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Hall Of Fame Announces 2023 Era Committee Candidates

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The National Baseball Hall of Fame this morning announced the eight players who’ll be considered for induction by the Era Committee, formerly known as the Veteran’s Committee. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, Albert Belle, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy and Rafael Palmeiro will each be under consideration. Any player who receives votes from 12 members of the 16-person panel will be inducted into the Hall of Fame, along with anyone selected by 75% of the voters on the Baseball Writers Association of America ballot.

Bonds, Clemens and Schilling are the most notable and long-discussed of the group. All three fell off the writers’ ballot last winter after failing to reach 75% of the vote for a 10th consecutive year, thereby exhausting their eligibility. They’ll immediately garner renewed consideration, this time from the Era Committee after their progress on the writers’ ballot stalled — or in Schilling’s case, dropped after he attempted to remove himself from the ballot as his support dwindled following a number of controversial public statements — towards the end of their time under consideration.

Clemens and Bonds, of course, have slam-dunk Hall of Fame statistics but were left outside the Hall due to their ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Both were named as alleged steroid users in the 2007 Mitchell Report. Palmeiro’s HOF candidacy was also derailed by PED ties, in his case a 2005 suspension for a failed test that came a few months after he denied ever taking steroids during Congressional testimony the preceding spring. Palmeiro spent four seasons on the writers’ ballot but fell off in 2014 after receiving less than the 5% of the vote needed to remain under consideration.

Belle lasted two seasons on the writers’ ballot, falling below the 5% threshold in 2007. Mattingly, McGriff and Murphy all spent the maximum allotted time under consideration by the BBWAA but never crossed the necessary 75% threshold. Mattingly’s vote share peaked at 28.2% in his first year on the ballot. Murphy topped out at 23.2%, while McGriff’s vote share hit its apex at 39.8% during his final year in 2019.

The Era Committee’s purpose is to induct players who may have slipped through the cracks on the BBWAA ballot. It has historically cast a wider net for induction than has the Writers Association. This year’s crop of players are part of the “Contemporary Baseball Era,” which considers players whose primary contributions to the sport have come since 1980. Voting will be conducted on December 4.

Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Sosa Fall Off Hall Of Fame Ballot

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With the Hall of Fame’s announcement this afternoon that David Ortiz was the only player elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America this year, the path to induction via the writers’ ballot has officially closed for four of the most notable players in recent history. Each of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa has exhausted their ten years on the ballot and will no longer be eligible for consideration by the BBWAA.

Bonds and Clemens have two of the greatest statistical resumes in major league history and would’ve been first-ballot Hall of Famers had it not been for their ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds is the all-time leader in career home runs (762). Among position players, he ranks second all-time behind Babe Ruth in FanGraphs measure of Wins Above Replacement. Baseball Reference has Bonds and Ruth tied for first in career position player value (before accounting for Ruth’s contributions as a pitcher). Bonds won seven MVP awards and was a 14-time All-Star.

Clemens, meanwhile, has a strong case as the most accomplished pitcher in the game’s history. An 11-time All-Star and seven-time Cy Young award winner, he appeared in 24 MLB seasons and won seven ERA titles. He ranks third in career strikeouts (4,672), ninth in pitcher wins (354) and is third among pitchers (excluding Ruth) in BRef’s WAR metric.

Each of Bonds and Clemens have a laundry list of accolades, but their non-inductions are obviously not about any flaws in their numbers. Both players, instead, are left outside the Hall because of their ties to performance-enhancing drugs. Both players were named as alleged steroid users in Senator George Mitchell’s 2007 report. Each of Bonds and Clemens were summoned to testify as part of Congressional hearings on PED usage in baseball; Bonds was later convicted on an obstruction of justice charge for giving an evasive answer during his testimony.

Whether to include alleged steroid users in the Hall of Fame has been a subject of (often bitter) debate amongst fans and writers. “Sportsmanship” and “character” are among the factors the Hall includes in its instructed criteria for voters, and those terms have been leveraged to make both moral arguments and questions about the authenticity of those players’ numbers to support steroid users’ exclusions from the Hall. Enough voters remained steadfast in their objection to including those implicated with PED’s to keep either Bonds or Clemens from accruing enough late-ballot momentum to get across the 75% threshold for induction. Both players finished in the 65% – 66% range on their final years on the ballot — a small but obviously insufficient bump relative to last season’s 61% – 62% marks.

