and Millwood could play third and fourth fiddle on the staff, and Marquis could put up an ERA of 5.04 and get demoted to AAA a couple times. Braves still made the playoffs again, but this time Marquis stayed home. Thankfully Atlanta still believed in him enough to keep him around, even after acquiring not one, not two, but three new rotation arms in Mike Hampton, Russ Ortiz, and Shane Reynolds. Unfortunately for Marquis, a move to the bullpen turned out to do the exact opposite of what it did for Smoltz. A 5.54 ERA, 18 walks to 19 strikeouts in 40.2 innings, and extended stays in triple-A was not what anybody wanted for him. Furthermore, after the "Chipper Jones in Left Field" experiment returned less-than-stellar results, his move back to third necessitated a new outfielder. When GM John Schuerholz learned former uber-prospect J.D. Drew was available from the Cardinals, he pounced, sending a package in return that consisted of relief pitcher Ray King, a guy no one remembers named Adam Wainwright, and the struggling, but promising, Jason Marquis. Little did Schuerholz know, Marquis had just hit the nadir of his Major League career's first valley, and a trade provided him with some climbing gear.
The 2004 Cardinals were very good. Very very good. On a scale from 1 to Good, they were, like, super good. When the heart of your lineup is Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds, all of whom had OPSes north of 1.000 and over 100 RBIs a piece, your team is really good. And thanks to an offseason move, the team had also found its new ace starting pitcher. Even if his 2002 and 2003 years left a lot to be desired, there was no question this was a guy who’d anchor the rotation for years to come. I am, of course, talking about Chris Carpenter. Jason Marquis was pretty good too. In his age-25 season, he put together a fantastic year, especially considering where his career had begun stats-wise. 15-7, 3.71 ERA, and 138 strikeouts slotted him as a serviceable enough number-2 starter. Even got a start in the NLDS, a start in the NLCS, and a start in the World Series. Sure he might have allowed 9 runs across those three starts but... let’s move on. One notable stat about Marquis takes the form of a slashline: .292/.297/.375. If you guessed that was his batting average allowed in some weird situation, you’d be wrong. Those mediocre hitting numbers were his. As a pitcher, Marquis’s rate stats were, across the board, better than Mike Matheny, his catcher. Thanks to a 21-for-72 year at the plate, Marquis added 0.7 oWAR to his year, and was actually more valuable by bWAR (3.1 with batting) than Chris Carpenter (2.8). Even as the Cardinals got swept in the World Series by the Red Hot Red Sox, St. Louis was clearly in a spot to compete for a while. A trade for Athletics starter Mark Mulder seemed to solidify that fact, and with a rotation consisting of Carpenter, Mulder, Marquis, Jeff Suppan, and Matt Morris, the Cardinals looked nice on the pitching front. Remind me how that offense was doing again? And they added Larry Walker to it at last season’s deadline did they? Heaven help the National League.
Even with a midseason injury to Scott Rolen, the Cardinals' 2005 offense still produced 805 runs on the year. Their starting pitching staff responded in kind, statrting all but two games, with the worst ERA among them being 4.13. It’s no wonder the team won 100 games. Speaking of starting pitchers, guess who had that 4.13 ERA? None other than Jason Marquis. He did lower his WHIP, but a 13-14 record and just 100 strikeouts in over 200 innings got him relegated to a bullpen role in the playoffs. But nobody cares about that. Everyone wants to know is how he did as a batter. Brace yourselves. In 2005, Jason Marquis batted .319/.326/.460 with a 103 OPS+. He accrued 1.1 oWAR off 27 hits, 10 for extra bases, including a home run off Wandy Rodriguez. Also, because Tony La Russa is an absolute madman, Marquis actually pinch-hit a couple times. He did so on not one, not two, but nine occasions, three of which ended in hits because nothing makes sense. Across 91 plate appearances, he only struck out eleven times. Guess who won the Silver Slugger that year. Close, it was Marquis. Oh his fellow Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter won the Cy Young? Absolutely nobody gives a hoot. Clearly, Marquis was destined for greatness in 2006, where he’d inevitably bat over .400 and hit 10 home runs. Or… maybe not. 14-for-78, enough for .179/.210/.256. Ouch. At least he made up for it with his pitching, right? Oh no. An ERA of 6.02, career high 75 walks given up, and the league leader in losses (16), home runs allowed (35), and earned runs allowed (130). Yeah, I don’t blame the team for leaving you off their playoff roster. At least you have those other two years to fall back on for arbit… that was your contract year? Well that sucks. And just like that, Jason Marquis was unemployed. However, once he got an offer, his career’s terrain would prove to be rising once again.
When it came to 2007 free agent signings, Marquis’s was not marquis. That’s a joke ladies and gentlemen. Due to his recent struggles, MLB Trade Rumors didn't mention his name in the top 50 free agents. Nevertheless, in mid-December, he accepted a 3-year, $21 million deal with the Chicago Cubs. Maybe they saw that outside two really bad starts that he suffered because of a tired bullpen, his ERA was actually 5.13. I still wouldn’t pay a starter with that ERA 7 mil a year, but hey what do I know. His next two seasons were remarkably pedestrian, going a whelming 23-18 with a cromulent ERA of 4.57 for an astoundingly regular ERA+ of 101. He even found time to strike out the incredibly middle-of-the-road total of 200 batters while walking a radically mediocre number of 146 batters. For you see, we’re experiencing a flat plain in his mountain range. Thanks to his gargantuan propensity for average performance on the mound, Marquis looked attractive to a team where ordinary pitching numbers were viewed as much more extraordinary: the Colorado Rockies. Appropriate. In January of 2009, the Cubs traded him there for relief pitcher Luis Vizcaino. Perhaps in Denver he’d experience a resurgence in his bat as well, since apart from three home runs, his .168/.193/.282 over the past two years was another perfectly average performance from a pitcher. Sadly, he’d only go 11-for-64, with a paltry 3 doubles accounting for all his extra base hits. Though that would remain the same, he experienced a resurgence in pracitcally everything else. In 2009, Marquis tied his best win total with a 15-13 record, assembled the second best ERA he’d had as a full-time starter at 4.04, got voted to the All-Star team for the first time in his career, and threw his hat in the ring for best pitcher on a Rockies staff that surprised many people. Add on the most recent Maddux by a Colorado Rockie (Rocky?), and you got yourself a real nice ascension to a peak. See Jason? That’s how you do a contract year. His 3.5 bWAR was the second highest total on a Colorado team that went to the playoffs, though they were quickly brushed aside in the NLDS by the defending champ Phillies. While Marquis would return to unemployment, he would do so with his head held much higher than last time. After all, he had just tied Sandy Koufax for the most consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins by a Jewish pitcher (6). By the way, Marquis is Jewish, and this is the first and last time I will mention that fact because if I talked about it anymore it would only be in the context of horrible jokes on account of me being a terrible person.
So whe he hit fre agency after 2006, Marquis didn't make MLB Trade Rumors' top 50. After this season, though? All the way up to… wait let me scroll down… number 30! Improvement baby! And yet, when the Nationals signed him to a two-year, $15 million deal, they apparently forgot what happens after a peak in a mountain range. The 2010 season saw Marquis get knocked out for close to four months with bone chips in his elbow. That or the diagnosis for “elbow shingles” got autocorrected to “elbow Pringles” and the doctors extrapolated. Even when he didn’t have Kellogg's-sponsored joint pain, Marquis was not effective on the mound. In 13 starts, he went 2-9 and allowed 43 earned runs while walking 24 in only 58.2 innings pitched. It also marked the first time he was on a team that didn’t finish the season in the playoffs. However, rather than releasing him and cutting their losses, the Nationals appeared to have some insight as to how he worked. Marquis was kept in the rotation for 2011, and rewarded Washington with 20 games started, an 8-5 record, and a 3.95 ERA. Even Madduxed Tim Lincecum and the Giants for good measure. He did so well the Nationals decided to trade him at the deadline to the surprisingly competitive Arizona Diamondbacks. 3 starts and 16 runs allowed later, a comebacker broke his leg and he was done for the season. With his range's recent dip below sea level, he was once again left off the top 50 free agents list, and a seven-start stint with the Twins that ended in late May of 2012 after an 8.47 ERA did him no favors. At this point, the only chance Marquis had would probably be a team that had nothing to lose picking him up. So, naturally, the day after he got let go in Minnesota, he accepted an offer from the San Diego Padres. A 6-7 record was fine, and a 4.04 ERA was much less impressive here than it was in Colorado, but that was enough of a climb from his previous valley for the Padres to bring him back. Not that it mattered, cuz, you know, 2012 Padres. What came back in a major way, though, was his hitting. Marquis’s 2012 season ended with him going .281/.303/.375 at the dish. All were his highest by far since he won the Silver Slugger. Pitching-wise, His next season wasn’t half bad either, finishing the year 9-5 in 20 starts. When it came to his other stats, talk about a plateau. His ERA went from 4.04 in 2012 to 4.05 in 2013. His strikeout total was 79 in 2012 and 72 in 2013. What did take a dip this time was, tragically, his bat. Just 5 hits in 43 plate appearances, a .119 batting average. He might have been able to improve it had he not elected to undergo Tommy John surgery that July. And unfortunately, that decision would more or less mark the end of Marquis’s landscape painting of a career, because it was all downhill from there. A minor league offer from the Phillies was accepted once he came back, but only 8 triple-A starts later he was gone again. The famously awful 2015 Reds gave him a shot, but after 34 earned runs in just 9 starts and 47.1 innings, even they saw the valley he was headed for, and bid him farewell. While he never officially retired, nobody’s offered him a contract for five years, so it’s relatively easy to say that his last mountaineering trip was to Old Man’s End Of A Baseball Career Gulch.
Jason Marquis is an anomaly. Practically nothing about his career was predictable. With a good long Major League experience like he’s had, it’s amazing all the stuff he’s packed in. Starting games for 9 different teams, getting a World Series ring after an awful season, finding out just how high and low his career can go, and so much more. Truly a fascinating ball player. Thing is, fascinating players don’t get on the ballot if they haven’t been consistently good. Nothing was consistent about Jason Marquis, so that’s not where he belonged. And who knows, maybe he comes back for one last hurrah, since from what I can tell, his retirement papers haven’t ever been officially submitted. Maybe he couldn’t find them after his vision was obscured by his massive schnoz. (There were gonna be a lot more big nose jokes before I found out he was Jewish, so to limit my cancelability I’m only doing one)
Jason Marquis would visit the Hall of Fame in a Cardinals hat for his 42-37 record, 334 strikeouts, and World Series Ring with the team. Preferably in a Rockies jersey and hiking boots to symbolize just how up-and-down his career was.
Hey remember all these guys? No? Well you can read about em anyway.
#1: Randy Choate
#2: Kevin Gregg
#3: Dan Uggla
#4: Josh Hamilton
#5: Delmon Young
#6: Willie Bloomquist
#7: Grady Sizemore
#8: Kevin Correia
#9: David DeJesus
#10: Rafael Betancourt
#11: Clint Barmes
#12: Adam LaRoche
#13: Grant Balfour
#14: Randy Wolf
#15: Rafael Soriano
#16: Chris Denorfia
#17: Bruce Chen
#18: Cody Ross
#19: Scott Baker
#20: Jeff Francis
#21: Aaron Harang
#22: Corey Hart

