On this date in 2007, the Yankees signed Roger Clemens as a free agent. Clemens would pitch 99 innings for the Yankees with a 4.18 ERA, 6.2 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 before calling it a career. The Yankees made the playoffs that year before losing to the Indians in the Division Series. Here are today's links:
- As Alex Speier of WEEI.com points out, investing heavily in relief pitching is risky. Though it's early, Boston's expensive, revamped bullpen has struggled and Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler are now on the DL.
- Twins GM Bill Smith told Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports that Joe Mauer, now on the DL with bilateral leg weakness, will “get back to being Joe Mauer.”
- Bobby Abreu told Enrique Rojas of ESPNdeportes.com that he plans to play three or four more years (link in Spanish). Abreu would like to reach 300 homers (he has 277), 400 steals (he has 376) and 600 doubles (he has 532) to boost his Cooperstown credentials.
- Brandon Boggs accepted his Triple-A assignment and was recalled to take the place of Nyjer Morgan, who is on the DL, the team announced.
Goodness Gracious!!!… Roger Clemens is going to jail!!
I wonder what Bill Smith means by that. Who is the real Mauer, basically? Is he the MVP from ’09, or the other one who’s consistently been a doubles/line drive hitter year after year? Bascisally, we know he was lucky in ’09, but it’s interesting to know what Smith thinks.
In other news, speaking of Twins catchers, Paul Bargar, whom the Twins acquired for Jose Morales has brain cancer, which is absolutely terrible.
Bobby Abreu… nice player but IMO NOT a hall of famer……
I agree, but he has a very strong case. He was one of the better all around players for more than a decade. Power, Speed, Average,Ridiculous OBP and he can still take a walk.
If he reaches those milestones then he’s likely going to get in at some point. I would put him in the same class as Johnny Damon if Damon reaches 3000 hits, No sustained period of greatness but consistant and has numbers that hold “face value”.
Abreu has been a significantly better hitter than Johnny Damon. He leads in OBP .400 to .355 and SLG .486 to .436.
A better comparison is Dwight Evans – Evans had more power and much better defense, Abreu hit for a higher average and had a lot more speed, but their cases line up about the same. Very good player over a long period of time, based on their very patient approaches and willingness to take walks. Both had a couple excellent seasons, but in the end probably short of a Hall of Famer. I probably take Evans’ peak over Abreu’s, but I’m biased.
I’m not going to try to make a case for him to be in the hall because in my opinion he shouldn’t be, but he actually did have a sustained period of greatness. From 1998-2004 he never posted a WAR below 5.5, and from 1998-2006 he never posted a wOBA below .380.
So typical of Bobby. He wants to set records yet no desire to ever win anything.
Watched him play for several years in Philly. One of the keys to our current success, imho, was trading him.
Why you got absolutely nothing in return for him? Are you implying he was selfish or that Ibanez was a better player?
He was traded to the Yankees for 4 players that’ll never appear in a major league game. He was traded because the feeling was he didn’t care and didn’t motivate any players with his veteran leadership. Same reason why the they let him walk to the Halos.
Actually, the Yanks let him walk to the Halos and I’m sure most would say he performed very well with the Yanks. Maybe the circumstances were different because the Yanks didn’t need veteran leadership. Still, he would’ve been a moster hitting in front of Utley and Howard providing tons of scoring opps.
I miss discussing baseball with you, Yanksfansince78. Hope things are well.
Why I’m sure its just a statistical anomaly related to the cycles of moon, Chilean Buddhism, or what have you, the Phillies are 428-302 (.586 winning %) since Abreu was traded. I got to believe thats close to the best record in baseball over that time period.
So I have to conclude that Bobby Abreu is a secret communist robot ninja sent back in time to sabotage the brave Philadelphia Phillies. And he would have succeeded too, if not for that meddling Gillick.
Plus, the year after he left the Yankees via free agency, they won the World Series. I don’t need any more proof that he hates to win.
And by that logic, Don Mattingly prevented the Yankees from reaching and/or winning the World Series as well. The year before he began his career with the Yankees, they played the Dodgers in the WS…the year after he retired, they beat the Braves in the WS. I guess it was because of Donnie Baseball that the Yankees never reached that plateau?! I have never been the biggest proponent of Bobby Abreu, but…to say that he hates to win is beyond idiotic!
Time-traveling communist robot ninjas care not for your winning. They care only for the alcohol that fuels their mighty power cells. And shrinky-dinks. They care only for alcohol and shrinky-dinks.
whatever you are drinking/smoking, bro…please give me some!!! Luv the shrinky-dink reference.
The only thing I’m on high on is life. And PCP.
Mattingly was a case of jinx
Given Abreu’s level of production over the past 180+ games it can be argued that he could actually hurt his case if he holds on to long.
“As Alex Speier points out, investing heavily in relief pitching is risky. Though it’s early, Boston’s expensive, revamped bullpen has struggled and Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler are now on the DL.”