Schilling appeared in parts of 20 MLB seasons. A six-time All-Star, he never won a Cy Young but finished as a runner-up on three separate occasions. Schilling “only” won 216 career games, but he owned a 3.46 ERA over 3261 innings. His 3116 strikeouts place 15th on the all-time list. Among the top 14, Clemens is the only player not enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Yet Schilling has seen dwindling support in recent years in the wake of a series of controversial public statements. As it became clear he was unlikely to be elected by the BBWAA, Schilling requested to have his name removed from this year’s ballot. That wasn’t granted, although he did see a 12-point drop in vote share between 2021 and 2022 after his push to be removed from consideration. Schilling appeared on 58.6% of ballots this year.

Sosa, somewhat curiously, never had the same level of support as any of Bonds, Clemens or Schilling. He received just 18.5% of the vote this year and never threatened election during his time on the ballot. Despite being one of just nine players to exceed 600 career home runs, Sosa’s career .273/.344/.534 slash line “only” checked in 24 percentage points above the league average by measure of wRC+. Moreover, he wasn’t a highly-regarded defender. But Sosa was one of the sport’s most famous and productive sluggers at his peak, hitting an astounding 332 home runs between 1998-2003 (more than 55 per season).

No doubt contributing to his dearth of support is that Sosa reportedly failed a 2003 survey test for performance-enhancing drugs. As Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs recently explored, though, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred later cast some doubt about the reliability of those results (which had been intended to remain anonymous). Ortiz also reportedly failed that same survey test, but enough voters looked on those results with skepticism to elect him on the first ballot. Sosa was never suspended for a PED test in his career, although he was hit with an eight-game ban in 2003 for corking his bat.

Each of Bonds, Clemens, Schilling and Sosa will need to rely on one of the Era Committees if they’re now to gain induction. Those committees have tended to be more favorable to candidates than has the BBWAA, although it remains to be seen how they’ll approach this particular group of highly controversial candidates.

As far as returning candidates go (full results available here), Scott Rolen jumped from 52.9% to 63.2% in his fifth year. Todd Helton (4th year) and Billy Wagner (7th year) each eclipsed 50%. Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield both landed in the low-40% range, while Jeff Kent, Manny Ramirez, Omar Vizquel, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu, Mark Buehrle and Torii Hunter received less than 30% of support. (Vizquel’s vote share was cut nearly in half after separate domestic violence and sexual harassment allegations were levied against him within the past thirteen months).

Among first-time candidates, only Alex Rodriguez (34.3%) and Jimmy Rollins (9.4%) received more than the 5% necessary to remain on the ballot for future consideration. As with Bonds and Clemens, Rodríguez has obvious Hall of Fame statistics but PED ties that’ll hamper his path to induction. Joe Nathan, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Howard, Mark Teixeira, Justin Morneau, Jonathan Papelbon, Prince Fielder, A.J. Pierzynski, Carl Crawford and Jake Peavy fell shy of the 5% threshold and dropped off the ballot, as did second-year candidate Tim Hudson.

No Players Elected To Hall Of Fame

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There were no players who received the 75 percent vote threshold necessary for election into the Hall of Fame. Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens came closest to achieving the necessary vote total, but they ultimately fell short. Schilling came the closest with 71.1% of the vote (16 votes shy), while Scott Rolen saw the biggest year-over-year jump. There were 14 blank ballots. With less than five percent of the vote, Aramis Ramirez, LaTroy Hawkins, Barry Zito, A.J. Burnett, Michael Cuddyer, Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, and Shane Victorino will fall off the ballot. The full results are here.

Controversy surrounded this year’s ballot in particular because it was considered a weaker overall class of first-time nominees. That meant that the holdovers took center stage, a group largely comprised of players with character issues and controversy at the heart of their Hall of Fame cases, namely Schilling, Bonds, Clemens, and Omar Vizquel. For Schilling’s part, in a letter that he wrote to the Hall of Fame (and later shared on Facebook), he has requested that his name be removed from the ballot next season. Ken Rosenthal of MLB Network reports that he does not have the ability to simply remove his name from the list, nor does the Hall of Fame – though the Hall of Fame committee responded to say they would consider Schilling’s request.

The induction ceremony will still take place on July 25, 2021. Last year’s induction ceremony was postponed because of the pandemic, so last year’s class of Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller will hopefully be inducted during that July ceremony, though much still hangs in the balance as far as the pandemic is concerned.