Before I get to the 2020 Mets, let’s address the elephant in the room: The Mets are finally under new ownership. Extremely rich man Steve Cohen bought the team from the long-cursed Wilpons for $2.4 billion, finalizing the sale on November 6. Not only is he ludicrously wealthy - he once bought a bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti for about the same amount of money as Patrick Corbin’s contract - he’s a long-time Mets fan, revealing late in November that he owns the ball that Mookie Wilson hit through Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series, and intends to move it into the Mets Museum at Citi Field.
Now, onto the actual baseball programming. The 2020 Mets were… kinda lousy, not going to lie. Noah Syndergaard underwent Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman opted out of the season, and the thinned-out pitching staff had the 12th-best ERA in the National League, at 4.98 (86 ERA+). The offense had the best batting average, second-best OBP, and fourth-best SLG in the NL, but thanks to an agonizingly unclutch first half, they wound up seventh in runs scored. They missed the expanded playoffs by three games and tied for last in the NL East.
But they still had their moments.
Opening Day, July 24: Jacob deGrom and three relievers combined on a 1-0 shutout of the Braves, with Yoenis Céspedes mashing a solo homer in his first major league game since 2018 to provide the only run of the game.The Mets’ Opening Day record improved to 39-20, the best winning percentage of any team - even more impressive when you consider the Mets lost their first eight Opening Days from 1962-1969.
August 28: On the same day that Steve Cohen entered exclusive negotiations to buy the Mets (bye-bye A-Rod and J-Lo), the Mets swept the Yankees in a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium. In game one, a trio of late homers from Pete Alonso, Dom Smith, and Jake Marisnick gave the Mets a 6-4 victory. In game two, Amed Rosario hit a walk-off two-run homer off Aroldis Chapman, and may I repeat this happened at Yankee Stadium. Beautiful.
September 3: In the team’s first game after the passing of Mets legend Tom Seaver the team took the field to play the Yankees with dirt on their right knees to honor The Franchise. In the ninth inning, with the Mets trailing 7-6, J.D. Davis took Chapman deep to center field to tie it; in the tenth, Pete Alonso blasted a walk-off homer.
September 9: Trailing the Orioles in the late innings, Michael Conforto made an absurd catch to save three runs; Andrés Giménez popped an opposite-field homer to tie it, and Alonso gave the Mets the lead for good with a homer to center field.
Players:
Infield prospect Andrés Giménez finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting, splitting his time between shortstop and second base and posting a 102 OPS+ to go along with solid defense and baserunning. Very enjoyable to watch. (update: see below)
Pitching prospect David Peterson posted a 3.44 ERA in 49.2 innings, flashing impressive poise and quality stuff in his first taste of the majors.
Jacob deGrom threw a 102-MPH fastball. By 2025 he’ll be throwing Mach 7. He also had another outstanding season, as he pitched to a 2.38 ERA, led the NL in strikeouts, and finished third in the Cy Young voting. On September 6, he induced 35 swinging strikes in a game against the Phillies, tying the most in a game since pitch tracking began in 2008.
Michael Conforto hit .322/.412/.515, the best numbers of his career to date. I can actually hear newyorkmets shouting EXTEND CONFORTO as I type this.
Edwin Díaz bounced back from his career-worst 2019 season to pitch to a 1.75 ERA/2.18 FIP, including a preposterous 45% strikeout rate (25.2 IP, 110 batters faced, 50 strikeouts). (Kindly do not ask about how his co-acquisition’s doing.)
Dominic Smith hit .316/.377/.616, with a whopping 32 extra-base hits (second in the NL behind Freddie Freeman’s 37, except in 63 fewer plate appearances). He finished fourth in the NL in OPS. That, combined with his blossoming as a leader in the wake of the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, earned him a 13th-place MVP finish and the hearts of the Mets fanbase.
Offseason:
As of this writing, the Mets have re-hired Sandy Alderson as president of baseball operations, hired Jared Porter Zack Fox as GM. They have also signed reliever Trevor May (2 years, $15.5 million), catcher James McCann (4 years, $40.6 million), and Marcus Stroman accepted the qualifying offer after opting out of the 2020 season.
AND THEN THEY TRADED FOR FRANCISCO LINDOR AND CARLOS CARRASCO HOLY $&@%-
(Going back to CLE: Andrés Giménez, Amed Rosario, Isaiah Greene, and Josh Wolf.)
So, the 2020 Mets. We said farewell to Tom Seaver, said hello to Steve Cohen AND FRANCISCO LINDOR, and chucked the Wilpons out the door. 2021, here we come.

This is part 3 of my "How much WAR would ________ get?" series. You can find How much (negative) WAR would I accrue playing on a Major League team for a full season? here and How much (negative) WAR would a potato accrue playing centerfield for a Major League team for a full season? here.

That's right, boys and girls. We're back with a new conundrum. Let me set the stage. Speedy McHitterson has been discovered to be a perfect leadoff hitter. He makes every play in center, he steals second at every opportunity, he has a perfect eye, and when he's thrown a strike, he gets a hit every time. However, he's incredibly shy and afraid to overstep his bounds. This means he'll never swing at a pitch outside the zone, even if he knows he can hit it. He also will never go past first base on a hit, so every his is a single. Speedy is afraid of stepping on teammates toes, literally and figuratively, so he won't make any plays in the field that weren't meant for him. He's also fearful of being perceived as too overconfident, so stealing third is out of the question, let alone stealing home. But for the things he does do, he has a 100% success rate.
To the categories!

Positional Adjustment

Speedy, like Tate, will be manning center for a full season. 162 games of CF is worth 2.5 runs.

Replacement Level

As previously established, the average leadoff hitter would have ~761 PA per 162 games. But Speedy is no average leadoff hitter. Speedy will have a 1.000 OBP. Meaning compared to the average 255 on-base events for an average leadoff man, Speedy will have 761, which is an extra 506. Following the logic from last time, getting on base an extra 506 times will result in another 56 PA (If one out of every nine extra on-base events result in an extra PA). Which, in turn, will result in an extra 4 PA (I think). So in the end of the day, Speedy will end up with 821 PA on the season.
So if Replacement Level Runs = (570 x (MLB Games/2,430)) x (Runs Per Win/lgPA) x PA then 821 PA will be (570x(2430/2430))x(10.296/186516)x821 coming out to 25.8 Runs.
28.3 Runs

Fielding

This one, it turns out, is quite simple. Similar to how we determined a potato's fielding runs, we compare this perfect player to the 2020 Cincinnati Reds centerfielders. To recap, in 2020, 227 balls were fielded by Reds center fielders. 86 of them went for singles, 22 went for doubles, 3 went for triples. There were no inside-the-park home runs. There were 109 catches made, plus 7 sac flies. This gives opponents a .490 wOBA on balls hit to Reds center fielders. Speedy, being perfect, would allow a 0 wOBA (his middle name is Fielder). Home run robberies are out of the question because, you know. So we'll compare them the same way we did last time, with the same formula we use to determine batting runs batting runs. First we determine the amount of opportunities a center fielder would get in a full season. In 2019, center fielders made 20962 plays. That's about 700 per team over a full season. So the calculation would go thusly:
((.000^wOBA -.490^{lg wOBA} )/1.1857^{wOBA Scale} )x700^{Opportunities} = 289.3 runs
I just realized something really cool. I actually calculated Tater to have this precise number of negative runs, because his wOBA allowed would be exactly double the average. This means if Speedy and Tate were to alternate games, they would average to a league average fielder.
317.6 Runs

Batting

We've already established a few facts. Speedy McHitterson will get about 821 PA in a season. He does not swing at balls outside the strikezone. He hits every ball in the strikezone for a single. This would result in a 1.000/1.000/1.000 slash line, but we would still need to determine how many walks and hits he'd get. So I put together a little table to figure that out.

Count	Frequency	Zone	Out of Zone	Strike odds	Ball odds	Strike overall odds	Ball overall odds
0-0	1.000	95745	89033	.518	.482	.518	.482
0-1	.518	39460	53598	.424	.576	.220	.298
0-2	.220	14985	33022	.312	.688	.069	.151
1-0	.482	37702	33833	.527	.473	.254	.228
1-1	.552	35402	38838	.477	.523	.263	.289
1-2	.415	25414	44600	.363	.637	.150	.264
2-0	.228	13872	10640	.566	.434	.129	.099
2-1	.418	21098	17739	.543	.457	.227	.191
2-2	.491	37457	33526	.528	.472	.259	.232
3-0	.099	4573	2930	.609	.391	.060	.039
3-1	.251	9652	6289	.605	.395	.152	.099
3-2	.384	21163	16146	.567	.433	.218	.166

So to explain: the "Frequency" column is the overall frequency of the count, assuming no swings (which is important, as I'll explain in a second). This was determined by the following columns. "Zone" is pitches in the strikezone on that count. "Out of zone" is pitches outside the strikezone on that count. The next two columns are the percentages of a ball/strike in each count. Knowing that, we can tell the frequency of each count, if the batter never swung. 0-1 is going to be the odds of a strike on 0-0. 0-2 is going to be the odds of a strike on 0-1, times the odds of 0-1 occurring in the first place. 1-1 is the overall odds of a ball on 0-1 plus the overall odds of a strike on 1-0. We can use this chart to work out the number of walks of Mr. McHitterson. If he swings at every ball in the zone, and they all go for hits, the only way for him to get walked is if he's thrown four straight balls. According to this chart, that only happens 3.9% of the time, which we can now use as his walk rate. A 3.9% walk rate with 821 PA comes out to 32 walks in a season. Which leaves him with 789 hits, all for singles. Let's plug that into our wOBA formula. (32^walks x.69^{walk constant} +789^singles x.870 ^{single constant} )/821^PA =.863 wOBA
And from wOBA to wRAA: ((.863^wOBA -.320^{lg wOBA} )/1.157^{wOBA Scale} )x821^PA = 385.3 wRAA
702.9 Runs

Baserunning

To start, we give Speedy the same boost we gave Tate for never hitting into a double play. Over 821 PA, that comes up to 5.9 Runs. But the real value will come from stealing bases. To refresh, Speedy will steal second every time it's available. Afraid of looking like he's showing off, he will never attempt a double steal or a steal of third or home. We'll make the assumption that overall, the situations he's on base (always) will look like the league averages of occupied bases. There were 55998 plate appearances with men on first in 2019. Of those, 34240 (61%) were just a man on first. 12347 (22%) were first and second. 5026 (9%) were first and third. 4385 (8%) were bases loaded. This means that in 70% of situations with a man on first, second base was open. With a SB rate of 100% of the 70% of times on base (which is identical to the number of PAs) McHitterson had, this puts him at 575 steals for the season (that would be a record, by the way). Fangraphs gives .2 Runs per SB. This adds 115 Runs to our count, which comes out to a total of 121.8 baserunning runs. 824.7 Runs

Conclusion

824.7 is a lot of runs. If we do the 10.296 Runs/Win conversion it comes out to 80.1 WAR. As I said, that's a loooooooot. [Speedy could split time with Tate and they'd still combine for 32.5 WAR. It would take over five Taters to cancel out a Speedy.] EDIT: In my excitement, I accidentally confused myself with a potato. I'm the one who'd combine for 32.5 WAR. I'm the one who would need to be cloned five times to cancel out a Speedy. Tate and Speedy would actually combine to have a 17.6 WAR, which is still better than the best single-season WAR of all time. Two Taters would more than cancel out a Speedy. If you put Speedy on a team that literally did nothing else, he'd still make them roughly a .500 team.
TL;DR 80.1 WAR - Holy Fuck
Coming soon.....If Shohei Ohtani were actually Superman, how much WAR would he get?