Well, anything is better than having Manny Delcarmen or Ramon Ramirez on the roster, so I’m not complaining.
I wonder what the difference is between Jenks/Wheeler and Delcarmen/Ramirez…
Wow. I have nothing against Abreu. He’s a very likeable guy. But if
Abreu gets admitted into the Hall of Fame, MLB can just save time and
admit EVERYBODY to the Hall of Fame five years after they retire.
They’ve already set the bar way lower than Abreu by letting Jim Rice in.
And they set the bar low enough for Rice by allowing Orlando Cepeda in.
You’re point stands though – letting Abreu in would hardly lower the minimum standard. He’d be a far shot from the worst Hall of Famer.
Not true at all. Take a look at the image below. Those are all his flyouts last year at Target Field but on the Metrodome image. It’s displaying where his flyouts at Target Field would have landed had he hit them at the Metrodome
If you don’t factor in the weather, yes. You’re forgetting that cold weather doesn’t allow the ball to carry as well. Wind is a factor as well. Look at all those warning track balls. I counted about 30 or so. The Dome was what, 65 (?) degrees with zero wind.
You can’t say that they wouldn’t have gone out just because of the dimensions, the Twins now have weather conditions to deal with. The dimensions of Target Field are almost the same as the Dome, so unless all of those little dots are factoring in wind speed and temperature those balls would not land in the exact same place in the Dome. I’m not saying he would have hit 30 HR’s, but he definitely would have hit more.
I agree, Target
Field has really hurt Mauer. It is similar to the way Citi
I was saying the same thing last year, Target Field is really hurting the Twins. Mauer is in the same boat as David Wright at Citi Field. I would be concerned with his injuries. Target Field and Citi Field were the biggist mistakes made by organizations; nobody will want to play for those teams in the future unless they move their fences in!
If you looked at his ’09 BABIP, and contact/zone swing percentage as well as his power factor (via Wahoo Blues) you’d know that his power very flukish in ’09. Plus, the. Twins at the dome had the AC blowing out which could have been a reason.
Basically, he didn’t just blossom in ’09 as much as he was lucky thus last year he regressed to his peak, he didn’t just regress in general. Plus, the wind wasn’t blowing in every game at Target, so let’s just assume he’s going to be hitting around 9-12 homers while wOBA’ing a similar mid-high .300, which us fine.
I didn’t think he would ever hit as many as he did in 2009 again (Dome or not), but I could see 20 on a regular basis in the Dome. And the ac blowing out is a bunch of bull and you know it. So the wind was pushing all those balls to the warning track last year, since he can’t hit it out that far Dome or no Dome?
You’re basically saying that the weather was a non-factor last year, which is crap.
Your the one making it seem like the weather blew in every single night without using any statistical annalysia’ unlike me.
Did I say it blew in? Point me to where I said that? Wind doesn’t blow in just one direction for all eternity. In fact, for the 25 games I went to the wind seemed to blow all over the place, but the times the wind was really whipping I noticed it would blow out to RF.
To show a chart of the Dome’s dimensions and say that is GUARANTEED where the ball would have landed in the Dome is just an extremely bad argument. You can’t ignore weather in MN. You can’t go from a climate controlled stadium to an outdoor ballpark and say it has zero factor. The same can be said for any other team in major league baseball, any other climate style. Put the teams in Dome’s outdoors and the teams that are outside indoors. So if Texas or Florida goes from outdoors in the humid weather to a climate controlled stadium it would be no factor in their offense? That’s what you’re basically stating. The ball is not guaranteed to land in the same place like you want to argue.
As I said, I’m not saying Mauer was going to hit 30 HR’s for the rest of his career or last year even. I could see 20 or close to it for multiple seasons. There are so many warning track balls in that Dome chart, you can’t guarantee that none of them would have went out in the Dome. You can’t guarantee that all of them would have either and I haven’t been.
I do know Mauer swung differently in 2009. I know that and I’m not arguing that part. I’m arguing the fact that they play in a completely different place now and you can’t guarantee this type of comparison when there is such a big new factor. It’s not just the wind. It’s the temp as well and any other weather factors that might come into play (rain, snow, dew point…I don’t know). I’m not a weather man but I’m sure more than wind and temp factor into what the results will be. The same goes for all teams in MLB who are outdoors.
Mauer hit 8/9 away from Target Field. You’re saying that none of those +30 warning track balls would have went out in the Dome. I highly doubt that. Highly. And to hit as many HR’s as I think he could, he would have only needed around thirty percent of those balls to go his way. That sounds like a high number, but it really isn’t considering he hit about twenty percent of his hits to the warning track.
Once you can tell me the wind speed, the temp and anything else weather related for each one of those dots then your argument could have some valid case. Until then it doesn’t.
There is a lot of talk about blowing going on here. I don’t want to be any part of it.