The Most Stacked Lineup Of The Millennium Missed The Playoffs

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With MVPs Cody Bellinger and Mookie Betts sharing a lineup with thumpers like Justin Turner, Max Muncy, and Corey Seager, the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup is stacked. That’s five players who have proved capable of posting 5-6 WAR seasons. We can even include A.J. Pollock in that group (6.8 fWAR in 2015) if we’re being generous – though it would open some eyes to see Pollack produce at that level again (even for a 60-game span). The ceiling hasn’t been set on youngsters like Will Smith and Gavin Lux, who could very well enter that elite territory with a best-case development future. There’s no denying that the Dodgers have a loaded lineup – but has there been a more MVP-loaded lineup in recent history?

The most stacked lineup of the last twenty years belongs to an 85-win, 3rd place St. Louis Cardinals team from 2003. “Most-stacked,” of course, isn’t exactly an official metric, so let me define it. Fangraphs explains fWAR in their glossary by classifying a “good player” as worth 3-4 fWAR, an “All-Star” to be worth 4-5 fWAR, and a “superstar” as worth 5-6 fWAR. But for the “most-stacked” lineup, we want the cream of the crop. Fangraphs classifies MVPs as those worth 6+ fWAR in a given season, so I went looking for the lineup with the most “MVPs”, and I found the unequivocal champ with the 2003 St. Louis Cardinals.

Not only did the Cardinals carry four MVP-caliber bats that season, but they’re the only team since 2000 to accomplish that feat. There have been four other teams since 2000 with three bats in the lineup worth 6+ fWAR (2004 Orioles, 2003 Braves, 2004 Cardinals, 2011 Red Sox) – but only Tony La Russa’s Cardinals fielded a quartet of such players.

Albert Pujols (9.5 fWAR), Jim Edmonds (6.3 fWAR), Edgar Renteria (6.3 fWAR), and Scott Rolen (6.2 fWAR) each put up an “MVP-like” seasons in 2003. The 23-year-old Pujols would have been a shoo-in to snag the actual NL MVP, but that was the era of supernova Barry Bonds, who won his third of four consecutive MVPs (10.2 fWAR) that season. 

The Cardinals finished 5th in the majors in runs scored with 876, second in total fWAR on offense, fourth in wRC+. J.D. Drew, Tino Martinez, and Bo Hart were productive members of the lineup, So Taguchi gave them 59 plate appearances with a 109 wRC+, and Eduardo Perez (122 wRC+) was a successful power bat off the bench. Only at catcher did they really struggle offensively, where Mike Matheny hit .252/.320/.356 to total 0.4 fWAR while starting 121 games behind the dish. In short, the offense did its part. 

Unfortunately, the entirety of the Cardinals pitching staff mustered just 7.3 fWAR. They finished 19th in ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 26th in home runs per nine innings. The bullpen was a particular disaster, finishing the season dead last in the majors with -1.8 fWAR. The rotation boasted legitimate arms in Woody Williams, Matt Morris, and less so, Brett Tomko. Dan Haren made an okay major league debut with 14 starts and a 5.08 ERA/4.57 FIP. 

That said, they could have done without the 55 starts from Garrett Stephenson, in what would be his last dash as an MLB hurler, Sterling Hitchcock in his second-to-last season, 40-year-old Jeff Fassero, and Jason Simontacchi, who was coming off a surprisingly decent rookie season at age-28. 

Giving 34 percent of their starts to suboptimal contributors didn’t pave the runway for the bullpen to take flight, but the relief crew struggled all their own. In particular, the main culprits were (again) Fassero (56 games, 6.52 ERA/6.13 FIP), Dustin Hermanson (23 games, 5.46 ERA/5.49 FIP), Russ Springer (17 games, 8.31 ERA/8.97 FIP), and Esteban Yan (39 games, 6.02 ERA/5.59 FIP). It didn’t help that injuries limited closer Jason Isringhausen to 40 games and 22 saves. He would otherwise anchor the Cardinals’ bullpens of that era. 

The 2003 Cardinals paint a picture of the difficulties in team-building. Four monster seasons making up half their everyday lineup, and still the Cardinals only managed to eke out a third-place finish. They underperformed their Pythagorean record, but only by three wins. The Cubs won the division with exactly 88 wins, overperforming their Pythagorean record by – you guessed it – three wins.

Things can go right – so right – in any given season, and it still might not be enough to counterbalance what goes wrong. That’s not to say that the 2020 Dodgers are in trouble – but their spot in the postseason is hardly assured. The ’03 Cardinals had the most MVP-level bats of any team in the past 20 years, and yet it was only enough for 85 wins. The margin for error will only be smaller in a short season.