RedSox Toast and Roast
Introduction
The Boston Red Sox were a major league baseball team that played during the 2020 season. While it might be true that JD Martinez hit .213, that Andrew Benintendi played 14 games, and that we only had 1 pitcher start more than 10 games, we did also see some promising young talent put up respectable numbers in the face of what was often moderately intimidating pumped-in crowd noise.
Hitting

• Alex Verdugo was a ray of light for the Red Sox in 2020 and finished 12th in AL MVP voting. Coming over to the Sox in some trade that happened, Verdugo led the team in BA (.308), OBP (.367), and H (62). It's his 2nd full season in the majors, and all of his offensive numbers have been rising since he entered the league, and Sox fans hope for this trend to continue.
• Another solid season for Xander Bogaerts who led the team with a .867 OPS on what might be the most team-friendly contract in baseball.
• Christian Vasquez turned in another solid year both behind and at the plate, posting a respectable .801 OPS
• We said goodbye to fan favorite Mitchy 2-Bags, but not before his two HR game in August that ended with a walkoff!. Over 79 PA with Boston in 2020, Mitch Moreland posted a 1.177 OPS.

Pitching

• Called up in September, Tanner Houck went 3-0 and posted a 0.882 WHIP while striking out 21 over 17.0 IP. These wins include 5.0 IP 0 ER against the Marlins, 6.0 IP 0 ER against the Yankees, and 6.0 IP 1 ER against the Braves. Gerrit who?
• Umm…
• Nathan Eovaldi struck out 52 over 48.1 IP and won 4 of the 9 games he started which would be a pretty solid figure if it was someone’s batting average.
• Eduardo Rodriguez went 1-0 against Covid-19.
• Chris Sale did not allow a hit all season.

RedSox Highlights and Memes

• redsox found our new messiah
• John Krasinki and Big Papi found and honored some of Boston’s heroes who got to officially throw out the first pitch of 2020
• Jerry Remy found Wally’s hat
• Remy also found out that the windows were tinted at the Braves's Spring Training park

Conclusion / Looking Forward
Whoops, turns out that 2020 was not a particularly good year for the Red Sox.
You might compare the 2020 season to a possibly defective poncho that you just can't quite figure out how to put on during a rain delay.
While some fans tried to cope with whiskey and 2004 - 2007 - 2013 - 2018 highlights, others just couldn’t handle it and sadly, one fan even jumped off of the Green Monster.
Honestly the top highlight of the season was probably when the Red Sox set the 2020 MLB attendance record (1) after some crazy guy snuck into Fenway, stopped play, and started yelling about 9/11 - Jomboy’s breakdown.
In 2020, the Red Sox paid ~$6 million to David Price and $5 million to Pablo Sandoval, but at least it wasn’t $31 million and $19 million respectively like last year. The 2020 Red Sox also paid $2 million to Manny Ramirez which everyone agrees is actually hilarious.
For this season, we will be keeping our eyes peeled for FA signings (Odorizzi & Bauer pls), and we can’t wait to see what prospects like Casas, Downs, Mata, Dalbec, Houck and others might be able to contribute, either this year or next.
As Belichick would say, we’re onto 2021, and the Trust-In-Bloom era officially begins. We'd like to wish everyone a great Rule 3, and here comes the pizza.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/why-mlb-teams-might-start-changing-how-they-value-high-contact-hitters/
Is a high-average renaissance coming in baseball? By Matt Snyder
"Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" was published in 2003. Michael Lewis' book was then turned into a movie that was released in 2011. And yet, in 2021, there are still so many people out there with the misconception that playing "Moneyball" was about a specific stat ("Moneyball is on-base percentage!" the ignorant will cry out) or even some sort of "sabermetrics" revolution to make people hate the stats they long held near and dear in favor of "newfangled" stuff.
I'll pause for laughter.
No, it's actually about finding market inefficiencies. That is, what skillsets are other teams undervaluing and how can we acquire players -- mostly cheaply -- to exploit this for our gain. There have been several iterations since the initial movement from average to OBP and slugging. Defense is certainly up there, a combination of shifting/positioning and getting undervalued defensive players. Things have obviously been done on the pitching side, such as shortening the game with super bullpens and using openers, among other things.
In light of where things are headed right now in baseball, I'm wondering if we're coming full circle very soon with what type of hitter is undervalued.
That is to say, while the initial "Moneyball" movement set baseball on a path, where average was less important than the other two main rate stats (meaning more emphasis was put on drawing walks -- and, in related matters, working deep counts -- and hitting for power). In the process, we have seen a great shift toward the so-called Three True Outcomes (home runs, walks, strikeouts).
As a result, who got left a bit behind? The high-average, high-contact hitters, possibly with low power.
I said I'm wondering if we're about to come full circle because not only do I believe there's a chance at a market inefficiency in there, I also think the forces of the game are swinging toward this type of hitter being undervalued.
Strikeouts continue to rise. More and more, it seems like whichever team each game hits "the big home run" is the one that goes on to win. Here are the lowest batting averages in MLB since World War I:
1968: .237 1967: .242 1972: .244 2020: .245 If we're wondering about the small sample or want to blame the pandemic, the 2019 average was .252 and the league hit .248 in 2018.
If some of those years above jumped out, it's for good reason. After 1967-68, the pitcher's mound was lowered. After 1972, the American League added the DH.
Meanwhile, in 2020, strikeouts per team game actually dropped -- to the second-most all-time -- from 2019, but 2020 marked the first year it wasn't a new strikeouts per game record since 2007.
It's gotten to the point that it isn't just a small subset fans or curmudgeon broadcasters whining. Many baseball fans acknowledge the game needs more on-field action. At this point, pretty open-minded and even-keel people are discussing that something has to change. Home runs are great. Walks were far too long an underappreciated part of the game. Big strikeouts are excellent to watch. It's just that we should have more than those things along with groundballs and fly balls going right at nearly perfectly positioned defenders.
On one hand, the pitchers and defense are very good. On another, maybe the shift in philosophy left too many different types of hitters behind. Maybe things should tilt back a bit the other way?
After stepping down from his perch as Cubs president, Theo Epstein took a job with the commissioner's office and said something along these lines (emphasis mine).
"As the game evolves, we all have an interest in ensuring the changes we see on the field make the game as entertaining and action-packed as possible for the fans, while preserving all that makes baseball so special. I look forward to working with interested parties throughout the industry to help us collectively navigate toward the very best version of our game."
He had recently sort of lamented his own role in shaping the game, too. Via The Athletic:
"There are some threats to it because of the way the game is evolving," Epstein said. "I take some responsibility for that. Executives like me who have spent a lot of time using analytics and other measures to try to optimize individual and team performance have unwittingly had a negative impact on the aesthetic value of the game and the entertainment value of the game in some respects."
The hunch here is Epstein will have commissioner Rob Manfred's ear pretty strongly in the next few years. We've also already seen Manfred discussing things like either banning or limiting the shift along with something to curtail strikeouts, such as lowering and/or moving back the mound.
Zeroing in on the possibility of shifts going away, and low-strikeout guys become even more valuable. It doesn't take an Epstein-savvy front office member to figure out the chances of finding a hole without the defense perfectly crafted to a spray chart increase.
Further, after seeing so many strikeouts in huge spots with runners on base over the past several years, I can't help but think that even if a hitter that sits something like .230/.340/.500 can be valuable, evening that out with a high-average contact hitter to keep the line moving at times would be beneficial in creating a more well-rounded lineup.
The poster boy here is D.J. LeMahieu. Believe it or not, Epstein actually inherited him with the Cubs, but traded him away his first offseason with Tyler Colvin for Ian Stewart and Casey Weathers. Stewart looked like the high-walk, high-power guy teams coveted at the time (important update: He wasn't). Despite winning a batting title, winning three Gold Gloves and making two All-Star teams, LeMahieu only got a two-year, $24 million deal with the Yankees after the 2018 season as mostly an afterthought in a huge offseason. He went on to finish fourth in AL MVP voting. Then he finished third last season, leading the majors with a .364 average while also pacing the AL in OBP, OPS and OPS+.
Finally heavily sought after, LeMahieu got six years and $90 million to stay with the Yankees this offseason. Yes, he's developed his power, but he only struck out 90 times in 655 plate appearances in 2019 and 21 times in 195 plate appearances in 2020.
With everything conspiring in this direction anyway, I think LeMahieu is starting a wave.
Here are some others (in a non-exhaustive list) who could become increasingly valuable moving forward into the next decade of baseball evolution.
Tommy La Stella - A broken leg cost La Stella half the 2019 season in what looked like his career year. He already had 16 homers, yet had still only struck out 28 times in 321 plate appearances. Last year, he had the lowest strikeout percentage in baseball while hitting .281 with a .370 OBP.
Ketel Marte - Pay too much attention to the loss of power in just 45 games last year at your peril. He still hit .287 and was tough to strikeout. I'm not expecting a full bounce-back to MVP-caliber levels of 2019, but his bat-on-ball skills have pretty steadily improved for five years straight.
David Fletcher - He's improved all three years in all three rate stats and sports a career .292 average with just 123 strikeouts in 1,190 plate appearances. He also ranks near the very bottom of the league in stuff like barrel percentage, exit velocity and hard-hit percentage. Sending some conventional 2019 people running for the hills is a good trait for someone to have when looking for market inefficiency, right?
Jeff McNeil - Why pick between McNeil and a Pete Alonso type when you have both? McNeil in 248 career games is a .319 hitter with only 123 strikeouts in 1,024 plate appearances. Like Fletcher, his "batted ball profile" leaves a lot to be desired, too.
Trea Turner - We've seen former Turner teammates Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon strike it very rich in free agency while his current teammate Juan Soto rightfully will garner a ton more attention here in the short term. Just don't forget about Trea. His strikeout percentages aren't excessive -- remember, as a leadoff man he takes tons of plate appearances -- and he's a career .296 hitter. He makes consistent contact, has some power and can fly.
Kevin Newman - Newman had a dreadful 2020 season, but it was only 45 games in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not going to harp on that when we've got 130 games of a .308 hitter in 2019 who only struck out 62 times in 531 plate appearances. Don't sleep on him.
Jean Segura - Segura became a different hitter in 2020. His strikeout percentage jumped from 11.8 to 20.7. Along with it went his previously high average. But he walked a lot more and his OBP went up. It was weird. Regardless, keep in mind what a fluky season 2020 was. Segura was in the top five percent of toughest hitters to strikeout in 2018 and 2019 while topping a .300 average 2016-18. He's 30. I have faith in him being productive with a good average and lower strikeout rate in 2021. And hey, maybe he'll even keep walking. I never said it was bad.
Jake Cronenworth - As a rookie last year, Cronenworth put together a season in which he would've struck out around 90 times in a full year while hitting .285. His minor-league and amateur profile has long shown someone with good contact skills capable of a higher average. He was never a top-100 prospect in the minors, but he now heads into territory where he can have an impact simply by being differently valuable than the 2010s prototype.
To be clear, this premise isn't even remotely saying teams should load up on only these types of players. The best lineups are the most well-rounded. Get you a few of these types to pair with some big boppers and things would be looking pretty damn nice. The conditions are ripe for a bit of a sea change in how hitters are valued in these next few years. Watch LeMahieu, La Stella and company for a guide while someone like Cronenworth carries the torch to the next generation.

