Knuckle Curve » rickey_henderson http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve Major League Baseball News from Spring Training to the World Series Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:55:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Upton or Cano? http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve/upton-or-cano/ http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve/upton-or-cano/#comments Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:59:34 +0000 Geoff Young http://www.knucklecurve.com/upton-or-cano/ Post from: Knuckle Curve

]]> Eric at Rays Anatomy has a fun post up debating the relative merits of B.J. Upton and Robinson Cano. I’m pretty squarely in the Upton camp on this one. Cano is a terrific young player, but much of his value is tied into batting average, and second basemen don’t always age well.

Upton, meanwhile, just posted a 136 OPS+ as a 22-year-old, which is ridiculous. In the history of baseball, 48 players have been that productive at that age. Only 11 of those seasons have come in the last 30 years:

  • Jack Clark, 1978, 152 OPS+
  • Eddie Murray, 1978, 140
  • Rickey Henderson, 1981, 150
  • Cal Ripken, 1983, 144
  • Ken Griffey Jr., 1992, 149
  • Vladimir Guerrero, 1998, 150
  • Alex Rodriguez, 1998, 136
  • Albert Pujols, 2002, 151
  • David Wright, 2005, 139
  • Miguel Cabrera, 2005, 151
  • B.J. Upton, 2007, 136

Basically Upton had A-Rod’s age-22 season. Works for me…

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]]> http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve/upton-or-cano/feed/ 7 When It Raines, It Pours http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve/when-it-raines-it-pours/ http://www.everyjoe.com/knucklecurve/when-it-raines-it-pours/#comments Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:16:08 +0000 Geoff Young http://www.knucklecurve.com/when-it-raines-it-pours/ Post from: Knuckle Curve

]]> Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, N.Y.Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.

The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn fan, I find myself agreeing with Dan that if he’s in, Raines has to be there as well.

Seems to me the best argument anyone can make against Raines is that he didn’t reach the magical 3000-hit plateau, which is silly. Lou Brock hit that milestone, but I like to believe that the voters would have elected him in even if he hadn’t. And you know what? Raines was a better player than Brock.

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