Of course, here’s the other funny little part of baseball. Pujols/Rolen/Edmonds/Renteria couldn’t power their way to the postseason in 2003, but the foundation in St. Louis was solid. They did reach the postseason in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006. La Russa’s Cardinals capped off the run with a World Series title. That season, they finished with 83 wins, one less than the “disappointment” their stacked lineup produced in 2003.

So the most-stacked lineup of the millennium missed the playoffs, and the “worst” division winner of the millennium won the World Series. If that’s not a good primer for the chaos to come in a short season, I don’t know what is. 

Three Teams Who’ve Yet To Win Their Division

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It is somewhat amazing that there are three National League teams – one each for the West, East, and Central – that have yet to win their division.

Make no mistake, the American League has its share of heartbreak. The Mariners have yet to return to the playoffs after their 116-win season in 2001. The Rangers are far away as ever from capturing their first World Series after the so-close-you-can-taste-it near-misses of 2010 and 2011. Fans of the Astros and Red Sox have suffered different brands of heartbreak after the legitimacy of their recent winners was called into question. 

But in the National League, the Rockies, Marlins, and Pirates have never won their respective divisions.

Granted, the Pirates were crowned champs of the National League East 9 times, including a three-peat for Jim Leyland’s clubs from 1990 to 1992 and a title-winner way back in 1979 – but since they moved to the NL Central in 1994: goose eggs. That’s a 26-year-run without a divisional crown, a mark of futility eclipsed only by the Rockies and Marlins. Colorado and Florida both entered the league in 1993, and neither has landed the top spot in their division in the 27 seasons since. 

Back in the junior circuit, every team in the AL East has won since 2010 (Tampa Bay). In the Central, the White Sox have the longest drought (11 seasons), going back to their first-place finish in 2008. Everyone in the AL West has taken their turn at the top since 2012 – except the Mariners, of course, who won the division in 2001 and 1997.

But each division in the National League has its slow-and-steady competitor, so let’s take a quick look at each.

Colorado Rockies

Of these three clubs, the Rockies’ reputation took the fewest hits over the last 27 years. The Blake Street Bombers hold a particular place in baseball lore, and there’s a general sense of “unfortunate circumstances” around the Rox because of the thin air in Colorado. The impossibility of housing a winning pitching staff at Coors Field is baseball cliche now, but that doesn’t make the challenge any less potent.

Here’s what I wrote of Colorado in their Offseason In Review post back in March: “Colorado pitching, after all, has proven one of the more frustrating team-building challenges in the major leagues. The Sisyphean task of constructing even a league-average pitching staff at Coors Field persists year-after-year. Over the course of their 27-season history, the Rockies posted a league-average or better team ERA just three times (2010, 2009, 2007). In 2010, Jim Tracy’s 83-win squad finished with an exactly-league-average ERA, but those other two seasons — 2009, 2007 — happen to be two of the only three seasons in which the Rockies won 90 games in their history.”

Adding to the task at hand for Colorado, there’s at least a possibility that ownership believes this team is better than it is. They lost 91 games last year and have exhibited zero financial flexibility. If they end up losing close to 90 games again (or the equivalent in whatever kind of season is played in 2020), then the Rockies are still probably in the decline phase, not yet having rebooted into a full-blown rebuild. Rebuilds, of course, are time-intensive when done right, and very time-intensive when rushed.

The Rockies have made the postseason a handful of times, and they won the pennant in 2007, but they’re caught in no-man’s-land now. The Dodgers have won the division 7 years running, and Walker Buehler, Cody Bellinger, and company have plenty left in the tank. The Padres’ stable of young arms makes them one of the more intriguing up-and-coming teams in the league, and the Diamondbacks continue to impress with their ability to retool on the fly. After coming within a play-in game of taking the crown from the Dodgers in 2018, the Rockies might have missed their best shot.

Miami Marlins

The Marlins entered the league at a tough time to be a member of the NL East. The Atlanta Braves held a hammerlock on the division, taking the crown every season from 1995 until 2005 (they were in the NL West before that). To their credit, the Marlins made themselves into a competitive squad pretty quick, making the playoffs as a wild card in 1997, just their fifth season of existence. The organization made its name the year after, however, in selling off the pieces of their World Series winner and cratering into a 108-loss squad. After that horrid 1998 season, it took the Marlins five more years to get back to the playoffs again, at which point it was second-verse-same-as-the-first. They didn’t sink quite so fast or quite so far the second time around, but they also haven’t recovered (no playoff appearances since 2003).