The 2020 Minnesota Twins were a 3 act play.
ACT 1: This is OUR year! Has to be
We had set the single season record for Bombas and had a squad of lovable heroes who, despite enduring the usual Yankee postseason beatdown, were ready to bring home a title for a state that hasn’t seen any championships in the Big 4 sports since George H. W. Bush was still in office.
Alot was riding on this season, we had gotten 2 big acquisitions with Josh Donaldson and Kenta Maeda (who would early on would endear us to their singing abilities). Garver and Arraez were looking to prove their 2019 season weren’t flukes with the latter aiming for a batting title and a .400 average in the 2020 season. Finally reigning AL manager of the year, Rocco Baldelli, had to prove he could lead this squad to not just a postseason birth, but postseason wins.
I would be remised if I didn’t also note the social impact this season carried in Minnesota. The Twins would become the first pro MN sports team to play since the Murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police and the protests which would gain worldwide attention.
Following the covid delay, Twins opening day was set for a road game against the White Sox who had become spooky over the offseason. Max Kepler came up to bat to face Giolito in what many expected to be a pitchers dual when Kepler decided to send a message very early on: A 1st pitch homerun on opening day. The Bomba Squad was here to stay.
The First half of the season was very much like the Second Half of 2019: Lotta Bombas and Lotta unfortunate injuries. Schrödinger’s player and wall pad tester Byron Buxton would be injured what seemed like every other week and Josh Donaldson’s time in MN would be off to a slow start with a calf injury that would bug him the entire season. Cruz would start off as an MVP-Favorite through his hatred of balls being inside the field.
In terms of pitching, Maeda would become our best pitcher almost instantly including recording 8 no-hit innings against the Brewers. Randy Dobnak would start off with solid outings that would put him in AL RoY talks. Our Bullpen would also look very un-Twinslike because for the fact they were very good. This transformation would be attributed to pitching coach Wes Johnson who would become as integral to the Twins success as Rocco. However, this is Minnesota so there were still pitching whoas. José Berríos would have a very sloppy start to the season dashing hope that he would become the Twins ace, Rich Hill and Homer Bailey would be placed on the Injury list early on with the latter never really clicking with the team and eventually being released, and reliable closer Taylor Rogers would go from feared by hitters to feared by Twins fans due to his very disappointing 2020 which could be summed up through him blowing Maeda’s 8 no-hit innings (Though he would make it up by gifting Maeda fancy rice)
The Twins had pulled ahead in the division and had a healthy lead which included a 6 game win streak which ended in a walk-off SINGLE by Byron “Literally Sonic the Hedgehog” Buxton. Things were looking up and surely it looked like nothing bad would happen to this team of Lovable Underdogs.
ACT 2: Bad things happen to the Lovable underdogs
Everything just felt sluggish. Injuries would plague the team especially at the catcher position.
The division lead would evaporate and the White Sox would pull out to a lead that felt insurmountable.
This demoralizing feeling would be summed up through 5 major events in September that I feel sum up the second half of the season:

1. Bert Byleven’s final game. Bert Blyleven had been the Twins color commentator for nearly 25 years and alongside the lovable Dick Bremer would bring the Twins through the Mauer-Gardy Era. His “circle me Bert” segment had become a staple of the Broadcast and he was loved by MN sports fans. However, Sinclair Broadcasting didn’t feel the love slowly pushing him out over the years replacing him with Justin Morneau who was bringing new life into the broadcast. This would lead to the sudden announcement that on September 2nd he would broadcast his final Twins game. The broadcast would be a loving tribute to the Minnesota Legend and there would not be a dry eye watching
   
2. Josh Donaldson’s ejection. Throughout the latter half of the season missed/wrong calls by umpires were piling up and were taking a toll.Following a very bad check swing call during a tied game at the rival White Sox which saw Donaldson chew out umpire Dan Bellino, Donaldson would hit a bomba that would break said tie. While rounding the bases he would kick dirt all over home plate and Bellino and be ejected immediately. This moment which was largely celebrated by Twins Fans and summed up the Twins relationship with the Umps in 2020
   
3. Brent Rooker’s injury. Brent Rooker was a Rookie (great start to a nursery rhyme) that was very hyped up by the organization and brought up to replace Kepler who was on the IR. In his first 7 games he looked solid and looked like a valuable player that would not just help us in the up coming years but in the up coming postseason.....sadly those 7 games would be his only 7 games. On Zach Plesac’s first HBP Rooker would suffer a fractured forearm ending his season
   
4. Nelson Cruz being unable to play for a week due to a sore knee. Cruz is more than a player on this team, he is the heart of the lineup. His absence would reverberate throughout the team which felt lost without him. However Nelson Cruz would come back on the 25th bringing out Bomba Robes (bought by Josh Donaldson for the postseason) and whoever hit a bomba/walk-off would get to wear his robe.
   
5. Buxton’s hit in the head. The same day Cruz would return Byron Buxton would get an injury from a pitch to the head from Reds reliever Lucas Sims. He would immediately fall to the ground in pain and showed concussion symptoms.
   

These 5 events sum up the September of the Minnesota Twins. Pain and agony. We were demoralized when the baseball gods in their infinite powers went “Lmao watch this.”
Somehow we won the division. The White Sox would drop 6 of their last 8 games and the Twins would win 5 of their last 8 putting us 1 win ahead of the Sox. We were also set to face the Astros who were bad and had obviously no chance, we even had Home Field advantage! Things were looking up Milhouse!
ACT 3: This is a Toast to the Minnesota Twins how else could this end?
18.
18 playoff loses in a row.
It’s funny. Laugh.
We dropped both our games to the Astros in a very sad fashion which included a lack of bombas and a surplus of errors. They weren’t memorable, at least thats what I tell my therapist.
We were supposed to be the Heroes, the ones who took down the trash bangers. But, no. Dread from it. Run from it. Destiny still arrives.
But that’s Minnesota sports dontcha know?
So here’s to the Minnesota Twins.
WERE GOMQ!
LEAGUE? Well you know.

I will be using bWAR for this.
The all time WARLORD is Babe Ruth with 182.5 WAR. The only player to get somewhat close to this in my lifetime has been Barry Bonds, with a respectable 162.8 (4th place).
The thing that makes the WAR record so hard to beat is the fact that Ruth played at a level so far beyond what the rest of the league was capable of. His OPS led baseball in 13 straight seasons. No one will ever be as dominant as Babe Ruth. The game has evolved and there is more parity in talent. I don't know if Babe Ruth would still be great today, but I know the value of the replacement player has improved drastically. If someone were to beat Ruth's record, they wouldn't have to be more dominant than Ruth, but have an all around package and everything go their way.
There are a few requirements for a modern hitter to break Babe Ruth's record.

1. He has to play for fuckin ever

WAR is a cumulative stat. Thus, if anyone is going to have a chance at breaking Ruth's record, this player is going to have to play a LOT of years in the MLB. This player is going to have to start early as well. Of the top 25 WAR players, only 3 (Cy Young, Tom Seaver, and Mike Schmidt) were older that 21 when they started their MLB careers. The most recent player in this list, ARod, started at 18. If a player starts at 18 and plays to 45, which seems to be roughly the old limit, then he only has to get 6.52WAR per season on average to break Ruth's record. Having a player start at 23 raises that average to 7.93, which seems a little less attainable outside of old timey pitchers throwing 50 complete games a season.

2. He has to be durable.

Again, since WAR is a cumulative stat, such a player needs to be a rock for his entire career. Not all of the top players had such durability, including Ruth himself. But I also doubt you are going to see many players put up a 9.1WAR season in 130 games like Ruth. While gone are the days of Cal Ripken where players tried to play every game every season, it isn't unreasonable to think our young WARlord will be playing at least 150 games a season on average once he gets past his rookie year. Any injuries are going to have to come at the end of his career, particularly nagging ones and things that slow him down.

3. He has to play a premium position and play it well.

In order to maximize yearly WAR, it is important that our hypothetical star play a position with a strong defense adjustment. This leaves us with CF, SS, 2B, and C. Pitcher would have been a possibility back in the day, but with relievers taking a larger and larger piece of the innings pie, it seems like hitter is the best way to go. A 2-way player would have a better chance, but they are exceedingly rare.
We can eliminate Catcher right off the bat. Catchers play less games per season, get injured more often, have shorter careers, and have worse stats due to wear and tear. The highest WAR of any catcher is Johnny Bench with 75.2. That puts him at 79th all time WAR and not even half of Ruth's total.
The Majority of high WAR players in history are OF. Odds are if someone were to beat Ruth, they would be doing it from CF, at least until later in their career.

4. He will need to be an athlete.

While Babe Ruth may have a beer swilling, hot dog eating, STD collecting hero, our modern player is going to have to be an athlete. They will need to be fast, run the bases well (not necessarily steal bases), and keep in good shape for their entire careers. Good baserunning and defense, at least in the beginning of a players career could add up to 5 or more WAR in a season. Our player is going to need this defense a lot in his early years while he can still rack up dWAR.

5. He will probably need to be a Righty.

The shift has complicated things for Lefty batters. Our hypothetical hitter will need to be able to beat the shift if they are a lefty. This might not be a problem early on, but become an issue as our player slows down with age. Since the shift has been established, older, slower lefties have been getting squeezed by the shift. Every WAR counts. Unless our batter is a Switch Hitter or can hit to all fields, he will probably be a righty.

6. He will need to be on a good hitting team, probably in a big market.

Our player is going to need some top-shelf offensive talent hitting behind him to make sure he isn't getting the Bonds treatment. To afford the salaries of both megahitters, this player will probably spend most of his career on a major market team.

7. He will probably be a 3 true outcomes hitter (and a really good one, duh).

Launch Angle, batspeed, barrel, OBP, dingers, and Ks. This player is going to probably not going to spend all that much time getting singles. That doesn't mean that he won't have a high batting average. Our player is going to need to hit at a high clip, but with a fat amount of XBHs and walks added in. I wouldn't be surprised if this hitter breaks the HR record, but more in a Hank Aaron style of consistent HR success over a long career.

8. He will get all the awards.

To start off our players career. He is going to win the RoY, or at the very least become a star in his first full season. He needs to hit the ground running and start accumulating WAR right away.
He will be a perennial All-Star. I am talking Hank Aaron 25 All Star appearances.
While Gold Gloves don't automatically go to the best defender, our guy will quickly become a big name for his bat and his defense. Expect a ton of Gold Gloves, probably some in his 30s as well.
Silver Sluggers will probably be the award our player wins the most. He will probably break Barry Bonds' record of 12 SS.
Expect our player to get MVP votes pretty much every season until his last couple, much like Hank Aaron. Since our player is going to need to be the best player in baseball for many of his seasons, expect him to come close to Bonds' 7 wins. Hank only won 1, but advanced stats would have given him more wins today.

9. He is going to be an all around good guy who never takes steroids (or never gets caught).

Any suspensions are going to kill our player's chance of winning the WARLORD title. Losing a season is probably going to cost our player at least 6 WAR. Also, he doesn't want to end his career like Bonds. Barry possibly could have gotten the career WAR mark if teams were willing to deal with him. His last two seasons he got 4.0 and 3.4 WAR respectively, but he retired at 42. Had he held on until his late 40s, he could have eked it out. But Bonds was a dick, so he got blacklisted.

10. He cannot pull a Pujols.

When his time is up, he has to retire. Pujols over the last 4 years has been worth -0.7WAR. Our player has to play well past his peak, but also retire before this happens.
So this his my hypothetical WARLORD.

Year	Age	WAR	Awards
1	18	1.2
2	19	7.3	RoY, AS
3	20	8.0	AS, SS, GG
4	21	9.1	AS, SS, GG, MVP
5	22	7.9	AS, GG
6	23	7.2	AS, GG
7	24	9.7	AS, SS, GG, MVP
8	25	8.9	AS, SS, GG
9	26	7.6	AS, GG
10	27	7.7	AS, GG
11	28	10.5	AS, SS, GG, MVP
12	29	11.2	AS, SS, GG, MVP
13	30	10.8	AS, SS, GG, MVP
14	31	8.9	AS, SS, GG
15	32	7.5	AS, SS
16	33	9.3	AS, SS, MVP
17	34	6.9	AS, SS
18	35	5.4	AS, SS
19	36	4.9	AS
20	37	5.2	AS, SS
21	38	3.9	AS
22	39	4.3	AS
23	40	4.0	AS
24	41	3.3	AS
25	42	3.3	AS
26	43	2.1
27	44	2.8
28	45	3.2
29	46	2.1
AVG	x	6.4
TOTAL	x	184.2 (Record)	RoY, 24 AS, 13 SS (Record), 12 GG (OF tie), 6 MVP

So recap, our CF (later RF) is a righty with good defense, speed, character, never has a serious injury, plays in front of another HoF bat on a big market team, who hits dongs and takes walks.
Our guy probably ends up with the HR record, and is top 5 for a ton of other categories. He goes into the HoF unanimously.
I hope this has been as fun for you to read as it was to write it.

The first of two I have queued up for today! You can scope the ones I've already done on Randy Choate, Kevin Gregg, and Dan Uggla if you feel so inclined. Now to our top story.

Josh Hamilton

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 64 Career bWAR (9 years): 28.3 Stats: .290/.349/.516, 1134 H, 200 HR, 458 XBH, 129 OPS+, 55 IBB, 701 RBI, 609 R League Leading Stats: RBI (130, 2008), Total Bases (330, 2008), Batting Average (.359, 2010), Slugging % (.633, 2010), OPS (1.044, 2010), bWAR (8.7, 2010), fWAR (8.4, 2010) Awards: All-Star 5x (2008-12), Silver Slugger 3x (2008, 2010, 2012), MVP (2010) Teams Played For: Reds (2007), Rangers (2008-12, 2015), Angels (2013-14)
I'm sure there are more than a few readers wondering "how in tarnation did Josh Hamilton not make it onto the Hall of Fame ballot?!?" The answer is simple: he didn't qualify. Hamilton only played 9 years, one short of the threshold necessary for the Hall. So I'm kind of cheating here. Now, there may be some who say "this is a complete and utter betrayal of the system you've set up! This series is about people who qualify for the ballot but aren't on it! There's no conceivable way Josh Hamilton could have been on this year!" To those people (who definitely don't exist), I will give one reason for allowing this departure from protocol: it's my series and I want to talk about Hambino so shut up. The man deserves to be remembered in one way or another. Let's start remembering him, shall we?
Josh Hamilton's story begins in 1999, his senior year of high school. More specifically it starts at Athens Drive, a humble establishment in the capital of North Carolina, whose entire athletic output at that point consisted of two NFL players, a foreign basketball player, and a soccer player on the US Men's National Team. Enter Josh Hamilton, baseball player extraordinaire, with a 6.7 second 60-yard dash, a 97-mile fastball back when that was incredibly fast, and a 25-game high school season where he hit .529 with 13 homers, 20 bags swiped, and 35 RBIs. By the time of that year's MLB draft, Hamilton was considered one of if not the best high school prospect in the nation. It was not a major surprise when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays selected him first overall. He was the first position player drafted in that spot since some guy named A-Rod, and got served a record-breaking $3.96-million signing bonus, so big things might have been expected of him. The excitement surrounding him would only grow when he was assigned to the rookie-level Appalachian League, and slashed .347/.378/.593 with 140 total bases in just 56 games. The next year, at 19, Hamilton played 96 games at the single-A level, and hit .302/.348/.476. That's pretty good. So good, in fact, that prior to the 2001 season, Baseball America named him the consensus number 1 prospect. Then, out of nowhere, disaster.
While his family was out driving, a dump truck ran a red light and smashed the side of their pickup. Josh's back was injured, his mother had to be pried out of her driver's seat, and his parents would have to return to Raleigh for medical care. Thankfully his mother would make a full recovery, but while she was doing that Hamilton was left alone. As a 20-year-old with cash aplenty and no one to answer to, he indulged. He began drinking alcohol and hanging out at strip clubs. He started using cocaine and hanging out with people who could get him more. He did whatever he wanted. In case you were not aware, this is not a good idea for a 20-year-old to do if they want to remain a top prospect. Hamilton only appeared in 27 games in 2001, slashing .200/.250/.290. His 2002 was better, with a line of .303/.359/.507 at A+-level, but that offseason would bring major changes. After catching wind of his activities, the Devil Rays decided to send Hamilton to rehab. Didn't appear to have worked, as he failed a drug test following a 2003 spring training invite. Not only was that a sign of continued self-destruction, but his prospect value plummeted. Hamilton took the rest of the season off, hoping to work on himself and improve. Well, by the next season, that hadn't happened, and three failed drug tests meant he had to take the year off again due to a season-long suspension. Once that was over, Hamilton was ready to prove that after almost three years away, he still had what it took to be a Major League star. Then he got arrested for smashing a windshield out of anger, and the Rays moved him off the 40-man, effectively ending his endeavor for the third year in a row. After a relapse, the next season was shot as well as he got served another year-long suspension. While that suspension didn't prevent him from participating in 22 minor league games at the end of the year, a line of .260/.327/.360 was a far cry from what was once expected. The time is now December of 2006. Josh Hamilton turned 25 half a year ago, and played his first minor league baseball games in five years just a couple months ago. No one blamed the Devil Rays when they decided to cut their losses, and left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft. However, this Josh Hamilton was very different from the Josh Hamilton of the past five years.
During his 2006 suspension, Hamilton cleaned up in many ways. He began working at a baseball academy that let him use the facilities off the clock, he abstained from drugs for the whole year, and he showed that, while he may no longer be a top prospect, he could still play baseball. For those reasons, the Cincinnati Reds felt like they could take a chance on him. They made a trade with the Cubs to acquire him through the Rule 5 Draft, and intended to use him in 2007 as a 4th outfielder. After an excellent spring training where he hit .403, Hamilton made the Opening Day roster. His first appearance of the year, pinch-hitting for Aaron Harang, prompted the home crowd to give him a 22-second standing ovation. He had finally made it. Sure he lined out, but nobody cared. Josh Hamilton had taken a Major League at-bat. As little as three years ago, that was considered nigh on impossible. But here he was. And he made the most of it.
While he was limited to 90 games due to injury, Josh Hamilton's rookie campaign was fantastic. A line of .292/.368/.554 with 19 homers in his first year was downright stunning for the position he was in. You'd think all of that, coupled with his NL Rookie of the Month award in April, would net him some Rookie of the Year votes. Problem was Josh Hamilton had the misfortune of debuting the same year as Ryan Braun and Troy Tulowitzki, in addition to some other very strong cases like Chris Young's 32 dingers. Thus, despite 2.5 bWAR, Hamilton didn't appear on a single Rookie of the Year ballot. Where he did appear, however, was trade discussions. With Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr., Norris Hopper, and Ryan Freel all slotted to be ahead of him in the depth chart for 2008, the 72-90 Reds decided to sell high. Hamilton was shipped off to the Texas Rangers in exchange for pitching help in Edinson Volquez and Danny Herrera. Little did they know just what he would become.
Many of you know what happened next. Those of you who didn't already had part of it spoiled by the stats you probably ignored at the beginning. For the precious few who are still in the dark, here's what happened for the next five years after Hamilton became, and stayed, a Ranger: he showed off everything he could do. He hit four home runs in a game. He got intentionally walked with the bases loaded. He set the record for most All-Star votes by 4 million. In the Home Run Derby, he hit the most home runs anyone had ever seen. He earned the MVP of the 2010 ALCS after hitting four home runs and holding a 1.000 SLG during the series. He played in back-to-back World Series championships. And that's not even considering what happened while he was an everyday player. Five All-Star games. Three Silver Sluggers. 142 home runs. 506 RBIs. Hitting to the tune of .305/.363/.549 over five years. And right in the middle, once he was done guiding his team to their franchise's first World Series appearance, and after leading the league in batting average and slugging percentage, Josh Hamilton won the 2010 American League Most Valuable Player trophy. In short, he became a superstar while in Texas. He wasn't shy about what he'd gone through, either. Knowing how he struggled with alcohol, after every playoff-clinching win, the Rangers wouldn't pop champagne, but replaced it with ginger ale just for Hamilton. From first overall pick, to cautionary tale about drug addiction, to feelgood redemptive conclusion, to MVP and perennial All-Star. Hamilton's story seemed too good to be true. And yet, here he was. He had made the most of it.
If the story of Josh Hamilton was turned into a movie five years ago, it would end right around here. Hamilton had conquered his own personal demons, some of which were literally tattooed on his body, and reached the peak of his potential. That offseason, his first in free agency, Hamilton signed a 5-year, $125-million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. The idea was that he would continue his production, and combine with Albert Pujols and the newly unleashed Mike Trout to form an offensive juggernaut that could not be stopped. That's, um, not what happened. His first full season as an Angel saw him post career lows in batting average (.250) and OBP (.307), while also turning in his worst defensive season yet in right field as he led the league in errors by an outfielder. For the first time since getting traded by the Reds, Josh Hamilton was not an All-Star. The $100-million he was still owed for the next four years was beginning to look like a huge mistake. It was now time to prove the doubters wrong. In 2014, he came out looking like he would do just that. Over the first week of the season, Hamilton went 12-for-24 with two doubles and two dingers. He garnered his first "AL Player of the Week" award since 2012. Then, in his eighth game of the year, he got sidelined by a thumb injury that kept him out of action until the beginning of June. For his first week back, it seemed like he would keep the good times rolling, as he went 12-for-32. The 24 hits combined over those two stretches of 15 total games would account for a little over a quarter of the 89 hits he'd record in 89 games played that year. While he outdid the previous year's batting average and OBP, this year it was time for his Slugging Percentage to take a hit. .414 was the lowest he'd ever posted. Despite this, the Angels made the postseason, only to get swept by the eventual pennant-winning Royals. Hamilton sure didn't help at all, going 0-for-13 and getting booed relentlessly. Those would be his last performances in an Angels jersey, as the following February, Hamilton voluntarily reported to the MLB that he had relapsed while rehabbing from offseason shoulder surgery. Angels owner Arte Moreno, utterly disgusted at someone taking responsibility for their actions, pulled all merchandise related to Hamilton and told the front office to trade him ASAP. Thus, in late April, Josh Hamilton was traded... back to the Rangers.
The Angels would be paying all but $6 million of his remaining $80 million salary, but the Rangers would have him on the field for those three remaining years. It seemed like a match made in heaven, with Texas hoping he'd pick up right where he left off when he was last in a Rangers uniform. And, well, it was the best season since his last one! He only made it into 50 games, slashing .253/.291/.441 with 8 homers. The Rangers made the ALDS, but lost in 5 to the Blue Jays, as Hamilton went 3-for-18 with 5 Ks. As odd as it was that he was back in Arlington, signs of change were on the horizon, and Hamilton looked like he was ready to take the step he couldn't in LA. Then he had to start 2016 on the DL due to knee problems, and once May hit, his season was lost. His knee had required three surgeries in the past nine months, and the Rangers would take no chances. 2017 would hopefully be a time to get back into the swing of things, until it was revealed that his knee would again require surgery. Ultimately, after it was revealed he had injured his other knee during rehab, Josh Hamilton got released that April. And so concluded his playing time, one year short of Hall consideration. But hey, he won MVP! So that's good!
This is usually the part where I say "I don't think Josh Hamilton was on the ballot because of this and that," but I can't do that here. Partially because, of course, nine years isn't enough so that's the entire reason, and partially because, unfortunately, Hamilton's story's ending is far from happy. Big warning and kinda spoiler, domestic abuse discussion ahead. Skip the rest if you don't want to read about that stuff. It appears in recent years, he's gotten much worse at battling the demons he seemed to have conquered. He and his wife divorced after his 2015 relapse, and his handling of himself hasn't gotten much better since. Earlier this year, Hamilton was indicted on charges of injury to a child. He is accused of abusing his daughters, and could face up to ten years in prison. When I see that story, I don't feel anger or hatred toward Josh Hamilton. I feel genuine sadness. Such a fantastic story of an individual's inspiring drive to defeat hardship ends with that very same individual inflicting hardship on those around him. I won't go into any detail on what the allegations are, but I'll say if what has been alleged really happened, he deserves prison time, and a lot of it. It just saddens me that a great story like his had to end like that. Wow, what a downer ending. Here's a video of hamsters to take the edge off.
Josh Hamilton doesn't get to visit the Hall. Only 9 years. Sorry, but rules are rules.