That said, the Marlins have begun to see the light from their decade-plus in limbo. MLBTR’s own Mark Polishuk wrapped up the Marlins offseason back in March with this: “It’s a sign of progress, however, that the scorched-earth phase of the rebuild seems to be over.  Villar, Kintzler, or other veterans on short-term deals could well end up being moved at the trade deadline, but it doesn’t seem like younger talent is on the move…Miami seems ready to find out if the young players it already has in the fold could end up being part of that next Marlins winner, and it will be intriguing to see which of the pitchers and position players take that next step in 2020.”

The current era of Marlins baseball is best known for shepherding the likes of Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna out of town prior to the 2018 season. But they’re also a unique entrant on this mini-list because they won not just one, but two World Series titles over this span. Derek Jeter now helms the organization, and though they don’t have that face-of-the-franchise type player soaking up their spotlight, they’ve become increasingly competitive. Heading into whichever season of baseball comes next, they’ll have a decent collection of starting pitchers to keep them in games – with a smaller host of position player prospects nearing the majors. Whether they have that franchise-changing talent in the upper ranks is unclear. Business might not yet be booming in Miami, but it’s better. 

Pittsburgh Pirates

As stated above, it’s a bit unfair for the Pirates to be lumped in with the expansion clubs from the nineties, as they do have a history of success in the major leagues. They have 9 division crowns, 7 World Series appearances, and 5 World Series banners. But that’s all ancient history.

Since moving to the NL Central in 1994, the Pirates are a firm contender for the most moribund franchise in the sport. The departure of Barry Bonds after the 1992 season put an unfortunate face on their decline – much in the way that Babe Ruth’s departure doomed Boston baseball for so long – but there has been ample time to rebound from those back-to-back game 7 losses to Atlanta in 1991 and 1992.

In the time since the Pirates’ primary distinction is claiming the title for the longest streak of losing seasons in North American sports history. Forget about division titles. The Pirates weren’t able to finish over .500 one time from 1993 to 2012.

Pittsburgh fans finally had something to cheer for in 2013 when Clint Hurdle’s club broke through with 94 wins and a wild card berth. They even won that first playoff game against the division rival Cincinnati Reds and pushed another rival – the Cardinals – to five games in the NLDS. The club followed its star outfield of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, and Gregory Polanco to two more wild card berths in the following two seasons. Unfortunately, they were unable to get more than one playoff game in either of those years.

After finishing over .500 again in 2018, last season brought on a complete reset. Most of the organizations’ management turned over, and the remaining faces of those competitive clubs – Hurdle, Marte – were also sent packing. The organization is now in the hands of GM Ben Cherington, but they’re facing a complete philosophical overhaul. While they have talent, they’re not an easy club to put a timeline on returning to contention. Not until they put together a pitching staff with a more effective (and less pugilistic) philosophy. The division isn’t dominated by one team like the current AL West, but the Cardinals build a winner year after year, and the Cubs and Brewers aren’t far off in terms of their recent consistency.

Looking ahead, a shortened season in 2020 could open the window for a bizarre sort of division champ. All hope is not lost. On the whole, however, I don’t think there are a lot of pundits who would pick any of the Rockies, Marlins, or Pirates to breakthrough next season. Still, it’s bound to happen one day, right? All three teams will work to end their respective droughts, and in the meantime, thank goodness for the wild card.

(Poll link for app users.)

(Poll link for app users.)

 

NL East Notes: Phillies, Bonds, Braves

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Some items from around the NL East…