The Detroit Tigers finished the 2020 season with the third worst record in the majors, 23-35 (.397 %), and will hold the third overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft. This was their third and final season under the leadership of Manager Ron Gardenhire who announced his retirement in September 2020 due to health concerns. This franchise continues to rebuild, and develop good young talent, some of whom were promoted to the major league team in 2020. The Tigers were actually watchable during this shortened season, and piqued our interest with a 16-16 record into September, before mounting injuries decimated the team. They ended up losing 19 of their last 25 games and finishing last in the AL Central for the fourth time in six years.
Facts

• 10 members of the Detroit Tigers organization made their major league debuts in 2020, including RHP Casey Mize, LHP Tarik Skubal, IF Isaac Paredes, OF Daz Cameron, IF Sergio Alcantara, and OF Derek Hill.
• After hitting a grand slam for his first major league home run, Isaac Paredes became the first Tiger to have at least six RBIs in his first four games since Pete Fox in 1933, and held a 10-game hitting streak from September 12th through September 24th. He was recently named Mexican Pacific League Batting Champion.
• In a slugfest on August 7th between the Tigers and Pirates, both teams finished with 16 hits, surprising since each club had four players in the starting lineup batting under .190.
• On September 11th, Daz Cameron collected his first career hit, 25 years after his dad Mike recorded his first hit at the exact same ballpark, more info here.
• The Tigers August 21st win was the Tigers’ first over the Indians since April 10, 2019, ending the longest winning streak by one team over another since the Orioles’ 23-game winning streak over the expansion Royals from 1969-70.
• Miguel Cabrera’s 450’ home run on September 24th was his longest home run in more than a year according to MLB Statcast.
• Speaking of Statcast, the good people over at MotorCity Bengals assembled a fun list of Statcast offensive and pitching notables specific to the 2020 Tigers season. Fun with numbers!
• Jeimer Candelario was named one of MLB Network’s 25 biggest breakout stars of 2020 after hitting .297/.369/.503 this past season, with a hard-hit rate (47.1%) and barrel rate (10.3%) reaching career-high levels.
• Willi Castro lead this Tigers team in batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and wOBA with a slash line of .346/.381/.550, for an OPS of .931, a wOBA of .393. (In this shortened season, he ranked second in the AL in each of those categories among shortstops with at least 100 plate appearances.)

Games highlighted in this recap video

• August 29th, 2020 Victor Reyes makes an incredible catch at the center-field wall to rob Miguel Sanó of a solo home run to end the top of the 4th.
• August 2nd, 2020 Tyler Alexander strikes out the first nine batters faced in the first game of a doubleheader vs the Cincinnati Reds, tying the AL record for consecutive strikeouts in a game and setting the Major League record for a reliever.
• August 30th, 2020 Miguel Cabrera records his 2000th career hit as a Detroit Tiger, eighth player in Tigers history to record 2,000 hits with the club, second active player to have 2,000 hits with one team, joining Albert Pujols, who had 2,073 hits with the Cardinals. (On a side note, Miggy is 134 hits away from his 3000th career hit, something to look forward to in 2021!)
• August 21st, 2020 Isaac Paredes hits a grand slam in the top of the fourth for his first Major League career home run, first Tiger in a decade to hit a grand slam for his first big league home run since Brennan Boesch on April 30th, 2010.
• July 25th, 2020 JaCoby Jones hits a two-run home run off Reds closer Raisel Iglesias in the top of the ninth, breaking the tie and giving the Tigers the lead 6-4. He had previously fouled off two failed sacrifice bunt efforts earlier in the AB, and later told manager Ron Gardenhire: “I got back in the dugout and I told Gardy, 'Screw bunting. We're in Cincinnati. Let me hit,'” Jones said after the Tigers’ 6-4 win Saturday. “He started laughing.”

Not featured in this recap video: Casey Mize pitches a no-hitter into the sixth inning on September 11th vs the White Sox, JaCoby Jones hits a stand-up inside the park home run on August 10th vs the White Sox, C.J. Cron hits a two-run go-ahead home run in the top of the 9th inning on July 26th vs the Reds, and the Tigers outlast the Pirates 17-13 in a slugfest in extra innings on August 7th featuring a five RBI game for Niko Goodrum.
So, what else happened to the Tigers during the 2020 season?:

• With the first overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, the Tigers selected INF Spencer Torkelson, first time in franchise history to use the top overall pick to draft an infielder. Torkelson was also the first college corner infielder in 22 years to go first overall.
• Mr. Tiger, Tigers legend and Hall of Famer Al Kaline, passes away at age 85 on April 6th.
• The Tigers, along with the teams in the majors, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues the weekend of August 14th through 16th.
• On October 30th, the Tigers announced that they had hired A.J. Hinch as the new manager of the Tigers.
• We would certainly be remiss if we did not acknowledge the very serious impact of COVID-19 on the Tigers, Daz Cameron in particular who had asthma as a child, developed all of the symptoms of COVID-19, and contracted pneumonia after testing positive for COVID-19 in early July. (If you have a subscription, the article in The Athletic is worth reading.)
• Presenting the official Tigers account best tweets of 2020 season:
  • Congratulations to #Tigers 2014 37th-round pick Patrick Mahomes on winning MVP of his football game.
  • Bro, I'm straight up NOT having a good time
  • The best of Miggy being Miggy
  • Always in our hearts #RIPMrTiger
  • There have been 23 perfect games in MLB history. ⓘ 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we drafted him first.
  • The Detroit Tigers today named A.J. Hinch as the 39th manager in franchise history, agreeing to terms on a multi-year contract.
  • Looks like a couple of Ann Arbor residents are joining us tonight.
  • Retweet if Catcher Cam should be a thing
  • Welcome to the Show! The #Tigers today announced that three top prospects are scheduled to make their debuts this week: No. 2 RHP Casey Mize, No. 5 LHP Tarik Skubal and No. 6 INF Isaac Paredes
• Cameron Maybin was traded at the August 31st trade deadline to the Cubs for INF prospect Zack Short
• In September, the Tigers farm system was ranked second best overall by MLB Pipeline, the future is bright and we cannot wait to see what 2021 has in store for us fans of the organization.

And that has been your toast to the Tigers!

Well that was disappointing. I'm still here, though, because there are too many good stories I haven't gotten to yet. For all y'all that aren't so familiar with what's going on here, the Selection Committee that puts together the list of players on the ballot have to trim it down quite a bit, since there's a whole lot of people who technically qualify but aren't deemed noteworthy enough to get recognized with a placement on the ballot. Here, we look at the ones left behind. There are a lot more of these at the bottom, so check those out if you're into that sort of thing. To the main attraction.

Corey Hart

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 16
Career bWAR (11 years): 14.4
Stats: .271/.329/.478, 112 OPS+, 1009 H, 162 HR, 416 XBH, 538 RBI, 549 R
League Leading Stats: Games as RF (156, 2008)
Awards: All-Star 2x (2008, 2010)
Teams Played For: Brewers (2004-12), Mariners (2014), Pirates (2015)
Corey Hart is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He has released two Gold Records and one Platinum Record, and nine of his singles have reached the American Top 40. He also shares a name with a former Brewers right fielder. That Corey Hart was a two-time All-Star and one-time Home Run Derby contestant, got over a thousand hits, had a career OPS above .800, and yet I can still only think of him as the "Sunglasses at Night" guy. Neither Corey Hart the singer nor Corey Hart the baseball player are on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, though only one of them qualified for it. The other released nine studio albums and six compilation records. I hope I don't confuse the two.
Hart's career began in the 2000 draft, when the Milwaukee Brewers drafted him in the 11th round. It became clear quite quickly that he was a First Offense, second defense type of player, and so for a good 5 years in the minors, he tried out at first, third, and all over the outfield. Over those five years, he never once finished the year with a batting average below .280, or, apart from his first season, an OPS below .800. He also hit 91 home runs and drove in 456 RBIs. Not too bad for someone drafted out of high school. Hart even found time out of the day to make a pinch-hitting appearance in May of 2004 for some godforsaken reason, then show up in 21 MLB games in 2005, going a significantly worse .165/.270/.368. He did get a home run in his first start in center field, though. Seems even at 23, Hart's plate presence showed he was more than just a Boy In The Box.
Hart's first real full-time season was 2006, when he batted .283/.328/.468. Tack on 9 home runs to that and you got a perfectly fine rookie campaign, fielding woes notwithstanding. One might even say equivalent to another rookie on the team who batted .271/.347/.483. Oh, that other guy got Rookie of the Year votes and Hart didn't? And that was due in no small part to some shenanigans in Florida? And that other rookie also hit 28 home runs and was named Prince Fielder? Okay, fine. He still had done enough to secure his place on the team for the near future. 2007 would be the year he'd get so hot the fields he was playing on became Fields of Fire. One thing that I haven't talked about that really contributed to Corey Hart's rise up the music charts- ahem, minor leagues, was his speed. Despite his 6'6" frame, he stole 135 bases before he was a full-time Major League player, only getting caught 38 times. Because of that, in 2007 he became, as far as my thoroughly research has told me, the tallest regular leadoff hitter in MLB history. My thorough research consisted of me googling "tallest leadoff hitter" and getting no other results, so feel free to prove me wrong (and no, Aaron Judge does not count). Hart kicked off 55 games in the 1 spot in 2007, stealing a total of 23 bases on the year. Guess you could call him a Young Man Running. Those legs helped the Brewers improve from a 75-87 finish the previous year to the best record in the NL a week after the All-Star break. Even if they stumbled through the rest of the season, they still finished 83-79, a marked improvement. That was thanks in part to Corey Hart, whose 4.7 bWAR was the most on the team. Naturally, he was voted to... oh? That Prince guy hit 50 homers and came in 3rd in MVP voting? And this other kid named Braun put up one of the worst defensive seasons at third base and still stumbled into a Rookie of the Year Award and a couple MVP votes by hitting really well? And Corey didn't show up on a single ballot despite fielding far better than either of them? Oh whatever. Hart had still entered everyday play in the league with a Bang!
The next five years, Corey Hart was taken out of the leadoff spot, and settled into a pattern of good-to-very-good-but-never-truly-great baseball. He averaged .274/.332/.486, with highs of 31 homers and 102 RBIs coming in 2010. He even got voted to the All-Star game that year, coming in third in that year's Home Run Derby behind a shortstop and a 35-year-old man. That shortstop may have been named Hanley Ramirez and that 35-year-old man may have been named David Ortiz, so it's not that bad. Hart even garnered all of two 10th place NL MVP votes that year after hitting .283/.340/.525. Good luck telling me why a dude with that line on a team that finished 77-85 who led the team in exactly one category (slugging) was the 10th most valuable player that year. He also got an All-Star berth in 2008 for... sympathy, I guess? Yeah he was hitting .299 with 14 dingers before the break, and the Brewers were doing well, but was he really more deserving than, like, Jerry Hairston batting over .330? Perhaps Hart's good Christian morals pushed him over the edge, since his inclusion was based on a fan vote, and he might've been viewed as possessing worthwhile Attitude & Virtue. The end of that year even saw him get into the playoffs, where he went hit 3 singles, and watched his team step aside as the 2008 Phillies trotted their way to a 3-1 NLDS win en route to the World Series. His 2011 numbers (.285/.356/.510) were near carbon copies of his 2010 numbers (.283/.340/.525). This time the team around him was different, though, because Ryan Braun played like an MVP, Prince Fielder hit lots of home runs again, and Jonathan Lucroy began to come into his own. Also they got Zack Greinke and had a competent bullpen, which probably helped. The Brewers again made the playoffs, and this time Hart hit two home runs, one for each series his team was in. Milwaukee also lost both games where he homered, so make of that what you will. After the Cardinal devil magic cursed them to an NLCS defeat, Hart came back in 2012 for more of the same, with a couple more home runs and 20 RBIs but also almost 40 more strikeouts and his lowest OPS in three years. He also only stole 5 bases after the past two years combined saw only 14 out of 26 attempts go well. He did play a mean first base for the first time in a while after two other first basemen got injured. A January knee surgery was also set to take out a sizable chunk of his speed, which was already on the decline as exhibited by his dip in fielding range. The 3-4 month recovery time was expected to keep him out until May, but once the other knee also required surgery, his 2013 season would end without him ever having suited up for a Brewers game. Even with so much time spent in the organization, including the 10th most total bases in franchise history and a higher Brewers career OPS than both Paul Molitor and Robin Yount, the team said "It Ain't Enough." He'd just been paid $10 million to sit on the sidelines for a year, and given that it was most likely going to be more than that to keep him, Milwaukee instead thanked him for his service and unleashed him on the open market. Would another team see his history, and say "I know I shouldn't, but I Can't Help Falling In Love Corey Hart cover version?"
MLB Trade Rumors placed Hart as the 39th best free agent available. He signed a 1-year, $6-million contract with the Seattle Mariners to prove he still had what it took, and that he'd Never Surrender. Maybe he should've, because after a year of off-and-on Designated Hitting ended with a line of .201/.271/.319, plus notching more strikeouts than hits for the first time in his career, the Mariners decided not to bring him back for the next season. The Pirates, clearly paying all kinds of attention, signed him to another prove-it contract for $2.5 million. Maybe he told them "I'll give you Everything in My Heart." Then he went .222/.246/.352 in just 35 games, and something something Self-Titled. That would be the last we saw of Corey Hart the baseball player, and he confirmed as much in 2017 when he signed a one-day contract with Milwaukee to end it where he started. Hope it didn't leave him feeling Jaded. Ten Thousand Horses.
For all the flack I've given him, Corey Hart did have a nice career. Perhaps not the most memorable, nor the sort that could brand him an unsung hero, but a fine eleven years of baseball. Well, more like a fine seven years, surrounded by four in which he either played poorly or barely played at all, sometimes both. From the tallest regular leadoff guy to a two-time All-Star, there was plenty to like, but not enough to remember, which is why I think he was left off the ballot. And you know what, who am I to compare him to the likes of a singer like the "Sunglasses at Night" dude? Singin' Corey Hart only had 40 singles. Swingin' Corey Hart had over 500 of those!
Corey Hart would visit the Hall of Fame in a Brewers hat for his 950 hits, 154 home runs, 508 RBIs, and 83 stolen bases with the club. He can't visit with sunglasses on at night because the Hall closes at 5 PM.
Here is some more of this same thing but with different names and stories
#1: Randy Choate
#2: Kevin Gregg
#3: Dan Uggla
#4: Josh Hamilton
#5: Delmon Young
#6: Willie Bloomquist
#7: Grady Sizemore
#8: Kevin Correia
#9: David DeJesus
#10: Rafael Betancourt
#11: Clint Barmes
#12: Adam LaRoche
#13: Grant Balfour
#14: Randy Wolf
#15: Rafael Soriano
#16: Chris Denorfia
#17: Bruce Chen
#18: Cody Ross
#19: Scott Baker
#20: Jeff Francis
#21: Aaron Harang

RIP Hank Aaron. I unintentionally picked a fortuitous name to discuss today, but here we are. I think out of respect for the man, and all he did for baseball, I'll only post one today to keep the focus on him as much as possible. In that way, I'm kind of glad they share such similar names. Anyway, if you don't know what this is, it's a series about players who qualified for the Hall of Fame ballot, but were cut. The rest are at the bottom.