  • The Phillies have promised their full-time employees that “there will be no furloughs or layoffs due to the coronavirus crisis through the end of our fiscal year (October 31, 2020),” managing partner John Middleton wrote in a letter to staff.  (NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury reported on the letter’s contents.)  Most teams in baseball have already committed to retaining their employees at least through the end of May, with the Padres, Rockies, and Tigers also taking steps to keep jobs intact beyond May 31.  As per Middleton’s letter, Phillies full-time employees could potentially still face “possible salary reductions,” in the fact of the organization’s revenue loss, staffers “can be assured of your job and health insurance for the next five-plus months.”
  • Barry Bonds in a Braves uniform?  Atlanta’s failed attempt to land the superstar prior to the 1992 season has long been the subject of regret for Braves fans, though as The Athletic’s David O’Brien notes, some of the long-held beliefs about the trade may be inaccurate.  For instance, former Braves GM John Schuerholz wrote in his book “Built To Win” that then-Pirates manager Jim Leyland strongly protested the idea of trading Bonds, which led Pittsburgh to back out of the deal.  However, Leyland tells O’Brien that he “would have never had the authority to nix a trade.  That would have never happened.”  Needless to say, the concept of Bonds being added to the 1992 Braves (a team that lost the World Series to the Blue Jays in six games) is a fascinating one, not to mention the wider-ranging impact on baseball history if Bonds had re-signed with Atlanta rather than join the Giants in free agency during the 1992-93 offseason.
  • It has been over two and a half years since the shocking international signing scandal that resulted in then-Braves GM John Coppolella being permanently banned from baseball, and John Hart leaving his post as club president.  As for the 13 international prospects who became free agents after the Braves lost their rights, Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution catches up with how the players are developing in their new organizations.  None have yet reached the big leagues, and only four of the 13 are ranked as top-30 prospects (as per MLB Pipeline) within their new farm systems.  This isn’t to say that Atlanta emerged unscathed from the scandal, of course, as the club has since been hugely limited in the international market, and they also missed out a 14th prospect in shortstop Robert Puason, who went on to sign with the A’s and is “by far the highest regarded player of this group,” Burns writes.  The Braves were prohibited from signing Puason after the league’s investigation into their international signing improprieties revealed that the club had arranged to sign Puason before he was eligible.  MLB Pipeline rates the 17-year-old Puason as the fourth-best prospect in Oakland’s farm system.

The Mark Grace Decade Award

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For many years, my go-to baseball trivia question was this: who led the 1990s in hits? 

I won’t bury the lede any further: The answer is Mark Grace. Grace never hit 20 home runs in a season despite being a middle-of-the-order bat, and he spent most of his career on lackluster Cubs teams. He was a three-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner who never finished higher than thirteenth in MVP voting. He was a very good baseball player. But I think it’s safe to say that he’s not the first name that comes to mind when looking for the decade-leader in hits. 

Growing up, Grace was my favorite player, but that’s only part of why I loved this trivia question. In my mind, Grace epitomized something special about the game. He played smart and with obvious boyhood joy. He could hit .300 falling asleep, and though he wasn’t known for his power, he held his own – in his words – by “turning triples into doubles” (he also led the nineties in doubles). #17 wasn’t a superstar to the world (he didn’t hit home runs, he didn’t run well, and he played for the lovable loser version of the Cubs), but Grace made the most of his physical abilities and let his personality shine through. And ah yes, he had more hits in the nineties than Tony Gwynn, Robby Alomar, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa, Cal Ripken Jr.…or anyone else.

That he accomplished this feat speaks to the randomness and the breadth of the game of baseball. Only a player who played in every season of the decade is likely to lead all major leaguers in hits (see the exception to this rule later). And yet, what a tremendous accomplishment! The juxtaposition of those two thoughts encapsulates so much of what makes baseball unique. Timing is a huge factor in determining what becomes part of the baseball zeitgeist, and yet, there’s an ocean of information beneath the surface of any given statistical achievement. 

Not to date myself, but there’s been two full decades since Grace led the nineties in hits! Granted, hits are no longer the be all and end all of offensive production. Not anywhere close. But they’re still important. Leading the league in hits over a decade is more trivia than player analysis, but it’s still an accomplishment that shines a light on a particular style of hitter. So without further ado, I thought it would be a fun exercise to see who wins the Mark Grace Award for leading a decade in hits.

2010-2019

  1. Robinson Cano (1,695)
  2. Nick Markakis (1,651)
  3. Adam Jones (1,647)
  4. Starlin Castro (1,617)
  5. Miguel Cabrera (1,595)
  6. Elvis Andrus (1,595)

Kicking it off, this is not the list I expected for our most recent decade. Cano taking the title is impressive, if not surprising for the career .302 hitter, because he only appeared in 107 games this last season and only 80 games the year before that. Taking the crown regardless speaks to how difficult it is in this day and age to stay in the game. Kudos to the the rest of the list as well, which provides a real working class crew (Miggy aside). Cano is also, for what it’s worth, the least productive hits king in any decade since the war-torn forties when the Indians’ Lou Boudreau took home the title with 1,578 hits.

2000-2009

  1. Ichiro Suzuki (2,030)
  2. Derek Jeter (1,940)
  3. Miguel Tejada (1,860)
  4. Todd Helton (1,756)
  5. Vladimir Guerrero (1,751)

Tejada is the only name on this list that might take more than a couple of guesses. Of course, the most impressive feat here is that Ichiro managed to chalk up more than 2,000 hits in only 9 seasons.

1990-1999

  1. Mark Grace (1,754)
  2. Rafael Palmiero (1,747)
  3. Craig Biggio (1,728)
  4. Tony Gwynn (1,713)
  5. Roberto Alomar (1,678)

Biggio or Gwynn probably would have been my guess had I not known the answer beforehand. Biggio led the league in plate appearances in 5 seasons (’92, ’95, ’97,’98,’99), but he hit “only” .297 for the decade (versus .310 for Grace). Gwynn hit .344 in the nineties, but only managed to appear in more than 140 games twice.

1980-1989

  1. Robin Yount (1,731)
  2. Eddie Murray (1,642)
  3. Willie Wilson (1,639)
  4. Wade Boggs (1,597)
  5. Dale Murphy (1,553)

Willie Wilson gave himself a good head start with 230 hits in 1980, but Yount and Murray managed to make up the difference before the end of the eighties. The Royals’ great did crush the competition for most triples in the decade, however, with 115 (Yount was second with 83).

1970-1979 

  1. Pete Rose (2,045)
  2. Rod Carew (1,787)
  3. Al Oliver (1,686)
  4. Lou Brock (1,617)
  5. Bobby Bonds (1,565)

No surprises here, with Rose and Carew atop the list.

1960-1969

  1. Roberto Clemente (1,877)
  2. Hank Aaron (1,819)
  3. Vada Pinson (1,776)
  4. Maury Wills (1,744)
  5. Brooks Robinson (1,692)

For the decade, Clemente hit .328/.375/.501. He took the batting crown four times and hit over .350 twice (1961: .351 BA, 1967: .357 BA).

1950-1959

  1. Richie Ashburn (1,875)
  2. Nellie Fox (1,837)
  3. Stan Musial (1,771)
  4. Alvin Dark (1,675)
  5. Duke Snider (1,605)

Integration wasn’t exactly a comprehensive process from the jump when Jackie Robinson first appeared for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, so we’ll make the fifties the last decade. All in all, Pete Rose unsurprisingly was the most prolific hits leader in any decade with 2,045 knocks in the 70s, but I’m not sure there’s a more impressive name on there than Ichiro, whose wizardy with the bat came up just 15 hits shy of Rose in just 9 seasons from 2001 to 2010.

Otherwise, definitely some names you might have expected (Rose, Young, Clemente), but it’s not as if a 3,000 hit king rules every decade. Ashburn, like Grace, hit the league at the perfect time to snag this award, as his career spanned from 1948 to 1962. He joins Grace and Cano as the non-3000 hit players to lead a decade in hits (though Cano still has an outside shot to get there). For their careers, Grace takes the distinction as the player with the least career hits to lead a decade in the category.

Who else on these list surprises you? Al Dark? Elvis Andrus? Who did you expect? Let’s hear your takes in the comments!

Cafardo’s Latest: Beane, Marlins, Royals, Upton, Las Vegas

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Here are the highlights of the latest from Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

  • 15 years after rejecting an offer from the Red Sox that would have made him the highest-paid GM in the game, the Athletics’ Billy Beane says he doesn’t regret staying in Oakland. “It turned out pretty well for the Red Sox and I have had a great run here and have enjoyed it here a great deal,” says Beane, citing a desire to be closer to his family as one reason he stayed. The Red Sox, of course, instead hired Theo Epstein, who led them to their first two World Series since 1918.
  • The Marlins feel they’ve made a significant upgrade in replacing hitting coach Barry Bonds with Mike Pagliarulo. Bonds obviously knew how to hit, as Cafardo notes, but “communicating it and devoting himself to it became an issue.” Pagliarulo has been proactive about developing plans for Marlins hitters. The Giants, meanwhile, hired Bonds as a special advisor.
  • Melvin Upton Jr. might not remain a free agent for long, Cafardo writes. Upton hit poorly in his brief stint with the Blue Jays, but had previously revived his career in San Diego, and there’s hope he can once again turn things around. “You just never know when you get him on the uptick and that feeling is what teams are going to look for when they need an outfielder,” says one American League evaluator. The Padres are paying most of Upton’s remaining salary, so he’ll be a cheap addition for his next team.
  • The Royals began their season by getting swept by the Twins and will have to perform well in the next few months, or else the team could move quickly to deal free-agents-to-be like Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain. Jason Hammel and Ian Kennedy could also hit the market if the Royals were to struggle.
  • The city of Las Vegas “really wants” an MLB team, particularly after landing an NFL team in the Raiders, Cafardo writes. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has previously expressed interest in Las Vegas as an MLB market.