Aaron Harang

Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 12 Career bWAR (14 years): 20.1 (23.9 w/o batting) Stats: 128-143, 4.26 ERA, 97 ERA+, 381 GS, 2322.0 IP, 1852 K, 712 BB, League Leading Stats: Wins (16, 2006), Losses (17, 2008), Complete Games (6, 2006), Strikeouts (216, 2006), Batters Faced (993, 2006), Wild Pitches (12, 2007), K/BB (4.192, 2007) Awards: None Teams Played For: Athletics (2002-03), Reds (2003-10), Padres (2011), Dodgers (2012), Mariners (2013), Mets (2013), Braves (2014), Phillies (2015)
The dictionary defines the word “harangue” as “a speech addressed to a public assembly,” and then secondly as “an angry speech or writing.” Allow me to deliver my harangue on Aaron Harang: he deserved to be on the Hall of Fame ballot. When I look at the story of Aaron Harang, I see a theme. Over the majority of his career, things did not end up the way they should have. The biggest injustice of that sort, in my opinion, is that he finished his career worthy of an appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot. And yet, that didn't happen. Normally, having a three-year stretch where you average over 5 WAR a season and being an Opening Day starter five years in a row would result in a last hurrah on the ballot, even without anybody voting for you. But that’s not how it ended. Let’s explore why I believe that should have been the case for this absolutely terrifying giant of a baseball player.
After going from a 22nd round draft choice out of high school to a 6th round draft choice out of college, Harang's professional career began on the Texas Rangers’ rookie-ball affiliate, the Pulaski Rangers. His first time in a professional setting netted him a 9-2 record, a 2.30 ERA, and an Appalachian League Pitcher of the Year award. His next year, in high-A, he joined the Port Charlotte Rangers. Those Rangers affiliates sure have creative names now don’t they. He tossed well enough for a 13-5 record, a 3.32 ERA, 137 strikeouts, and a Florida State League All-Star selection. Success like that should translate into top-prospect status, and perhaps even a high price on the trade market. But Aaron Harang is one to defy expectations, and so in the 2000 offseason, Texas flipped him with a career minor leaguer to the Athletics for Randy Velarde. Velarde was a 38-year-old middle infielder who had just finished 2000 with an OPS of .754. While the Rangers certainly needed infield help, they had only two starting arms and two bullpen arms with ERAs below 5. Also they did this thing that winter where they signed a guy named Alex Rodriguez. He helped ease their middle infield woes a teensy bit more than Velarde. No matter. Harang would continue pitching well, though he'd encounter a bit of trouble in Oakland's AA affiliate. Still, 10-8 with a 4.14 ERA is better than I'd've done. The trouble he encountered only made him stronger as the next year he'd get promoted to AAA after just three starts. Probably helped that those three starts had a combined two earned runs and 21 strikeouts. After a couple starts for the Sacramento River Cats went well, a struggling A's team accepted Harang into the fold. His first start, on May 25th, would show them they were right to do so.
The first Major League start of a pitcher who, less than a year ago, was struggling in AA, should probably be out of necessity, and go rather poorly. Especially if, like Harang, the pitcher in that situation is young, having just turned 24 not two weeks ago. And yet, those expectations got dashed, because Aaron Harang enjoys doing that. Seven strong innings of shutout ball. Three hits, three walks, and ten strikeouts. A Gamescore of 78 in his first major league start (for reference, Stephen Strasburg's first start was a 75). All 6 feet and 7 inches of Harang dominated. Granted, his opponent was the 16-30 Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but still. That seemed like the sort of spark the 2002 A's needed, as they would go on to lose just 5 of their next 27 games. Oakland’s record was 22-26 before Harang's first start, and had blasted off to 42-31 once he finished up his fifth. With that kind of launch, which saw the league’s worst offense through its first 50 games score 5 or more runs in seven consecutive contests, you'd expect Harang would have a pretty good record. And yet, he suffered two of those five losses, and after his fifth start, he was 3-2. Expectations had been subverted once again. Two weeks later, after his ERA was 2.84 through eight starts, you'd expect he'd keep his spot in the rotation. Alas, Oakland picked an interesting time to trade for Ted Lilly, and Harang, once again performing the unexpected, was a River Cat once more. Then, only three weeks after the trade, Lilly got injured, and Harang was back in the rotation. Seems he left some of his stuff in Sacramento, because over the next two months, his ERA ballooned to 4.83, even after starting a couple times during the 20-game win streak. He got left off the playoff roster, and despite some early noise, showed up on zero Rookie of the Year ballots. The A's, hoping he could find what he left in Sacramento, started him down there for the first two months of 2003. Coming up after an injury to one of their pitchers, Harang made a nice relief appearance where he pitched four scoreless innings. That was enough for Art Howe to put him back in the rotation. He promptly lost three of his next six starts, threw up a 6.15 ERA, and got sent back down to the minors to make room for Rich Harden. Billy Beane was then caught salivating over rightfielder Jose Guillen of the Cincinnati Reds. Up to that point in the season, Guillen’s On-Base Percentage was .385, much higher than the .261 of the Athletics’ RF, Jermaine Dye. When Guillen became available, and Harang was one of the pieces demanded, Beane gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger. Perhaps he assumed, correctly, that a rotation with prime Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Ted Lilly would be good enough to make the playoffs. And as a result, Aaron Harang, along with fellow pitchers Joe Valentine and Jeff Bruksch, headed to Cincinnati. Hopes were high for him in a Reds uniform, but we all know his relationship with expectations. How’d he do?
The Reds team Harang joined would win just 20 games while he was part of the team. He entered their starting rotation, and in nine starts, put up a 5.28 ERA. One might expect that wouldn’t be an ERA worth keeping on the staff. However, this is Aaron Harang we’re talking about. The 2003 Cincinnati Reds were so starved for good pitching that only a month-and-a-half after the draft, the pitcher they selected 13th overall had already made a relief appearance in the majors. In fact, of the 17 pitchers that started games for the Reds that year, only 4 had an ERA lower than Harang’s 5.28. Kinda makes sense that he got traded with two other pitchers now. He stuck around on the staff for 2004, putting up a perfectly mediocre ERA of 4.86 in 28 starts. In a year where Doug Davis’ 3.39 ERA resulted in a 12-12 record, one might think Harang’s record was shot. But you forget who this is. His 10-9 record wasn’t even the best one on the team, one that finished 76-86 despite allowing over 150 more runs than they scored. Guess Harang’s career-long stunt of defying expectations inspired the whole team that year. One particular start stands out, in which the eventual NL pennant winners and their newfound ace pitcher Chris Carpenter took on Harang and the Reds near the end of August. The Cardinals had won over 80 games by that point. The Reds had just scraped together to win their 60th two days prior. One would expect Carpenter’s hot starter and a 3-4-5 of Pujols, Rolen, and Edmonds to cruise to a win over Cincinnati. And wouldn’t you know it, Aaron Harang decided that was the day he’d pitch is first career shutout. 9 innings, 3 hits, 1 walk, and 6 strikeouts from Harang later, the Reds had finished the game with a final score of 1-0. Sure, the win didn’t make much of a difference in the grander scheme of things, but it showed just what one particular Aaron Harang was capable of. And he’d show just how far he could go in the coming years.
2005 was a banner year for Aaron Harang. His best year in the Majors so far saw career bests in Wins with 11, ERA with 3.83 (good for another best 112 ERA+), strikeouts with 163, and innings pitched with 211. Best of all, he gave the Reds something they had lacked for several years: a consistent starting pitcher. Pity he seemed to be the only one, as Brandon Clausen was the only other pitcher in Cincinnati to regularly start games without an ERA over 5. Even if you have an outfield with Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn combining for 75 home runs, if Eric Milton and Ramon Ortiz combine to allow 74 dingers, you’re gonna finish 73-89. Heck, even the offense was inconsistent, seeing as how Harang lost 13 games, 4 of which were Quality Starts. No matter, the next year would be better. And better it certainly was. Aaron Harang, a pitcher on the hapless Cincinnati Reds, led the league in wins, with a record of 16-11. His strikeout total, a new career high at 216, also stood atop the league. This had only been accomplished by one other Reds pitcher in history: Bucky Walters in 1939. He won the MVP that season. In fact, every single NL pitcher who had ever finished the season leading the field in both those categories had won the Cy Young award at year’s end. One might fully expect the same pattern to hold here. However, this would be another addition to the long list of expectations Harang would subvert. He did not win the Cy Young award. He wasn’t even in the top 5. Aaron Harang did not appear on a single ballot for the NL Cy Young. Didn’t even make the All-Star team despite a 9-6 record and 120 Ks at the break. While many of the trends Harang had been bucking were positive in nature, this one would probably be one where he’d prefer not to defy expectations. Now, how did that happen, you may ask? Well, there were several factors. One was his ERA, which was 3.76. Not bad at all, especially with an NL best 35 games started, another NL best 6 complete games, and yet another NL best 993 batters faced in 234.1 innings. However, it was far from the best. Wasn’t even the best in his rotation. The Reds had struck gold yet again with a new starting arm named Bronson Arroyo, who came over from Boston less than two weeks before the season started. Arroyo finished the year with a 3.29 ERA, unheard of for a Reds pitcher in the past five years, and he rode that to an All-Star appearance and even showed up on an NL MVP ballot. Another factor was the Reds, who missed the playoffs with an 80-82 record after their previously effective offense failed to capitalize on some finally good starting pitching. Catcher David Ross was the only member of the lineup to have an OPS north of .900, and their 749 runs scored was over 50 fewer than they’d had the year prior. Thus, Aaron Harang was the second best pitcher on a sub-.500 team. His numbers were disregarded due to lack of team success, and he found himself without any of the expected respect given to his achievements. All he could do after that was show that the men in charge of such things had made a mistake. And the next year, he did just that.
Harang would start his second straight Opening Day game for the Reds, facing the Cubs and Carlos Zambrano. Zambrano had appeared on several NL Cy Young ballots the previous year, despite walking almost twice as many batters as Harang, and having worse stats in practically every category that weren’t ERA or losses. Starting as he meant to go on, Harang pitched 7 innings, allowed just one unearned run, and struck out 5, securing the win. Zambrano allowed 5 runs and took the loss. That was the first of 20 Quality Starts Harang had in 2007, as well as the first of 16 wins, duplicating his total of the previous year. While it wasn’t the most in the league this year, it was still able to turn some heads. His 3.73 ERA was another improvement, as was his 218 strikeouts. While some might expect improving on a strikeout total that led the league would result in another year with the most Ks in the NL, Jake Peavy decided to take the pitching Triple Crown that year with 240 strikeouts, so that didn’t happen. The biggest improvement voters saw, I suspect, was none of that, but the significant lessening of losses, from 11 in 2006 to just 6 in 2007. He also did that amidst a team that lost 90 games after Bronson Arroyo was only the second best pitcher on the team and a lineup with names like Josh Hamilton, Adam Dunn, and Edwin Encarnacion had trouble plating runs. Still, Aaron Harang performed admirably among that team, and even scored a 4th place finish in NL Cy Young voting. Still no All-Star appearance despite a 9-2 record at the break (come ON), but there was still time to establish the clear and present truth that he belonged there. Please fulfill my expectations there, Aaron.
One might believe that after such an extraordinary past three seasons, which had consistency the likes of Brandon Webb or Johan Santana, the next logical step would be continued dominance and an eventual Cy Young trophy. However, the expectations proved faulty once again with Aaron Harang. He had just finished a three year stretch going 43-30 with a 3.77 ERA and 597 strikeouts. His next three years would watch him go 18-38 with a 4.71 ERA and 377 strikeouts. His WHIP went from 1.226 in 05-07 to 1.442 in 08-10. He’d go from leading the league in wins in 2006 to leading it in losses with 17 in 2008. He was still a fine starting pitcher, don’t get me wrong, but Aaron Harang from 2005 to 2007 was an ace. His performance over that time was the sort that gave a team hope for the present and the future. The kind that inspires the thought “we may suck right now, but Harang will be around, and since he’ll keep it up, who knows just how good we can be.” He didn’t keep it up, because men are fallible creatures, and the only thing predictable about life is its unpredictability, doubly so when that life is Aaron Harang’s. The worst part of all this? In 2010, the Reds were actually good. Like really good. They won 90 games and the division, with the help of flashy second baseman Brandon Phillips, star third baseman Scott Rolen, eventual MVP Joey Votto, newcomer Jay Bruce, and, of course, pitching. Bronson Arroyo had a bounceback year, and four pitchers under the age of 25 named Johnny Cueto, Homer Bailey, Mike Leake, and Travis Wood contributed massively by filling important gaps in the rotation. All this while, Aaron Harang was doing his best, but after having had his previous season cut short by an emergency appendectomy, he just wasn’t up to his usual standards. He finished the season 6-7 with a 5.32 ERA, the worst of his career. After giving the team so much for so long, one might think that despite his inconsistency as of late, since he’s been around and contributed a great deal, there would still be a playoff roster spot saved especially for him, for old times’ sake. After all, despite his dismal numbers, the team had allowed him to start the last game of the season having clinched the division. Yet, this was another expectation Harang would defy, as not only was he left off the playoff roster, but he had to watch his team get no-hit in their first playoff game in 15 years. The Reds were quickly pushed aside in a 3-game NLDS sweep, and once the season was over, Aaron Harang was given the news that he was a free agent that winter. A 32-year-old in search of a new team following his worst season. The same situation would eventually end the career of Carlos Zambrano. Would Harang bow out in the same fashion?
Being that his worst seasons had just befallen him back-to-back-to-back, one might expect a minor league offer that blossoms into a spot on the roster to be the next logical course of action in this story. You’re not gonna believe this, but that is not what happened. The San Diego Padres called Harang in early December, offered him a $3.5 million contract with a mutual second-year option, and he said yes. He’d finish the 2011 season as one of the brighter spots on a team that didn’t have very many of them. His 3.64 ERA would actually be a new career best, his 14-7 record would show he had returned to form, and his 1.365 WHIP was his best since he had earned Cy Young votes. However, his strikeout total of 124 was his worst over a full season of work, his walk total of 58 was another new career worst, and his team went 71-91 after at one time having the NL’s best record late in the previous year. Both parties decided it was best to part ways, and Harang once again became a free agent. His recent re-ascension helped the overall feeling around him, and he was ranked 40th in MLB Trade Rumors’ best free agents available. The Dodgers liked the sound of that, and so signed him for 2 years and $10 million. He’d once again achieve a new career best ERA at 3.61 in 2012, and allow just 14 homers, his lowest total of any season since 2003. He’d also go 10-10, and walk an even higher career worst 85 batters, but that still equated to the third best member of the Los Angeles rotation not named Clayton that year. You might think they like what they see and intend to keep him around except this is Aaron Harang so they dealt him to the Rockies on the fifth day of the 2013 season. You might think he’s staying there but this is Aaron Harang so he gets dealt again to the Seattle Mariners of all places on the 10th day of the 2013 season. Did he at least keep up the trend of pitching pretty well despite his age? Who do you think this is? No, he went 5-11 in 22 starts of 5.76 ERA ball before getting released at the end of August. Oh gosh, I guess he just sucked the whole time he was in Seattle. NO ACTUALLY BECAUSE HE THREW TWO COMPLETE GAME SHUTOUTS AS A MARINER BECAUSE THIS IS AARON HARANG AND NOTHING MAKES SENSE. For the sake of my sanity, I’ll wrap this up quickly. The Mets signed him on September 1st, he started four games for them, and then rode off into the sunset after they missed the playoffs. A spring training invite from Cleveland shortly followed, was declined by the Indians before the season started, and so he was scooped up by the Braves. Defies expectations (shocker), 12-12, new career best ERA at 3.57 in his age-36 season because of course, 161 strikeouts was the most since his Cy Young vote-getting year, but no playoffs. Back on everyone’s radar, Philadelphia signs him to a $5-million contract, he goes 6-15 with a 4.86 ERA and just 108 strikeouts, and he hangs it up after that. At least I didn’t defy my own expectations.
Aaron Harang was, in my humble opinion, the best player this year to not make the Hall of Fame ballot. His ever-interesting journey through 14 years of playing in the MLB was not only fascinating, but extraordinary. In terms of sheer odds-ignoring work, Harang’s resume is unmatched by any player we have so far covered. His career reminds me of another player, who in fact showed up on the ballot two years ago: Rick Ankiel. Ankiel pitched very well his rookie year, but a bad case of the yips seemed to have completely derailed his hopes of ever succeeding at the Major League level. And yet, he defied expectations to come back as an excellent outfieldier, putting together an amazing highlight reel of outfield assists and hitting prowess. While Aaron Harang may not have been that, he was still an oddity. His career trajectory went all over the place, from unassuming prospect-in-disguise to unquestionable staff ace to a shell of his former self to a reversal of fortune, Harang deserved to be remembered, and it seemed the Selection Committee didn’t consider him worthy of a checkbox on their special piece of paper.
Aaron Harang would visit the Hall of Fame in a Cincinnati Reds hat for his 75-80 record, 4.28 ERA, and 1125 strikeouts with the team. With any luck, he wouldn’t defy any expectations by showing up in any other team’s hat.
And the rest
#1: Randy Choate
#2: Kevin Gregg
#3: Dan Uggla
#4: Josh Hamilton
#5: Delmon Young
#6: Willie Bloomquist
#7: Grady Sizemore
#8: Kevin Correia
#9: David DeJesus
#10: Rafael Betancourt
#11: Clint Barmes
#12: Adam LaRoche
#13: Grant Balfour
#14: Randy Wolf
#15: Rafael Soriano
#16: Chris Denorfia
#17: Bruce Chen
#18: Cody Ross
#19: Scott Baker
#20: Jeff Francis