Giants Hire Barry Bonds As Special Advisor To CEO

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The Giants have announced that former superstar Barry Bonds will rejoin the organization as a special advisor to CEO Larry Baer. Most recently, the controversial slugger served as the Marlins’ hitting coach, but the team elected not to continue the relationship past the 2016 season.

Bonds, now 52, spent 15 of his 22 major league seasons in San Francisco. Though he was already a two-time MVP winner when he came over from the Pirates, Bonds only elevated his game in his new environs. All told, he provided the Giants with a mind-boggling .312/.477/.666 batting line and 586 home runs in nearly 2,000 games.

Bonds retired as MLB’s all-time home run leader and unquestionably rates as one of the very best players in history. His legacy, though, has long been clouded by his high-profile role in the game’s sordid PED history. And his playing career didn’t exactly come to a happy conclusion; Bonds slashed a hard-to-fathom .276/.480/.565 in his age-42 season, but didn’t suit up after that point and brought an ultimately unsuccessful collusion case.

As per the Giants’ press release, Bonds “will represent the organization at various community and organizational events in San Francisco.”  His duties also involve some baseball-related work, as Bonds will attend the team’s Spring Training camp this week and also work with prospects during visits to the Giants’ minor league affiliates.

“I am excited to be back home with the Giants and join the team in an official capacity,” Bonds said.  “San Francisco has always been my home and the Giants will always be my family.  I look forward to spending time with the team, young players in the system as well as the Bay Area community.”

Coaching Notes: Bonds, Wallace, McDowell, Mets

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Barry Bonds, who learned this week that his contract as the Marlins’ hitting coach won’t be renewed for the 2017 season, issued a statement on his time with Miami on his personal web site yesterday. Said Bonds: “Working with the Marlins this past season has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my baseball career. I am grateful and humbled that Jeffrey Loria and the Marlins gave me the opportunity to be a part of their organization. Though my contract was only for one year, I enjoyed sharing my hitting knowledge and other aspects of the game with such a talented group of players. I am proud of the their development and accomplishments over the course of the season and hope they will be able to continue to build off their hard work as they head into next year. I look forward to what the future holds for me – but I do know that baseball is and always will be in my blood.”

A few more notes on some coaching situations throughout the league…

  • The Orioles announced yesterday that pitching coach Dave Wallace has decided to retire from his role as a full-time Major League coach. Wallace could remain with the organization is a less-demanding role, writes MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko, possibly operating as a roving instructor. Bullpen coach Dom Chiti will get some consideration for the new coaching vacancy, per Kubatko, though he adds in a second piece that his expectation is that the Orioles will go outside the organization to replace Wallace, who had been the club’s pitching coach since 2013.  Zach Britton took to Twitter to offer praise and appreciation for Wallace’s work in Baltimore: “Sad to see Dave Wallace go. Very grateful for all he has done for me and my family. Any success I’ve had is a credit to DW and Dom Chiti.”
  • MLB.com’s Mark Bowman reports that the Braves will not exercise their option on pitching coach Roger McDowell’s contract. McDowell has spent the past 11 seasons as Atlanta’s pitching coach and drew praise from veteran arms and young pitchers alike, but the Braves determined that they’d prefer a new voice to help usher in their next wave of pitching prospects. Specifically, the team appeared to have some concerns stemming from inconsistencies in Mike Foltynewicz and struggles from Matt Wisler and Aaron Blair. With a slew of young pitching on the way, the Braves understandably want to have full confidence that their pitching coach can get through to younger talent. Bowman adds that Wallace was a mentor for McDowell, pointing out a possible link between McDowell and the Orioles’ newly created vacancy.
  • Mets manager Terry Collins met with general manager Sandy Alderson to discuss a number of topics, including the 2017 coaching staff, at Citi Field yesterday, per Mike Puma of the New York Post (Twitter links). According to Puma, Collins left the meeting under the impression that his coaching staff will remain intact for the 2017 season.
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